Social media: (noun pl but singular or pl in constr) forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content.
Social media has developed to allow for information to be shared instantaneously: image and video sharing, spontaneous group get-togethers, and worldwide, real time news announcements are sent through time and space with the click of a button, and can spread like wildfire.
In the following pages we will discuss several aspects of social media and how it affects our culture. Issues such as how social media is changing the way people communicate, positive and negative effects of social media, celebrities in social media as well as the psychology and the future of social media.
Just as countries around the world can be broken down into niche communities so too can the social web. Social Web sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter allow us to communicate to our own personal network, just as the newspaper caters to the larger community.
Social communication has come a long way from the village square. From the time Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1440 (about.com) people have been using technology to communicate news, stories and events. Up until the emergence of social networks, we counted on the “town crier”, whether in the form of the man in the village square with the proclamation from the queen, Anderson Cooper telling us the news, or Eli Manning promoting shaving cream, we’ve come accustomed to having our media spoon fed to us at a specified time each day. Social media and social networks have allowed us to receive information from many different sources from all over the world, and interpret it as we see fit.
To fully understand how social networking came to be a world of its own, we need to travel back a few years to when the Internet became commercialized. The first computers marketed for personal use were released in 1984 when Steve Jobs revealed the Apple Macintosh. Jobs proudly pulled this light-weight machine from a bag, and the world would never be the same. Soon after, Bill Gates started Microsoft and introduced Windows, which become Apple’s largest competitor. Once computers were established in homes, connecting and sending information from computer to computer ...
... middle of paper ...
...rk, pushing out news, information, photos, games, and opinions to each person within their network that can be shared by any person within their own network. It is a mind-blowing web of connections that enables the passing of information and ideas to spread like wildfire. (Murthy) This kind of rapid-fire communication has allowed each individual to be their own town crier amongst their circle of connections. We can now choose what we want to know about, how we consume information, and whom we get it from. Social Networks have been, and will continue to be an integral part of society, and with help of the evolution of technology it makes the world smaller every day.
Works Cited:
Miller, V. (2014). New Media Networking and Phatic Culture. Media Culture & Society, 4, 387 – 400.
Murthy, Dhiraj. (2014). Twitter: Microphone for the Masses. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 5 , 379 – 789.
Owyang, J. “Email: The First –and Largest– Social Network”. http://www.web-strategist.com. Web. 25 August. 2014
“Spam Statistics 2014”. http://www.toptenreviews.com. Web. 25 August. 2014
http://facebook.com. Web. 25 August. 2014
http://about.com. Web. 25 August. 2014
“Social media seemed to promise a way to better connect with people; instead it seems to have made it easier to tune out people we don't agree with.” ( Worthman). Social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat all want their enjoyers to be able to reflect on a diverse community of culture, respect other members using the same app, be thoughtful when posting current events, and Show a side of your creativity. In today's society social media has changed our perspectives on life, negatively affecting people's relationships with their culture and world wide community.
Social Media is one of the biggest ways that all people can interact with one another globally. It is a fun place to connect with close or distant friends and family members.
At its base, the term “social” has experienced a fundamental change from the limited face-to-face interaction between several humans to becoming synonymous with the widespread and superficial dissemination of information to a large audience.
Since the beginning of it's creation, social media has grown far stronger and faster than anybody ever imagined it would. It is used for many various things that many see as good and bad. It’s constantly keeping us updated and “in the loop” so that we never feel left out. It allows mass communication on a huge scale between friends, family, and the rest of the world along with it. For the past decade, social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more have made delivering a message or agenda so much easier and more powerful than before. Many times, people will use media sites to organize social and political movements, as well as give details and talk about the topic. They also use them to share stories that have not made it on
Just as anything else, social networks were not born in a day, it slowly developed into what is known in today’s society. In the 70’s, Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) and Usernets were prime communication. BBS is considered the first site that allowed internet users to interact with each other. However, users would have to use a dial-up connection and only one at a time could access the BBS. While Usernets were slightly different. This was a system that allowed users to post articles to newsgroups. Into the 80’s Online Services were created, such as CompuServe, Prodigy and the well-known AOL. These sites simply made the internet “universally accessible in the United States.” Following online services in the late 80’s came Instant Messaging and Chat systems such as Internet Relay Chat, which allowed for sharing links and files. ICQ was also booming around this time, its use was for instant messaging and was “partly” responsible for avatars, emoticons and abbreviations such as LOL and BRB. In 1997 the “first modern social network” Six Degrees was created. This site allowed users to build profiles, and become “friends” with other users. Following Six Degrees were sites such as; BlackPlanet, LiveJournal. World of Warcraft, Friendster, Hi5, LinkedIn, Myspace, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Ins...
Joanne S. Black, professional speaker and founder of. the company No More Cold Calling, likes this definition: “Social media is a group of online. technologies and practices that human beings use to share opinions, insights, experiences and perspectives with one another.” (Black) Face-to face communication was the main tool used for many years for providing an avenue for people to share what was on their minds. We see the main tool moving more toward social media with each new generation.
The use of social media has increased exponentially since its introduction. For example, Facebook is currently the largest online community in the world. The impact of social media has drastically effected higher education, news media, and social behaviors. This technology has changed the way people learn, interact with each other and how the world receives the news.
Some of the ideas that are central to the idea that social media is a benefit to today’s society are that social media encourages increased communication with friends and family, provides fast access to breaking news and other information, and help business attract new business and correspond more quickly with their existing customers. Increased communication is important in all aspects of life. Keeping in touch with family and friends is easier than ever before. Whether it be a Facebook post or a tweet updating friends about exciting news or being able to see a picture...
Social media has altered the way ideas change hands and how fast those ideas spread. News and information that would have taken days or even weeks to go from one location to another can now occur in seconds. This ease of communication has never been so available to people around the world as it is now. Our social media network might be strong, but how about our interpersonal network, our relationships with actual people like our friends, families, classmates, teachers, bosses, etc.?
Social media is a controversy topic in today’s society. Some people think that social media destroys human interaction and real life human relationships. While others think that social media is a bless to humanity. Social media makes human interaction much more convenient and much faster than real life human interaction, it makes globalization a reality, it gives a chance for introverted people to express themselves, and it also benefit develop international relationships whether its business or social.
From the article, “The Internet” by the Pew Research Foundation, David Clark, a senior research scientist at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence stated, “Devices will more and more have their own patterns of communication, their own ‘social networks’, which they use to share and aggregate information, and undertake automatic control and activation. More and more, humans will be in a world in which decisions are being made by an active set of cooperating devices.” Personally, I can see this already becoming a key part in technology, as more devices are developed, their awareness to their surroundings become more apparent. And, as he puts “social networks” is what the Internet allows us to do on a daily basis to communicate and share information between each other.
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).
Social media is becoming the most important and influential technological advancement in our country since the internet was created in the 1960s. For the longest time people were only limited to e-mails to make communication to one another and there were no large scale social media sites available. However, the internet started taking off in the early 2000s as new generations started bringing to the table new and more advanced ideas. Facebook was invented in 2004, where people were able to connect with whoever they wanted throughout the world to communicate and be able to share anything. On their
Nowadays, social media is growing very rapidly throughout the whole world. Social media has changed the way that we communicate with others through using these common social networking sites like Face book, Twitter, and Instagram…For that, social media has positively and negatively impacted our life.
76% of American adults online use social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, and Pinterest, as of July 2015, up from 26% in 2008. A social network is a website that brings people together to talk, share ideas and interests, or make new friends. Some believe social networks harm the society because it’s a waste of time and can be very dangerous; however it can be a very useful tool like staying in touch with family and finding out about the news.