The Impact Of Virtual Communities And Social Media On The Virtual Community

The functional unit of our society today is centered on the Internet. In our day and age, people are prone to isolation because all communication can be performed online. We are missing key human interactions and our technology is shaping

    People do not realize the immense impact social media has on their lives.  Social media first impacted people’s lives with the invention of the telephone in 1890.  Following this, the radio entered many homes in 1891; this was the beginning of social media.  During the twentieth century, computers and the Internet began the modern rise of today’s social media. UseNet, in 1979 was a virtual newsletter, which began what people think today of as modern social media.  When home computers became popular during the 1980s, such sites as relay chats took off.  Then, in 1997, the first true social media site , Six Degrees, came about: “It enabled users to upload a profile and make friends with other users. In 1999, the first blogging sites became popular, creating a social media sensation that’s still popular today” ( “Complete History of Social Media: Than and Now”). Although social media has some positive effects,  social media has changed the world for the worse because it negatively affects politics, privacy, and bullying.

Social media has become one of the greatest developments of human technology history. In today’s society, human are surrounding by the social media and wireless devices. In Shannon Matesky’s spoken word poem “MySpace”, the poet explains “physical contact is more important than our number of contacts” (Matesky). According to the poet, Shannon Matesky successfully redefines the word “Myspace” from a formal definition of “the distance from other people or things that a person needs in order to remain comfortable” (Merriam-Webster), to an operational definition of the contact created on the social media. People now forget how to stay with face-to-face relationship, social media become the new way of communication. “We can’t deal with the face-to-face so we let technology replace the space that people are supposed to fill”(Matesky), said Matesky, we are losing the ability to connect each individual face to face, and socially connection has been taking over through social media by using technologic device. Shannon Matesky has successfully redefined the actual meaning of “Myspace” from the distance between two to the space one’s create on the social media. MySpace no longer refers to distance between two, but to

Sociology C167: Virtual Communities/Social Media Midterm In Christians Under Covers, Kelsy Burke discusses the social construction of evangelical sexuality online. Many components that she discusses has been laid out in works by Nancy Baym as well as Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann. Baym explains how virtual communities are made up of individuals who share values, beliefs, and culture; resources and support; and identities. Berger and Luckmann explain that reality is socially constructed through interactions.

The words community and conversation both have concrete definitions. The definition of community is a group of people that either live together or share a common characteristic. A conversation is an exchange of ideas through spoken words. In the article, titled Technology, Neil Postman states: “how the words 'community' and 'conversation' are now used to mean, simply, people with similar interests, a considerable change from an older meaning...” (53) Postman is implying that these two words have been extended and redefined. The introduction of social media and the Internet have redefined the terms community and conversation.

The authors of “Assembling Social Space” argue that everyone, no matter where they live, is locally and globally connected to people who do not necessarily live near them through media and technology. Wiley states that we are all globally connected, but live in a local way (Wiley, 2015). Living in a technology-driven society, we are able to stay connected with people and have access to resources from all around the globe. The thesis is that as individuals, we are all locally connected within our environment and ultimately globally connected due to the interconnection of these two types of societies. This is important within the field of communication because it explains how individuals are able to be locally and globally connected with people from all over the world.

The second major trend to be aware of is the virtual community - a social network of individuals who interact with each other without the constraints of geography, time zones, political or economic situations, weather, or demography all that matters is that they are able to come together to form a culture in which they

In Stephen Marche article “Is Facebook making us lonely?” the author explores the effect of technology and Facebook, specifically social media, on people’s lives. One of Marche’s main points is that the technology has become more advanced. In just one click of the button we can find out what is going on in our country as well as the outside world. We are isolated from the real world and one another since we do not have face-to-face interactions. Marche contributes his findings to the rise in social media which is Facebook. He believed that the more connected we are to social media, the lonelier we become. . Facebook has created a fear that is interfering with our real friendships, distancing us from one another and making us lonelier. Another

The author illustrates in her blog the power and impact Facebook had on the population by convincing to be “a place of human connectivity,” but

Communities are all about groups of individuals who share something in common. This makes going on the internet seem like an odd way to find more communities, form new ones, or strengthen pre-existing ones. The internet however is full of communities. Communities can be based upon religion, location, ethnicity, an interest, or a personal matter. The internet itself is “a global distributed data communications network” (Kirmayer, Raikhel, & Rahimi, 2013, p. 166). This is what makes the internet so full of communities because communication is the key to putting multiple individuals with commonalities into communication, which is the basis of any community. Online communities differ from communities that exists off the web in a couple of

Stephen Marche’s “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” posted by The Atlantic has internet users questioning the meaning of why they use the internet and social media as well as weather or not it has a profound impact on their social lives. In 1995, only one percent of the world had access to the internet according to internetlivestats.com. Today, that number is approximately to 40%. With the expansion of the internet came social platforms such as Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and numerous similar sites. However, while these social media websites may be great ways to communicate with those who are far away or otherwise unable to speak in person, a detrimental effect comes with the power to do so. It can be time consuming and if one has an

For the young generation, in particular, the online relationships are as influential and evocative as the face-to-face relationships. In addition, as broadcasting and broadband technologies are being accessed by more and more people, the swiftness and suppleness with which the world inhabitants are communicating and socializing (both online and offline) is increasing day by day. As far as the virtual space is

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

The second concept I want to talk about is virtual communities. Virtual communities are social groups whose interactions are mediated through information technologies, particularly the internet. Like modernism, virtual communities are very dependent on technology and the internet. Since science and technology has advanced in the past decade, people don’t need to go to different places to meet different people and can meet others over different social media platforms or even video games. Sometimes, those people met over the internet can become very close friends. For example, I play a lot of video games and I have acquainted myself virtually with many people playing those games. Some of them I even ended up meeting in real life and are still friends with today. Virtual communities have become such a social norm, that soon, people will have friends all over the internet. I think the aspect of virtual communities is good for society, because it allows people to have a greater awareness of other cultures all over the world. With more insight of how other societies and cultures operate, there is a greater chance to expand one's own social

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).