Social Network Sites Are A Past Craze Or Today?

Social media refers to websites where individuals can create, share, and exchange information in a virtual community and network. The channels of social media include Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube, and blogs. There is a rise in the use of social media because of increase in technology. The increased penetration of internet in the world has rapidly increased the users of social media making it widespread and accessible to people throughout the world. Its emergence has led to building of new relationships while also impacting others.

Social media allow persons from all over the world to remain contact and communicate with their friends, family, at the same time make new connections. As stated by Amedie, social media sites are known for allowing people to make new connections with people who share similar interests, creating new relationships, and people end up being good friends (4). In fact, people create groups that accommodate subscribers who have similar interests or life goals where they assist each other. Again, there are friends or family members who are a thousand miles away; and through the use of social sites, it is easy to often communicate with them, increasing intimacy at a reduced cost. Furthermore, social networks have encouraged the users to come up with an online persona, which establishes a personal network of friends who connect to an open worldwide community.

It’s hard to believe, that only a decade ago social media took off and became the new trend. Of course, there was Friendster and Myspace that had been around for a few years but most of the world’s population hadn’t come around to it yet. Nowadays, social media has taken over our lives. It has influenced every decision we have made in life in one way or another.

Although news media talks about how social media affects American entertainment, psychology, and culture, few sources have definitively addressed what “social networking” implies. Because there is so much cross-over between social networking and other forms of media, the line between what is and what is not social media is very blurred. However, without a true definition of social networking, it is impossible to discuss its place in the media, in the workplace and in everyday life. It is necessary to understand what social networking is and what it is not in order to determine its purpose in society. While many believe social networking is one broad branch of networking with one general goal, this is not the case. “Social networking” is, in fact, a broad phrase to describe thousands of different social media types, each with its own unique set of purposes.

Many people in our society can relate. We wake up, check our phones. We go to school, check our phones. We go home, check our phones. And right before we go to bed, we check our phones. And for what? What are we constantly checking? Imagine logging out of social networking sites for one day. How would you feel? You would probably feel disconnected and want to log back on as soon as possible. This generation uses these websites to connect, to stay in the loop, and to become involved. However, people will take advantage of the use of these websites, and in return, the websites take over the majority of their life. The act of constantly wanting to be

While the need to belong has always been a basic aspect of being a human, the ways in which we, as a society, satisfy this need have changed over time. Online communities such as Facebook and dozens of online dating sites have been arisen from the development of the internet. Some people think that these online communities are causing our society to lose our sense of community — that the faceless, anonymous nature of such communities are taking us away from the world and depriving us of the basic need to feel as though we are part of something bigger than ourselves. However, these unique communities actually benefit our society. They give us networks of relationships in a convenient setting and enable our society to function effectively.

Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Instagram, and Flicker was invented to keep us in touch and keep us closer to our family and friends. But according to How Facebook ruins Friendships “we took our friendship online” (Bernstein). First we began communicating more by email than by phone and then switched to instant messaging or texting. By joining social Medias online

Social media is defined as “websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.” However a more accurate definition of social media is as follows: “the relationships that exist between network of people” (Wiang, 3). Although social media traces back to before the 1800s, it is something that has become especially popular over the last two decades. What is interesting about this is that technology began going through a sense of both change and advancement of after

* What makes social network sites unique is not that they allow individuals to meet strangers, but rather that they enable users to articulate and make visible their social networks. This can result in connections between individuals that would not otherwise be made, but that is often not the goal, and these meetings are frequently between "latent ties" (Haythornthwaite, 2005) who share some offline connection. On many of the large SNSs, participants are not necessarily "networking" or looking to meet new people; instead, they are primarily communicating with people who are already a part of their extended social network. To emphasize this articulated social network as a critical organizing feature of these sites, we label them "social network sites."

Defining social media is a tricky task to do because of its constant change (Tess, 2013). Ober and Wildman have explained that social media involve a vast range of PC and mobile platforms which continue to develop constantly, launched and re-launched, abandoned also ignored daily in countries all over the world that consist of various forms of communication (Ober & Wildman, 2013). Although Facebook is “dominant’ face of social media (Tess, 2013) and twitter is one of the popular micro-blogging website (Tess, 2013), however in recent times, various social networking sites, blogs, wikis, multimedia platforms, virtual game

Social network sites (SNSs) such as such as Friendster, CyWorld, and MySpace allow individuals to present themselves, articulate their social networks, and establish or maintain connections with others (Ellison, 2007). These sites could be used for work related situation, romance, connecting with individuals with shared interest, or creating a connection amongst college students. Facebook enables its users to present themselves in an online profile, accumulate ‘‘friends’’ who can post comments on each other’s pages, and view each other’s profiles (Ellison, 2007). Individuals can write on the wall of friends, send private message, comment on posts, as well as chat via instant messaging. Much of the early research on online communities assumed that individuals using these systems would be connecting with others outside their pre-existing social group or location, liberating them to form communities around shared interests, as opposed to shared geography (Ellison, 2007).

The introduction and the spread of the Internet have revolutionized the way individuals communicate and interact with each other. According to Van and Thomas, propagation of this medium of interaction or communication makes it unimaginable to recall that only a few decades back when people had to wait for days, weeks or even months before receiving letters from their friends, relatives, or various agencies (3). The latest innovation or by-product from the web is social media. There are various social media platforms, which individuals find new friends, keep contact with their old friends or families, and acquire or share information with the rest of the world. However, it is impractical to ignore the effects that the social media has to the people and the society as a whole; both positive and adverse. Therefore, the paper defines what is social media, discusses the effects of social media on communication and interaction to the people within the society based on personal understanding, analysis, and conception, and finally outlines the conclusion of the argument.

Since this version of the text is about seven years old, it is slightly outdated when talking about the topic of online communication. The text mentions of Facebook having 30 million users, it now has over 1.5 billion users (“Global Social Networks”, November, 2015). Also, the manner in which the site and company is ran differs from the description in the book of it simply being a combination of individual social networks. The reason I point out these differences is to show how quickly online communication is growing.

Facebook, a social networking website, has changed the way people communicate with each other. A social networking website is an online platform that allows users to create a public profile and interact with other users on the website. Facebook has even changed our most personal and private conversations and how they are conducted around the world. Since the internet’s birth in 1983, this trend of online communication has been growing. Created in 2004, now registered with more than one billion participants, Facebook’s user numbers surpass even the top four social networking websites combined. According to Wikipedia statistics, Instagram has 300 million registered users, LinkedIn has 200 million users, Classmates.com has 50 million users, and Flickr has 32 million registered users. To be further convinced of the claim that Facebook indeed changes the way we communicate, you would only need to create your own Facebook account and start participating in their social networking experience. Technology and internet usage is fused into every aspect of our society including the style of communication. The launch of Facebook in 2006 also enabled other devices such as touch phones, interactive tablets, and even advanced cars with their own networking capabilities starting in 2007. Facebook is a multibillion-dollar company and is highly recognized for connecting more people than other networks. Facebook’s long-term success can be attributed to providing entertainment, world news, and

Background Social networking is not new, but really a part of human culture ever since prehistory. However, social networking to the nth level, globally and through the Internet, is clearly a late-20th, early 21st century, phenomenon. Social networks are social structures in which there are ties between individuals. These individuals form clusters of like-minded interests, commonalities, and/or cultural communities. Modern social networking sites began to become extremely popular when two things happened: 1) there was a threshold of users who had the technology for reliable and regular access to the Internet, and; 2) when technology allowed for the speed and ease of use so that even younger users would have the ability to utilize these networks to evolve in their own relationships (Scott, 2000). Thus, it is not only the Internet that drives usage of these networks, but miniaturization of telecommunications technology, video, inexpensive access, international availability, and cultural acceptance. A logical outgrowth of this became social networking services, or online platforms that assist users in building networks or relations (Facebook, My Space, Twitter, etc.). These sites have become international in scope, and now attract more than (Boyd and Ellison, 2007). Japan, for instance, has a 78.4 per cent penetration of internet users, equivalent to about 99.2 million users. Of those users, about 51%, or almost 51 million people use social networks on a regular (multiple times