Social Media 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.

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 become a huge factor now in everyone’s life. Social media has made an impact in society in both negative and positive ways. A lot of teen and even adults have developed depression because of social media. Social media has set the standards very high for everyone to fit in because people are judged. Not even that but people have started to live in such a bubble because they are so envious of someone else’s life or want their life to be like someone else’s. It makes people so concerned of what they look like, how they speak, even express themselves feel bad if they do not meet the standards of how people accept on another. There has been research done to support this claim. It can be said that people that use social media encounter a decontrol of emotions and it increases the chances of getting depression. The people that are constantly on social media are more likely to have more serious causes of depression. If people stop using social media it will lower depression.

The use of social media has increased rapidly within the past decade and still continues to grow as approximately 58% of people claim to use it. According to the Merriam Webster online dictionary, Social media is defined as "forms of electronic communication…through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content" (Merriam Webster Online). Most people across the globe have been introduced to some sort of technology with the capabilities of using social media sites and those exposed tend to become captivated by what they have access to, using social media often and depending on it to keep in touch with others. This leads people to ask, "Does social media make the world more disconnected or interconnected?" This is a controversial topic due to the overwhelming use of social media amongst the younger generations and even the older generations as well. This issue in society could potentially dissipate actual physical relationships between people and everyone will become technology-hungry robots. Karl Pilkington once said, "Everyone is living for everyone else now. They 're doing stuff so they can tell other people about it. I don 't get all that social media stuff, I 've always got other things I want to do - odd jobs around the house. No one wants to hear about that." Overall, social media is ultimately making the world more disconnected while fooling people into believing that they are becoming closer to each other.

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 defined as websites and applications (app) that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. (Google) Instagram, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, Snapchat are just a few of the thousands of social media sites that are used all over the world. Social media are computer mediated technologies that uses Web 2.0 internet based applications that allow the creating and sharing of ideas, thoughts, information, and forms of expression. On these sites, users create personalized profiles for the app or website that are maintained by the organization that connects their social networks to other users within the same organization who usually have similar interests.

A single person views so many images daily, whether it’s on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc.), on TV, music videos or even the news, that give us out view of people. People don’t tend to notice that social media tends to form an opinion for us especially when it comes to Black people, more specifically Black women. American schools have showed Black women as inferior at all aspects in history, in recent years Black women have been hyper sexualized for their bodies and exploited for their beauty. Black bodies especially that of Black women’s, are the most degraded, attacked, disrespected and devalued of all the races.

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”.

Ed Stetzer, president of Lifeway Research, writes, “If your student ministry is a four-year holding tank with pizza, don’t expect young adults to stick around.” Dr. Stetzer is referring to the current epidemic seen in America involving the church. American churches, and churches around the world, are experiencing a decrease in their attendance. At the current rate, less than ten percent of Americans will attend church, by the year 2050. The largest age group of those leaving the church is Generation Y or, as they are better known, Millennials. The lack of community, authenticity, and faith are contributing factors to the drop of millennials attendance seen in the American church.

It’s more than likely that the first thing you reach for in the morning is your phone and the last thing you put down before you go to bed. As technology advances our brains are adjusting to the new technology. The way we absorb information is changing, our memories are being impacted and the way we read is changing. Well what is social media? Social media is a bunch of Internet sites that enable people from all over the world to interact with photos, messages, audio and videos. “The very first social media site was created in 1997; it wasn’t until the early 2000s when it took off”. It is estimated that one third of the world’s population uses a form of social media. Studies said that social media has changed the way our brain functions. If our brains are being affected by social media/internet then social media should come with warning so people’s health wouldn’t be affected.

Social media is evolving throughout the world and is having more and more of an impact on how human’s live day to day. Technology is keep getting more evolved and specific. While technology is keep evolving so is social media platforms. Social media platforms are being used all around the world and most people do not shy away from using it. Also, these platforms are showing up in work places as well as schools. According to the article, The questionable promise of social media for education: connective learning and the commercial imperative, “Facebook and other social media have been hailed as delivering the promise of new, socially engaged educational experiences for students in undergraduate, self-directed, and other educational

Since the 1990s, the internet has been gaining momentum, growing in popularity and relevance in today’s society. As a result, social media has been on the rise for communication, news, and entertainment, appealing to a wide range of ages and demographics. However, this increased use has also increased challenges to privacy, policy making, and ethics within the government. More recently, the Supreme Court addressed the relationship and challenges between the First Amendment and social media in 2015, ruling that it is difficult to accurately evaluate the intentions of others through social media posts. Social media is creating a new communication revolution in the United States and is generating more effective means to address government issues, but the challenges have demanded policy changes and clarifications of the First Amendment.

Social media is a relatively new concept in today 's society. It is one of the main factors in the way we obtain our news, interact with people from around the world, and provides an outlet to express one’s creativity and individuality. Drew Hendricks, an author for the site smallbiztrends.com stated “The first recognisable social media site, Six Degrees, was created in 1997.”. This website paved the way for the biggest social sites today, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Vine. All of these sites strive to carry out two things; To inform and connect people. While “staying connected” is becoming more popular as years progress, we as a society are spending more of our time consuming this media, and as we can observe from students everywhere, education is suffering as a result of this digital revolution. Students that are actively involved in social media have consistently lower grades than their counterparts that do not use it as much. Also, social networking contributes to the rise in the cases of ADHD and ADD in younger kids which hinder their performance in the classroom, and with all the freedom social media gives, it is quite easy to forget that whatever we put out there, everyone and anyone can get access to. Social media is a great tool for today 's youth, and it is perfect for the expression of creativity, to connect and inform, but it has gotten to the point that it is now too big of a distraction to today’s youth, and our education is suffering because of

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.

Often there are inventions that change society. They become part of our everyday life. Social media is an invention that has changed the foundation of the way we communicate and in all probability, it will be around for the remainder of the homo sapiens lifespan. With life-changing inventions like social media, debates spark whether it is a good thing for our society or not. Dave Eggers “The Circle” shows the way social media can be a positive change for society with the Circle’s countless inventions that integrate social media. “SeeChange” is one of the inventions from the Circle that allows people to see HD quality live streams from a small device anywhere. Their claim is that with such devices we can make criminals and tyrants