Social Media And Its Impact On Society

In 2008 Joel Garreau conducted interviews and wrote a piece titled "Friends Indeed" for the Washington Post. Garreau brings up possible dangers, minor inconveniences, and what truly defines a friend in the new media world we live in. I felt Garreau came across as jaded by most of the interviews he conducted. He did not seem to speak with a wide array of people that gave positive impacts social media can have, but rather focused on the negatives of the subject. Garreau did bring up valid points, however, from personal safety to the aspect of different people in your life seeing your different personalities. For instance your Grandma that you go to church with on Sunday 's is now seeing the pictures of you partying with your friends on Saturday night.

In this article, Malcolm Gladwell argues that in a network were loose ties are prevalent and Hierarchy is just a word, social media could never give what social change will ask for. He starts off by recalling the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement, were groups of dedicated individuals challenged the status quo, with crucially, strategic activism that led to a true revolution. Mr. Gladwell illustrates that there are a few distinctions that show between traditional activism and social media. One being that social media is not a hierarchy, instead it is a network. Secondly, his more compelling argument that social media is built on “Weak –ties” which rarely will lead to the high-risk activism that is needed.

Social media has consumed our society. 47% of American adults used social networking sites in 2011 like Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter; up from 26% in 2008(quoted from procon.org) the aspects of social media both have a positive and negative impact on life. Social networking sites promote interaction with distant family and friends. Social networking sites can demonstrate opportunities to strengthen existing relationships and to develop new friendships as well. The downfall of social media sites prevent less face to face communication. Also, social media has been known to be more likely to spread false, and even potentially dangerous information. Questions come about quite often about social networking sites, and if they are good for our society. As a member of our society social networking can have a positive influence in school, relationships, promoting business, and self-expression. While others may view social media as a negative influence, for me, the issue hinges on how social networking sites are being used and displayed accordingly.

While many people put off and ignore the issue of social media and its downfalls, others say that people should think about how our lives are being affected by this advancement in technology, including, lack of human contact and precious time being lost due to consumption with social media. Social media is currently a highly controversial topic in which numerous people have mixed feelings. Society has typically viewed new advancements in technology as beneficial and a sign of success within their country. But, has it solely caused successful outcomes, or are there downfalls to these advancements?

Social media has essentially altered the way that people interact live their lives. This includes how people interact with others, shop, represent themself, and even find jobs. The social media company, Pinterest, which officially launched in March 2010, has made a major impact in digital and social media landscape. It has “grown to become the third largest social networking tool (Vasudha 2)…” Pinterest allows individuals or businesses to “pin” images to a board reflecting their interests. This simple platform fueled Pinterest exponential growth to 20 million users by April 2012. The strengths that fueled Pinterest to such large growth include its ability to connect businesses and consumers. Businesses can view what consumers are

It is a fact that social media has existed for several decades. However, as technologies keep advancing, the usages of social media have gained attention because of the issues they may cause. On one hand, social media is fundamentally used to interact among users via the Internet; consequently, they may share and exchange pieces of information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. In summary, social media is basically used to connect people. On the other hand, recent studies have found that rather than making the users feel connected, they can promote loneliness and less social interaction, which may lead to isolation. The scope of this analysis is limited to five sources with the following four themes: loneliness, face-to-face communication, textual technological communication values, and negative emotions.

Since we as a society are currently living in the age known as the Technological Revolution, chances are that in some form or fashion you are aware of and have been exposed to social media. Well, imagine a world where the use of social media became more structured and used to improve education as opposed to just being used for keeping in touch with friends and family, sharing pictures, and seeing how many likes you can get per post. According to the Business Insider Intelligence Report of 2014, social media is now the top Internet activity in the world, Americans’ specifically “spend more time on social media than any other major Internet activity, including email” (Business Insider). Considering this information, it is obvious that social media plays a vital role and impacts the lives of our nation on a daily basis. Some argue that its impact can be negative and a distraction to the educational experience of the younger generation. Regardless of your personal opinion, what if educators were to work with the use of social media for educational purposes. Since it is highly used, it would not only gain the learner’s interest but also would reach more people at large. Therefore, we should learn to better utilize social media in a more constructive educational manner.

With today’s advanced technology of the 21st century, we now have a wide range of access to information through social media. We can now stay updated with current topics and events going on around the world and become educated with just a click, or tap, to a social media application. Many people assume that social media are our friend and that social media is a great thing to have. But, what these people fail to realize is that social media is really our enemy, our foe. Where do I stand with social media? Let’s just say I used to be blinded as much as today’s people are, who are corrupted by the vast trends of social media. Though I may use social media myself, I do not consider it my friend. I consider social media a corruption towards society and a foe, not just towards me, but to the rest of the world.

One of the most prominent areas of information technology present in today’s society is that of social media. Facebook users make up 62% of the entire adult population and Twitter users compose 20% of the population (Mobile Messaging and Social Media, 2015). Sites like these allow users to transfer information, in the form of social content, to the Internet community with no limitations. These sites also ease communication across great distances, allowing for a diverse audience for any information posted on such a site. Such a tool for information transfer is incredibly powerful in the hands of those who know how to use it.

In a few years our generation will be looking back on our youth saying “Social media is one of the biggest leaps made in our culture”. Social media has advanced the way communication is achieved through the way society shares knowledge. We are able to talk to anyone anytime just through a simple text or a Facebook message. We are able to communicate through technology in fast, simple ways knowing what everyone is up too through their never-ending tweets and posts. Though all the things may be true there is a bigger issue at hand, and this is causing great travesty. Social media is destroying communication and intamicy on a face-to-face level.

To quote Jim Morrison, “Whoever controls the media, controls the mind” this quote continues to reign true in the 21st century through mass media being pushed and pumped into society whether through television, advertisements, marketing or social media. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and SnapChat are all popular social media outlets utilized by individuals from many different backgrounds and age groups. These social media outlets are not subjective to gender, race, or class but they still affect those that utilize them. Much of the media today shapes how many people, specifically women, are expected to live and be perceived. In much of these social media outlets one can log in and view on the “popular page” images of women, both famous and normal, who are deemed by members of society to be the ideal. These ideal beauty images subjugate many if not all individuals who view them in some way shape or form. While some of the effects can be positive it is the negative effects that are detrimental.

The term ‘social media’ has become a broad-term to describe a large number of online systems that serve as a platform for the generation, and distribution of user-generated content. Social media creates a virtual social space, where a large number of users come together and interact with one another. These interactions can be either structured, such as responses that are moderated on blogs, semi-structured, such as a discussion between an extended network on Facebook, or unstructured, such as the anarchial functioning of Twitter.

The ideas of Social Media and Social Networking can sometimes overlap or be grouped together by researchers due to the similarities between the two. However, Social Media is still a media which is primarily used to transmit or share information with a broad audience, while social networking is an act of engagement as people with common interests associate together and build relationships through community (Edosomwan, 2011). Social Media can be viewed as a medium to get a conversation to reach a larger audience by utilizing a concept called long tail. Long tail means conversations that can be conveyed in different forums (2011). Social Media does not have the limitations of traditional forms or communication such as meetings, phone calls, or emails. Use of Social Media websites has increased the channels of communication and its effectiveness in the organization (2011). In today’s technology driven society, Social Media has become somewhat of a necessity. Traditional forms of communication or advertisement, while still in use, have gradually become more effective due to the fact that the target audience has become increasingly my technology driven. Early studies that looked at the characteristics of social media users found that the majority of user tended to be highly educated, affluent, young, white men (Coleman, 2013). Such has not been the case in many years. As the internet and technology became increasingly available and more cost efficient to the general

It is clear that in the modern world, social media plays a pivotal role in communication amongst humanity. Social media serves a variety of purposes ranging from personal settings like keeping in touch with friends through Facebook and Twitter, as well as business environments through the use of LinkedIn. It has been proven in many scientific studies that among human’s basic needs is the necessity for a social connection with other human beings. Well, in the 21st century we have seen this need become very easy to attain through the introduction of social media. Social media has enabled humans to communicate in an advanced way just by using their fingertips. Although, social media is generally regarded as a positive device for humanity, it has sparked great controversy in its impact toward generating addictive and anti-social qualities within individuals. Americans should limit the time they spend on social media because it often causes rampant addiction that may result in mental disorders such as anxiety and depression that can lead to poor life decisions prompted by habitual anti-social behaviors.

Academic knowledge is simply what we accept as knowledge given to us by educators and scholars from academic institutions. The academic knowledge that people possess and want to know about social media, knowing how to use it and be responsible when accessing social media, impacts and affects us all in some way on both a local and global community level. Erik Qualman (2010) notes that, “Social media touches every facet of our personal and business lives. Social media is living and breathing and it touches every part of an organization from Customer Service to frontline sales, even Human Resources and Information Technology” (p. 1). Social media infects and binds us all in some way and we use to stay close with someone with love from anywhere local to global. We use social media in many ways for academic, personal, or professional purposes. Many academic institutions use it so that their students can easily stay connected outside the classroom being either in a local or global community. Doctors Gwenn Schurgin O’Keeffe and Kathleen Clarke-Pearson (2011) note that, “Middle and high school students are using social media to connect with one another on homework and group projects. For example, Facebook and similar social media programs allow students to gather outside of class to collaborate and exchange ideas” (p. 801). It is fantastic that schools and their students are utilizing social media to stay connected with their teachers and fellow classmates, but at the same time we