Running head: SOCIAL MEDIA 1

Social Media

Students Name

Institutional Affiliation
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Social Media

The advancement of technology has brought significant changes albeit its influence and

value in the modern society. Social media is one of the innovations that have gained roots into

the social system, and its effects have become objective and drastic over time. In fact, the kind of

evolution that is happening in our world today cannot be completely defined without including

the aspect of social media. We, therefore, begin by pointing out what social media is, not to

forget all the aspects that it entails. The general understanding of social media is basically as the

introduced groups of online media that serve different purposes. These purposes share various

characteristics, which include participation; whereby social media allows exclusive contributions

and feedbacks from every person who has the interest. We have the characteristic of

conversation, which can be best understood by how social media provides a two-way

conversation. Openness is the other feature, whereby social media allows sharing of information

and ensures that no barriers to quick accessing and use of the content. Lastly, we have

connectedness, which involves the creation of links to other resources, sites as well as people.

Forms of Social Media

Social media has got six forms so far, although this value is subject to change due to

evolution as stated earlier. These include social networks where people create personal web

pages to connect with other people and share their content. Some of the common social networks

commonly used include Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Blogs are the

second form of social media, which can be described as online journals. Forums are the third and

provide areas of online discussions. We also have wikis that provide people with platforms to

add content as well as edit information on them. Podcasts is the other form, which avails audio
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and video files through subscription, and lastly, we have content communities, which organize

and share particular kinds of content. An example of content communities being Flickr, which is

used for photos.

State of Social Media in the Society Today

Social media today offers incalculable value to the world. The different forms of social

media have found their way deep into the society harboring millions of users each day. For

instance, Pinterest has about 150 million users, and this number is growing each day gradually

(Wojcik, 2010). Today more than a billion of people have access to the internet whether through

their smartphone or computer. Out of this, about 200 million people use social media in one way

or another (Ting et al. 2016). According to statistics, it can be observed that many people are

connected through social media platform where they interact, share ideas and other activities

(Ting et al. 2016).

Many people especially the younger generation between the ages of 8 to 30 have access

to the internet where they can use it for different activities (Ting et al. 2016). As such, this

privilege of using and gaining access to the internet has allowed a massive spread of social media

users all over the world. Today, even younger children have gained access to the internet where

they can freely access different social media platform. Subsequently, the state of social media

use has been influenced by the increasing availability of smartphones. According to statistics, in

2015 about two-thirds of Americans have a smartphone with a broadband service. From this

population, most of them are the younger generation who uses their phone mostly for social

networking rather than calling or texting. Therefore, the use of social media in the world has

substantially increased. Moreover, smartphone dependency among the young generation is

growing steadily due to social media influence such as Facebook and Instagram. Every youth
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and teenager with a smartphone have an Instagram account where they share images and other

interactive content.

Social peer influence is another cause of rapid use of Instagram in the American culture.

Instagram is gaining popularity due to its use and association by famous internet celebrities such

as musicians and movie stars. As such, people are attracted to acquire an Instagram account

where they can follow their famous icons and celebrities.

Benefit of Social Media

The social domain of social media is to share a connection with other people on the same

platform. For instance, tweeting develops a person social skill on how to interact with people

from different background. It is, therefore, healthy to tweet and share with other people on a

social platform such as Twitter as it boosts people's life skills in communication and interaction.

Tweeting gives a person the ability to learn social intelligence such as how to handle different

social classes, such as family, workplace and the entire community. Thus, it is through

interacting with other people developing their social skills. Online people are more likely to

be open, honest, and forthright, revealing personal truths. (Goshgarian, 2014). Stated in the

article five Online Affairs in two and a half Years, it showed how social media has helped people

to be more interactive and open with one another People have benefited from the use of social

network through posting information using tweets, video sharing among other to build a strong

connection and bond with others.

Sharing our life with strangers on social media can be considered useful in boosting

health both physically and mentally. Nevertheless, social interaction site helps keep the brain

shape and relieve stress and other related psychological distress. Therefore, through using social
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sites such as Twitter, Facebook or other social platforms, a person is capable of jolting their

minds and ideas making them active. Additionally, tweeting give them a chance to interact and

share emotional feeling and ideas, that could harm them if they confine such emotions to

themselves. Humans are considered interacting beings, whereby they find comfort in sharing

their knowledge, ideas, and feelings to others. They consider interacting as a way of disposing of

a stressful situation and motivate them towards active living.

Social media offer a wide platform through which people get to identify new hobbies,

interesting knowledge, skills, talents, and education. Wiki and Google, for example, is full of

ideas, new information and insightful comments that help reshape a person concept of thinking

and operating. It is through social media tweets that gender activist has been able to come forth

and share their grievances. Social network offers the platform to keep in touch with the whole

world. Identify the trending things and information that help widen our concept of thinking.

Twitter hashtags that are trending are used for instance to inform people of serious matter around

the world (Livingston 2015). Nonetheless, social media has created an environment where all the

information or knowledge we needed to know is available. This over-dependence on the internet

for information has proven to be healthy for our brain. Moreover, the use of social networks has

provided the opportunity to gain knowledge and increase our productivity at the same time; it has

increased our ability to think and analyze information and ideas (Goshgarian 2014). People who

use the social media like Twitter, Facebook among others are good critical thinkers as they gain

first information from the internet. With our increasing reliance on the internet, our thinking and

originality are becoming robust, and learning is taking place progressively.

Another importance of the interactive social site is that they develop our learning skills

and knowledge. Joining social platforms such as Twitter or Facebook among others give a
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person the opportunity of learning something new. More specifically interacting with new people

or strangers give a person the ability to learn new things from the people they interact. Thus,

social interaction with strangers gives a person the opportunity to discover new hobbies, an area

of interest and social classes.

Social media has become one of the profound marketing tools and has become number

one marketing option for almost all business and companies. Companies are marketing with the

help of videos or better known as blogs in social media, making it easier for their visual

advertisement. Social media companies like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and

Pinterest have come up with suitable sites that help people to advertise their products and

services at costs; this has made every business to strive hard and use social media as a marketing

tool.

The Adversity of Social Media

Undoubtedly, social media is a toxic mirror that has infiltrated the society with negative

social vices such as the spread of pornographic content and nude pictures. Most social media

users are abusing this platform by posting unethical material and content. This has significantly

affected the younger generation in society who follow these platforms such as Instagram

accounts. Moreover, the internet as public domain harbors people of diverse backgrounds who

possess different interest and characters. Therefore, most content exposed in social media can be

abusive and pornographic. As such, the society especially children are exposed to irrelevant

content and information due to the lack of social ethics when it comes to using these platforms.

Subsequently, social media is purported to affect the way people communicate and

interact with each other. The main reason for this is that the use of social media platforms has

reduced the person-to-person connection and communication, which hence leads to, mechanized
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lifestyle (Ridgway & Russell 2016). The young population is clued in their social networks for

entertainment and other activities forgetting to interact with the outside world. Furthermore,

there is no room for people to think through challenging tasks to find solutions since people run

towards technology to solve problems, therefore, overlooking other brain engaging methods

(Ridgway & Russell 2016). Consequently, the brain functions have changed since people

multitask a lot and hence changing the way people behave. For instance, it is ubiquitous for

people to send text messages while eating thus lacking intimate contact with eating session.

Teenagers have abused certain social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram as

a platform for comparing appearance. This comparison has a severe side effect on their mental

health and results in cases of suicide among the younger generation. For instance, Instagram,

unlike Facebook, provides users with the ability to post their picture with different filters to

increase their beauty. As such, most users especially the teenagers find this appealing to compare

their beauty with their peers and celebrities. Consequently, this has caused severe depression

among adolescents who have low self-esteem. In addition, it has affected their mental stability

since they feel less attractive compared to the images of their peers in Instagram. As a result, the

affected victims resort to social withdrawal and worse commit suicide due to depression and low

self-esteem.

In summation, the use of Social media has become profound in the world today. It has

created an environment where all the information or knowledge we needed to know is available.

This over-dependence on the internet for information has proven to be healthy for our brain.

Moreover, the use of social networks has provided the opportunity to gain knowledge and

increase our productivity at the same time; it has increased our ability to think and analyze

information and ideas. People who use the social media like Twitter, Facebook among others are
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good critical thinkers as they gain first information from the internet. With our increasing

reliance on the internet, our thinking and originality are becoming robust, and learning is taking

place progressively. However, on the contrary, social cultures, skills, and critical thinking are at

risk of social networks innovation. This is because social media has caused the brains of the

younger generation to be digitally hardwired. Consequently, the infiltration of Instagram use in

the society has exposed the generation to the adverse effect of social networking such as increase

pornography and depression among others. Therefore, it is prudent to conclude that social media

has brought significant values in human life and society. Despite its usefulness in helping ease

life and other attributes, still, social media must be regulated for a better generation to coexist in

the future.
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References

Goshgarian, G. (2014). Exploring Language, Books a La Carte Edition. Pearson Education.

Livingston, S. (2015). Social Media Offers New Routes For Benefits Communications. Business

Insurance, 49(10), 4

Ridgway, J. L. and Russell B. C. (2016). "Instagram Unfiltered: Exploring Associations of Body

Image Satisfaction, Instagram #Selfie Posting, and Negative Romantic Relationship

Outcomes." Cyberpsychology, Behavior & Social Networking, vol. 19, no. 1, Jan., pp. 2-

7. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1089/cyber.2015.0433.

Taecharungroj, V. (2013). Homework on social media: Benefits and outcomes of facebook as a

pedagogic tool. International Journal of e-Education, e-Business, e-Management and e-

Learning 3(3), 258. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.7763/IJEEEE.2013.V3.235

Ting, Hiram, et al. (2016). "Intention to Use Instagram by Generation Cohorts: The Perspective

of Developing Markets." Global Business & Management Research, vol. 8, no. 1, Jan.

pp. 43-55.

Wojcik, J. (2010). Social media sites still emerging as benefits tools. Business Insurance, 44(28),

1-1,19.