In our day to day lives we socialize and interact with many different types of people, including family, friends, colleagues, or even complete strangers. Before technology people stayed in contact via regular mail, writing letters, telephone calls and face to face communication. Today the way in which we relate to others is completely different. We use social media for finding romance, seeking employment, or getting advice. This is where social networking and social media come into play. Many people may think that the use of social media is making them more social and more interactive with society. But others question if that is really the case. Is social media making us more or less social? Is it changing the way we interact with people on a daily basis? Is it having a more positive or negative impact on society? Social media is used by many people, young and old around the world as a way to communicate. Our lives have become so busy that it is difficult to maintain family and social relationships. “They use social networking sites including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. On these sites users create profiles, communicate with friends and strangers, do research and share thoughts, photos, music, links and more” (Social Networking). With the use of social media you can be friends with all sorts of people without actually seeing or knowing them. “In many ways, social communities are the virtual equivalent of meeting at the general store or at church socials to exchange news and get updated on friends and families” (Cosmato). The use of social networking has both its advantages and disadvantages. One advantage is “an Internet social network can help you connect with other people who share your interest, and find resources to ga... ... middle of paper ... ...Henslin, James M. "Social Structure and Social Interaction." Essentials of Sociology: A down to Earth Approach. 10th Ed. 10th ed. Pearson, 2013. 112. Print. Hoover, Lisa. "How Social Networking Has Changed Society." PCWorld. 7 Apr. 2009. Web. 16 Feb. 2014. . "The Pros of Social Media." The E-Guillotine. Web. 17 Feb. 2014. . "Social Networking." ProCon.org. 5 Feb. 2014. Web. 16 Feb. 2014. . Strickland, Jonathan. "What Are the Pros and Cons of Social Networking Sites?" HowStuffWorks. 10 July 2009. Web. 20 Feb. 2014. Surveying the Digital Future: How the PC and Internet are changing the world. (1999, June). Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Center for Communication Policy.
According to Nair (2011), “The social media property on the web is exploding and fast becoming a necessary part of the arsenal of any organization. It took 38 years for the radio to attract 50 million listeners, and 13 years for television to gain the attention of 50 million viewers. The Internet took only four years to attract 50 million participants, and Facebook reached 50 million participants in only one-and-a-half years. Facebook, which was originally designed for Harvard students and launched in 2004, has become a phenomenal example of social engagement. By 2009, Facebook had already achieved 100 million monthly active users covering age groups from 13 to 65; by the end of 2010, there were more than 500 million users. (p. 46) With so many people connected through social media and since businesses are dependent on people to thrive, they have been impacted both positively and negatively.
Parks, Peggy J. “Current Issues: Online Social Networking.” Current Issues: Online Social Networking. 2011: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
Social media provided people with a mean that they can use to strengthen their connection with people they care about. It also facilitated connections to people that were not possible before. People now can connect with societies from all over the world and are able to be impacted by those connections. This made it easier for people who share similar ideas and problems to communicate with each other. As Davidson explains in her essay “Indisputably, the imagination is engaged in making connections in all of those forms, as it is in anything we experience. It is engaged in a different way when we ourselves are making the connections when we’re browsing from one to another link that interests us and draws our attention” (55). Social media made it easier for people to satisfy their need for communication with others. As social beings, humans like to connect with each other; it is how they develop empathy towards others. As Fredrickson explains in her essay “As you interact with one person after another, they gently nudge you to attend to these others more closely and forge connections when possible. They shape your motives and behaviors in subtle ways, yet ultimately, their actions serve to strengthen your relationships and knit you closer to the social fabric of life” (110). Now social media websites or applications serve as pathways
Boyd, Danah M., and Nicole B. Ellison. "Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship.." Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13.1 (2007): 0-19. Web. 21 July 2011. http://jcmc.indiana.edu
Online social networking has changed the dynamics of a bound cultural society and transformed it into a multi-dymensional hybrid of social interraction between strangers, aquaintances and loved-ones by making the majority of the population of the world available to you from the comfort of your chair. This form of communication has had enormous effects on how we experience and handle social relations in our everyday interractions.
It allows us to meet new people and form new connections with like-minded people. Social media is a great platform for sharing and gaining ideas, voicing opinions and finding new hobbies. Twitter is a great example because it is a popular platform where people are allowed to reply to each other’s opinions, creating a space where it is easy to start healthy and educative discussions about topics we are passionate about. When we find people who agree with our beliefs and ideas, we feel included and accepted. It can also be used to cultivate meaningful friendships. 62% of teenagers say they have shared their social media username with a new friend in order to stay in touch with them. [pewinternet.org/] This underscores how social media is indeed helpful in maintaining relationships and expanding people’s social circles. Furthermore, social media is well known for reuniting old friends and colleagues. Apart from that, it is also helpful in making new friends. Due to a large number of social media users, it is very simple to find people who have similar interests, hence expanding our social circle. As we meet more and more people based on our liking, the number of friends we have could increase. This is effective in lowering the feeling of social isolation, hence proving that social media is beneficial in forming new
The more social media we have, the more we think we're connecting, yet we’re really disconnecting from each other. Communication is a crucial part of the human life when it comes to interacting and progressing our society. Ever since the beginning of as much as we can remember, we’ve communicated in many forms such as body language, sign language and written language. Nowadays, we’ve taken socializing to a whole new level. We’ve constructed a form of typed language with the given name, social networking. There are endless social media sites that make it obtainable to connect between various amounts of people. In consideration of the ability that people can interact through social media, most people own an account for engaging. Granting all this, social media has a lot of negative side effects that cause tendencies and anti-social behaviors in people. Many of social media users are obsessed and become deserted by using social media. The most influential social networks, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are included. It is critical to know why people have to use social media wisely and need some restrictions when using it.
First off, when and how did social media become such a dominant aspect in our world? This revolution began when computers decreased in price in the late 1980’s. The startup of internet service providers (IPS): AOL, classmates.com, and theglobe.com, initiated communication through the internet, and the...
With the way the world is now it should be no surprise to anyone that social media has very literally taken over the world in this day and age. From late 2008 to early 2009 the size of Facebook users doubled from 100 million to 200 million in eight months, and was already up to 400 million by early 2010. Twitter also raised its number of users in 2009 from 4.5 million to 20 million (Zandt). With a few clicks of a button or taps on a screen, a person can be connected to family and friends in every corner of the world and even see what their favorite celebrities are doing with their lives.”Social media defines an array of internet sites that enable people from all over the world to interact. This can be through discussion, photos, video and audio
Did you remember to tell your cousin happy birthday on Facebook? Do you know how many people liked your latest picture on instagram? Or how many retweets did you get on your totally relatable and borderline inspirational tweet? As of January 2014, 74% of online adults use social networking sites (Rainie). Also more than 9 out of 10 American teenagers use social media(Blaszczak). Because of social networking we are becoming more connected than ever before. Important information can spread faster than wildfire, and we now have the ability to have friends and relationships all over the world. With the ability to communicate and interact with anyone at our fingertips what could go wrong? Well...lots of things.
Social network sites have without a doubt become an important part of everyday life for many people, considering that Americans live in a country of technological advances. From people constantly checking their Facebook page to people posting pictures on Instagram, social media has changed people’s behavior and the way that they communicate with others. Social media includes websites such as Facebook and Twitter. This essay will focus on the causes and effects of social networking on the daily lives of American citizens.
While with the constant use of these social technologies, less people are communicating in person, this type of technology might be doing more harm than good because with the rise of websites such as Facebook, social networking may be on the verge of replacing traditional personal interactions for the next generation. Social networks were created for the sole purpose of helping individuals communicate. There are many other reasons that these technologies are used, but communication is still the number one. It is not only changing how we communicate, but how we interact with each other in daily life.
Social networking works like an online community of internet users. Depending on the topic of website, people share their common interests in hobbies, religion, politics and other spheres of their lives. As soon as you sign up, or register on a site, you get access to reading profile pages of other members and possibly even contacting them. While with the constant use of these social technologies, less people are communicating in person, this type of technology might be doing more harm than good because with the rise of websites such as Facebook, social networking may be on the verge of replacing traditional personal interactions for the next generation. Social networks were created for the sole purpose of helping individuals communicate. There are many other reasons that these technologies are used, but communication is still the number one. It is not only changing how we communicate, but how we interact with each other in daily life.
With the elevation of the digital age and the surge of social media, social networks have exploded. With the growth of the Internet, a large number of social media networks used for communication have emerged. There is no doubt that social media is the new phenomenon and have drastically changed our global and local communications. Social networking sites which are synonymous with the term “social media” is defined as “web-based services that allow individual to (1) construct variations of a public or private profile with a system, (2) articulate a list of users with whom they are connected, and (3) view and crisscross their list with their shared users (Lasora, Lewis, & Holton, 2011).
Social media can be used in our days as a very helpful tool for many things in changing any person’s life ant attitude. It has a positive impact on the society level. These media will keep the person socially active and open to all what happened in the world. Sharing the latest news, photos, finding new friends and knowing the culture. Also, it allows for millions to keep in touch with each other and update for all the new technology. And, it helps people who have difficulties in communication with others to be more socialized and stronger and develop more confidence to feel more comfortable, protected and relaxed just sitting behind a screen. “It saved me time and money without ever requiring me to leave the house; it salvaged my social life, allowed me to conduct interviews as a reporter and kept a lifeline open to my far-flung extended family” says Leonard(231).