Social Media And Its Impact On Society

In this day and age, social media has become an integral part of our lives. It has created a platform for people to share information instantly and communicate with people all around the world. Facebook is the most outstanding example of successful social media network. According to the first quarter 2015 earnings announcement by Facebook, the site has achieved 1.44 billion active users per month, and 65% of which are daily active users. Other social networking sites such as Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn are also a powerful means of communication. With such a large audience, social networking sites provide ample opportunities to acquire information, network, and connect with friends.

As we all know, social media has a tremendous impact on society and has affected in some way our daily life, relationships, and/or business. Every day, people around the world access famous social media network sites such as facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and so on to find out about other people, others might use social networking to reconnect with old friends, make new friends, or even meet their spouse. The excessive use of social media websites might bring negative effects; while for other people, it might bring satisfaction or positive effects. Technological advancements such as the internet, have given us the opportunity to connect with other people anytime and anywhere in the world. Pretty much all around the world, everyone has access to the World Wide Web via a desktop computer or smart phones. The fact is that no matter our current location or destination we might go, social media will always be following us as long as we have that direct connection. The main focus of this paper is to identify the good and bad of social media, and the current and future problems it will bring.

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.

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?

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.

Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat - all these are called social media and they have a critical impact on the way young people think and interact on a day to day basis. “Virtual Communities” (Lee, 2015) is about the virtual world and how it affects the physical world and the influence it has on the lives of people on a daily basis. “Enhancing Your Body Image” (Donatelle, 2015) is about the influences that media or outside sources have on the way people view their bodies and how people feel about themselves. The main similarity between the two concepts is the influences that virtual communities have on the way people see themselves in the physical world. Enhancing one’s body image and the affects virtual communities have on the physical world are connected in many ways; furthermore, the influences that media has over people and how that can lead into bullying, and how all of it affects the future of an individual.

Social media is a major contributor to the way most generations of this era choose to spend their time. Whether it be forced upon us by means of keeping up with the times and our children or just coming second nature due to being an everyday part of life, social media is leaving a very interesting mark in history. As time progresses, social media’s effect on society seems to grow larger and larger each year, although the method used may change. Social sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, and YouTube are just some of the major sites that have pulled in millions of loyal consumers. Facebook, being one of the major contributors to the growth of social media, pulls in the most when it comes to social sites. Although the growth

When most individuals hear the term social media they instantly think of Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and other social networks we use today. Social media didn’t start with computers; however, social media dates back as early as 1792 with the telegraph explain Hendricks (2013). Social media started to spike in the early 1950’s when the phone became popular. Between the 50’s and the 90’s, many social media ideas were brought to life but eventually died; Border states most of these focused around a “Bulletin Board System”.

Technology has developed into one of the most valuable assets to everyday life. The social media apps developed from technology have opened many doors to allow the impossible possible. Being able to buy things online with the click of a mouse, chatting with a friend who lives across the country, depositing a check through your smart phone, and the possibilities are continuously endless. With more and more incredible innovations happening on a daily basis. Much has been made of the growth of social media and its impact on society. This impact can vastly be seen as a positive through the eyes of the general public, a strong perception driven in part by the social media itself, but as social media in all its forms has grown, an argument can inevitably be made that there has been a corresponding diminishment of personal privacy. Many forget that there is a price attached to having free sharing of personal information.

With the surging power of technology in the past few years, it is evident that social media usage is becoming an intricate part of human society. In view of this extraordinary social change, many studies have been done to investigate the underlying psychological use of social networking sites. While these studies target user personality traits with usage, the networking companies could also benefit from understanding what the consumer wants in that specific application or website.  These studies are looking at behavioral characteristics such as an escape of loneliness, entertainment purposes, not wanting to feel left out, and many more. Despite being in a virtual world, social media has a great impact in the user’s daily life and affects

What kind of world could possibly exist without some form of a Facebook, a Twitter, or an Instagram? Perhaps, it would be a world so unjust; people would actually have to call all of their five hundred and twenty-nine best friends by phone. So that they may share with them, the stale bread with one slice of turkey meat sandwich, they bought during lunch! Social media websites like, Facebook or Twitter are portals to information and communication. It has provided new and exciting opportunities for people all around the world to be able to connect with each other more easily than ever before. It has also helped businesses to flourish, and provides just about every answer to a sought out question. The internet superhighway so to speak, has created an excessive need. And as a result, it has become such a craze, that the sophisticated computers used to access the internet, now play a major role in everyone’s life; including children. Many gaming systems, cellular phones, and other electronics readily made available to children all have the potential to easily access the internet. Ever thought about what effects might such a craze have on children? For instance, could the excess of internet use with social media in particular, pose any implications onto children? The excessive partaking in social media amongst children- inhibits their productivity, interferes with the development of their social skills, and desensitizes their outlooks.

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 current use of social media has increased greatly, 74% of adults use social media websites and 89% of young adults/teenagers use it. (Lindsay B.R, 2011). Social media is used for many different purposes in today’s world. People still use social media to connect with people and chat with other people. But now,

When you look at today’s society, you will see a world full of a quickly booming wonder: technology. With technology there is the option to be involved in what a lot of people know as social media. With the invention of web-sites such as Facebook, which is only about ten years old (Westwood), people all over the globe can connect with one another. This technology is exploding into more and more possibilities for the avid networking junkie. You can now send instant messages to all of your friends and family. Want to start a new small business or a band, perhaps? Advertise it on the popular favorites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or Myspace. This new era is causing quite the stir. Social media is a good way to be creative and have more opportunities to sprout businesses and learn multi-tasking; this, in turn, has changed the human psyche in astounding ways, with human beings becoming addicted to social media, all the while their brains are being re-wired for the generation of technology.

Just as the Internet has changed the lives of individuals in our society, it also revolutionized the way they interact socially. Social media is the collection of online communications websites primarily focused on virtual community interactions, fast and easy content-sharing, and convenient ways for collaboration between people. There are lots of well-known social media web sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, WordPress, and Blogger. From these online social networking websites, individuals, friends, families, and groups are allowed to create and exchange any type of content and be engage in creating conversations. It is an invaluable tool that helps bridge the distances between them and other people and