The Effects of Social Media

Social media is something that has truly changed our world. You can connect with so many people across the world in a short amount of time. Social media has made a huge impact on how we communicate in today’s society. The business impact is large because companies can really make their global impact greater by using ads and their own post feeds to draw people's attention and make their impact felt. The social impact is where it is felt the most in my opinion. You can talk to almost anyone anywhere at any moment. The communication barrier is very low now due to the different ways to send messages out. People can now voice their opinions and show how they feel to others on a broader scale. You can send out a tweet and thousands can know what you said in minutes. The four main social media platforms are Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram. Facebook has around 2.01 billion monthly users. 88% are between 18-29 years old. Twitter has 328 million users monthly, and 36% of users are 18-29 years old. Although nearly 79% of twitter accounts are located outside the united states. Snapchat has 166 million daily users. 56% of the accounts are 18-29 years old. Instagram is owned by Facebook and has 700 million users active. These four platforms are a big reason why things have changed in such a short amount of time.

Although a lot of benefits come from social media there are major downsides to this new technology. Many people who grew up in the era where innovative technology wasn’t a common thing will agree that this has become a problem. Networks such as Facebook and Twitter have made the idea of social media really expand. These companies make billions of dollars every year because of its lasting impact on the internet. Companies like Apple also have contributed to this new trend by creating smart phones. Everyone now has apps on their phone and can access almost anything at the touch of a small screen. There are many downsides to social media. The idea of having friends was once very simple. If you knew someone from your daily life and spent time with them they were your friend. You would never really know who was friends with who unless you directly had contact with them. Now you see who is friends with who based on posts online. Snapchat for example you can see what all of your friends are doing by watching story post and sending direct pictures and messages. Many people get a sense of their friends based on who they snapchat with but by using this things become less personable and you may have a false sense of who your friends are. Some people have a double identity when it comes to how they present themselves on social media and how they actually act and appear in person. The worst part of social media is the post you put out never leave the internet and can affect you later. If you post things that an employer doesn’t approve of it can affect you getting a job. Also posting personal information can be dangerous because of stalking and identity theft. Social media is changing our society and will continue to change our society better or worse. It is up to the specific user to decide if this new technology has more pros or cons.

More Information: https://circaedu.com/hemj/how-social-media-changed-the-way-we-communicate/