Category: Effects of Social Media

Social media is a platform that permits human beings spherical the globe to talk about with each and every and each and every others, share content material fabric material, and do firms over the internet. Some social media buildings embody Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, Tinder, Pinterest, and many others.

The use of social media has each and every horrific and extraordinary influence on early existence today. In this essay, I cause to supply to light the influences of social media in particular to the formative years of this generation.

An excellent impact of social media is that it continues us up to date on the event going on in the united states and around the globe. An event is a cutting-edge problem between Russia and Ukraine. Due to social media platforms, we are in a position to be mindful that Russia has invaded Ukraine and the president is threatening any us inclined to assist Ukraine or come after Russia.

Another impact of social media on childhood these days is it bridges holes between family, friends, cherished ones, and cherished ones who have relocated to new locations. It strengthens relationships in the experience that we are all from diverse heritage and high-quality places so in order to assist the relation grow, we have interaction with every and every fantastic by way of means of the use of social media platforms. Most formative years use this as a threat to create pages and businesses in particular based totally on school, and profession and this leads to multiplied connections being developed and higher probabilities opened.

Social media moreover affords a pinnacle platform for doing business. It serves as an ability to reach audiences with admiration to purchasing and marketing of products. By advertising, attractive promotional giveaways, and giving clients the suited charge of products, the enterprise agency enchantment to customers, makes you aware of the wishes and desires and in addition, the troubles of consumers associated with the industrial corporation and in addition gather shopper loyalty.

Social media presents a platform the area cyber theft and bullying are carried out and this will make higher the probability of identification theft. It moreover consists of posting or sharing proposed content, false and private records about a persona on the internet inflicting humiliation and embarrassment. The earliest existence use social media as an achievement of fraud; the utilization of false identities, claiming to do firms that no longer exist, and stealing from individuals.

Also, social media exposes youthful younger adults below eighteen years to online perverts and predators who get to woo them into sexual acts and in addition exposes youthful adults to pornographic content. This in flip leads to early pregnancies, lesbianism, and many more.

In a nutshell, social media has proved to have gorgeous and horrible effects on childhood and as for us, we have to use it neatly and accurately so that it will cease up a real trade for us.

Social media’s increasing popularity is the phenomenon of the last decade. Each day social media gains tons of new users. The numbers of social media usage are mindblowing. On average, in one day 65 billion Whatsapp messages are sent, 2 billion minutes of calls are made and the platform has 450 million daily users. All these extreme figures are only for one platform of social media. The world counts almost 8 billion human beings and 1/16 of them are daily users in one of the many social media platforms. Half a century ago people wouldn’t imagine even a glimpse of this evolution. What seems vital for us now wasn’t imaginable half a century ago.

On one end of the spectrum, social media has improved our lives by making a ton of things way easier than they used to be. 100 years ago people would have to send a letter that would take 5 days or more to arrive just to exchange one little message to someone abroad, not to mention that not every letter got sent and not everybody had access or financial possibility. In our modern era, we can exchange an infinite number of messages or information in little than 5 seconds and the cost of that is virtually inexistent. This reliability helps people in most life fields, such as work relationships, business deals, cultural exchange with people across the world, political movements, and integrations, communication with a family member abroad, a friend, or just someone that you plan to hang out with sometime later. It improves our lives by making every link of the world easier and thus makes us benefit from the qualitative world that surrounds us. It makes all things in this time-limited world faster and easier.

On the other end of the spectrum, it can be harmful to the aspect of our lives that ironically carries the name, ‘social’ life. Even though it seems perfect in paper and doesn’t expose any harm it actually presents a big harmful effect.

Social media can improve our lives in the sense of financial well-being and reliability in every transaction but can demolish our psychological and physical well-being. Social media presents us with a virtual world of communicating and socializing and most of the time leaves no space for real conversation and real social life. Having the chance to talk on the phone or messages with someone else ‘inhibits’ us from actually meeting with people and socializing in the real world in concrete ways. People become lazy, inactive, and unhealthier because the reliability and usability of social media create a type of dependency. Why would someone want to go to the park to meet someone new when he can search for people on social media and start socializing behind the screen? People start to speak less, hear less and socialize less and that is bad for us, human beings.

It is one of those cases when we should use some of our basic tools for success, moderation. We, human beings should mimic people a century ago in the bad spectrum of social life and use the advantages social media carries to keep ourselves healthier and better in every aspect. We should try to use social media only to communicate with those who we can’t meet in person, be in look for ways of improving ourselves, find easier ways of completing our daily tasks, and exchange important thoughts and opinions. Moderation should be the key to our lives and social media doesn’t make an exception. So the answer to the question is: it depends on the way we use it. It can be very helpful or very harmful if we let it be.

We should moderate social media usage to an extent that it doesn’t interfere with our socializing as human beings.

If we manage moderation then social media will always be beneficial to our lives.

Social media has become a worldwide spread phenomenon. The transaction from static internet web pages to dynamic or user-generated content has changed the way people communicate. A recent Global Digital Report from ‘we are social’ 2019 has shown that more than 45% of the world’s population is active on SM. Nearly all of the 3.5 billion users connect at least once per day, and 30% of them like, share, or post content more than 10 times per day. Social media interaction has shortened the distance between countries and people.

The exciting opportunity has attracted many businesses who spotted the potentiality to help them build a more intimate and close relationship with consumers worldwide (Sashi,2012).

The civil aviation industry is no exception. The necessity to build more sustainable competitive advantages is the reason at the center of social media implementation within the e airline industry. The deployment of customer engagement practices through Web 2.0, seems the way forward.

Aiming to create a better barrier in front of consumer brand switch (Vilkaite-baritone and Papsiene, 2016), airline vectors are proactively participating in social media marketing activity. Moreover, in an environment in which social media engagement seems essential to efficiently identify customer needs and connect the brand to the traveler, to deliver a unique travel experience (Dolan and Shahbaznejad, 2017). The beneficial outcome enhances customer satisfaction, loyalty, and ultimately, firm success (Harmeling et al.,2018). On the other hand, the consumer has a significant role in modeling the way the firm operates, moreover in a content where she/he can directly participate in the firm activity (Boland et al.,2018). ‘Whether intrinsically or extrinsically motivated, guided or unguided by the firm, customers are now active contributors to a wide variety of marketing functions. They can express their opinion evaluate firm content and drive consensus to a certain aspect of the firm’ (Harmeling et.al 2018).

Considering the importance of social media implementation in today’s marketing environment, this project will present an emerging study on the use of social media as a customer engagement tool. The aim of the project is to provide a method of evaluation of customer engagement levels through a set of metrics developed on multiple corporate’s Facebook pages within a defined business field: the airline industry.

Literature review

Granovetter (1973) pioneered the direction of social network research as a scholarly discipline. His development on social network theory and economic sociology has formed the base for the contemporary literature on customer engagement () which has been at the center of a firm’s marketing activity.

Defined as a ‘‘firm’s deliberate effort to motivate, empower and measure customer contribution to marketing functions (Harmeling et al., 2018), in the business communication world, customer engagement defines a connection between an external stakeholder, that generally is the consumer, and an organization through a different channel of correspondence. This connection could be the result of an interaction, a reaction, or an overall experience that takes place through an online communicational channel or an offline communication channel.

The interest in customer engagement, after the advent of social media, has attracted many researchers, which are looking to find out best practices, and correct engagement strategies.

Sashi (2012) defines customer engagement as the result of seven different steps embedded in the customer engagement cycle: connections, interactions, satisfactions, retentions, commitments, and advocacies which leads to engagement. Kim and Ko (2012), classified customer engagement as the result of five different levels of social media marketing activity (SMMA): interaction, trendiness, entertainment, customization, and word of mouth while Sano (2015), applied trendiness, customization, interaction, and perceived risk as the four SMMA components for customer engagement. EUN-Ju and Sin Woo (2018), analyzed customer engagement, through the level of commitment and e-word of mouth, in response to brand awareness and brand image. The outcome of the study defined a positive correlation between customer levels of response to brand equity. Martin Kepleck (2017), one year prior, studied the customer engagement process on Facebook as the information-seeking behavior of consumers to a fan page. The measured construct indicator used in his research showed a positive correlation between the hedonic value (gained by the interaction of the customer in the look for new experiences and fun) and social value (associated with the interaction with other fans on the brand page) to the customer engagement process (Kepleck, 2017). The innovative studies have pointed out that, the process of customer engagement, needs to focus on a communication strategy aim to produce attractive content, which satisfies the hedonic value of a customer. Moreover, customer engagement shows the highest regression scale when it relates to social value (Kepleck,2017). The consumer needs to feel part of a brand community in order to build new relationships. Hilde et al. (2018) add a contribution to the customer engagement study describing the differentiating role of social media platforms in the engagement process.

None of the cited work dealt purely with corporate media platform metrics on Facebook. The topic is actively becoming an important argument for customer engagement investigation.

Organizations have recognized the power of the Internet, as a platform to co-create value with the customer (Sawhney et al., 2005). Firms’ objectives to transmit persuasive marketing messages, designed to stimulate consumers, to positively participate in the development of the brand or a specific product and services (Kirby and Marsden, 2006), have supported companies’ implementation of SMP. The embracement of most digital platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Myspace is supporting the extension of the usual marketing channel to address B2C and C2C interaction (Greenberg,2010). At the same time, the methods of social media platforms’ employment for marketing activities are very unknown. Many firms have started the development of SMP for marketing engagement without a clear strategy and many have started their implementation through a trial-and-error method of experimentation, coming across many issues.

Delta airline, for example, is one of the airlines that mostly utilize social media for marketing activity, (Talk, 2018). It allows the firm to advise passengers of any disruption in a faster and more efficient way, it allows the firm to promote the new route, services, and holiday packages, and It allows the consumer to connect with the organization in a more efficient and responsive way. In 2017, Delta airline shares were indicated lower in premarket, after a passenger incident went viral on social media (Botter, 2017).

This example indicates that although social media is an innovative method for marketing activity, the nature of the activity itself is unknown and it has risen many concerns. Customers that interact with a firm social platform, seek the opportunity to publicly communicate their concerns and be heard. The symmetrical social media communication allows a more cooperative and communicative approach (Habermans,1990) which enables customers to interact without ‘much of a filter’ and without the control of the content generator (Habermans, 1990. The outcome can sometimes pull away the firm’s marketing objectives.

Despite some arguable results, the value added by social media implementation seems to overcome the possible risk ( Eid and Zaidi, 2010). The uncontrollable force of SM ‘democratization of communication’, plays a central role in the construction of the interaction between consumers and vendors, and at the same time, can become controversial without a proper marketing strategy and might generate brand damage( Arslan, 2015). It is very important for firms to understand the level of interaction in regard to the quality of the content generated, as those content will be under consumer scrutiny. What is missing, is a concrete best practice that could lead to customer engagement success (Dubach Spiegler, 2011).

Social media interaction produces a huge amount of data, which gives researchers an unprecedented volume of information values for analysis (). The data can provide a means to monitor behavior, outside the core transaction, to capture a more holistic view (Harmeling et al., 2018). Also, data produced from SM interaction (for example the number of customers who like on certain topic, the level of SM customer reaction embedded in the number of comments on a newly launched product, or the level of SM content sharing), can form the basis for valuable metrics which are able to asses customer engagements for a given social media platform (Munoz-Esposito et al., 2016). This study will provide some inside into Facebook practices and will offer new measurement metrics for customer engagement through analysis of the content popularity, stakeholder reaction to content, stakeholder sentiment to post content, stakeholder level of virality, and content analysis. The metric for evaluation will be explained on the KPI model described in the study. The paper will seek to address the following research question:

• RQ1 Can stakeholder interaction be measured?
• RQ2 Is stakeholder interaction dependable by the type of post content?
• RQ3 Is the stakeholder level of virality dependable by the post content?
• RQ4 Can stakeholder sentiment to post content be measured?

As we come along to the era of online presence where social media plays a vital role in the process of communication. driving major changes in social media over the last few decades, it has evolved from no connections to meaningful connections, providing people with an identity and social graph that follows them across the web world. with creating a framework in that place, the next coming years would be more interesting.

Fueled by the advancement in technology, we are stepping ahead to the digitally accessed world where we are connected with the wireless networks and hardware that make social media possible to make strong get stronger. Therefore, brands use new marketing tools for promoting their products or services, and emerging communication channels through which to improve and create a transparent relationship between a brand and its customers.

However, social media engagement increases loyalty and generates word of mouth (mouth-to-mouth publicity), people are now positively interacting with brands on social media which gives rise to the brand towards development (as they get the reviews/feedback about their product and services immediately) as access to online platforms gives a sense of emerging with customers and giving them a variety of forms to make the brand more potential. for example, now the apps like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and others make the brand more consistent by their promoting advertisements as it interrupts our privacy due to which the brands sense the kind of taste one particular has. hence when they are on other web pages they start seeing the advertisement related to the products they were searching for, so this kind of advertisement helps brands to know the taste of the customers and their responses towards products/services. the big companies collect customer data and plan the new way to communicate with the customer by providing them with new online platforms.

In addition, engaging in such big platforms give rise to brands expanding their business as it gives them accurate information about their customer responses. the next coming years would be greater, as we can see the way people are attracted towards online platforms and engage themselves by creating their own pages on social media platforms to promote the brand and themselves too. for example, apps like TikTok which is getting very famous day by day as people are creating videos over it to promote themselves and the brand which makes this platform more customer-oriented, as I am also active on that application and I see the brands are engaging themselves to people by providing the variety of products they have through the videos and giving the links to watch more or to buy online.

I would like to conclude by saying that as the advancements will take place in the era of technology, the brands and the connection between their customers will increase in the coming five years, but we have to be very careful while engaging ourselves with these platforms so that there will no leakage of personal information.

Is Social Media Good? Thousands of people are using Social Media in today’s world without knowing the consequences of using it. Everyone wants to be the best one. Have you ever wondered what Social Media can do to one’s life? Does it make life better or worse? Does it benefit the user or harm? If you ask me, then I would say that there are more risks than benefits of social media because it decreases the amount of social interaction between people, increases the amount of cyberbullying, and violates privacy.

Social Media can decrease the amount of social interaction of people with others. People are just active with their friends online, but when it will come to connecting with them personally, they will not have a single topic to discuss about. It might destroy the relationship that they had before. Some might oppose it by saying that people can present themselves in a way that they want people to see them (George). If the users can present themselves in the Media, why can they not present themselves to the people personally? If the user thinks that society will judge him or her for showing his or her true self, then people are going to do that one way or another. If we have the courage to show ourselves on Social Media, we should have some courage and self-confidence to show it to society.

Cyberbullying means insulting or harassing a person on the platforms of Social Media. Cyberbullying appears easy to the bully because the person who is bullying cannot see the consequences or the victims’ reaction to the bully in person. The consequences of bullying can be very small to the bully, but in the meantime, it can also be life-changing to the victim. It can change the victim’s personal and professional life and behavior and even make him or her mentally weak. Because of cyberbullying, people can end up committing suicide. According to Suren Ramasubbu, “Pew research found that nearly 39 % of teens on social networks have been cyberbullied in some way.” Some people cyberbully others because it makes them look powerful or popular, whereas several others just do it because they have seen their friends do it; however, few others cyber bully because they have been a victim before.

Millions of people share their whole biodata or important personal details on Facebook like where they work, when they were born, where they live, and small details about their life. “Many people reveal everything from their musical tastes and political and sexual orientation to their drinking and drug habits and their inner thoughts and feelings” (George). If we do not share our phone numbers or date of birth with some total strangers, then why do we share personal details like those on the web where they can get loose very easily? What social network users post on their Media can be used against them in the future even though it was not that big of a deal when they posted it. For instance, before giving a job to the employees, employers look them up on Google or Facebook and see if they are qualified for the job or if they have posted something that was not supposed to be posted. Some people might say that social media platforms like Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram can help build a relationship with the ones who are far away and cannot be reachable. Even though social media can bring you closer to those people, it destroys the relationship with the people who are reachable. It disconnects the user from reality.

Some might oppose it by saying that they can learn abundant new things from social media. Social Media is not all about bullying or insulting, but it can be about exploring new things by reading someone else’s blog or posts from a news reporter. You can learn things from it that you have never heard of. I cannot argue with that; however, looking at the screen can affect your vision poorly. Looking at the screen for a long period is not good for the eyes. Social media can lead to too many risks such as lack of social interaction, cyberbullying, and loss of privacy. There are many other risks on top of those like Facebook depression, Sexting, sleep deprivation, and obesity. To prevent the loss of privacy, what I did is I set my account to privacy mode. I would highly recommend other users do that if they keep wanting to use the social network. The privacy mode setting is available on all the platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. In addition to that, we can also prevent it by relieving as less information as possible on the platforms.

In this essay I will be critically analyzing a traditional theory of the self; the theory of Erving Goffman. I will start by describing this theory, by applying it to some of Goffman’s studies of the Island situated in Scotland, that individuals are social “actors”. I will further consider the strengths and weaknesses of Goffman’s idea. For instance, I will argue that Goffman’s micro-sociological approach would be best suited to studying society because he considers individual interactions and how we portray ourselves to others even though he fails to recognize wider social factors such as class inequality highlighted by other theorists such as Marx.

The traditional theory relating to Erving Goffman, a micro-sociologist is considered to be one of “the most influential of twentieth-century micro-sociologists” (Macionis P, Plummer K, 2007, p.205). Goffman’s work was heavily based on our social interactions and how we manage our impressions leading to the development of ourselves. Also, Goffman’s dramaturgical model describes how we actively construct our ‘self’ by manipulating other people’s impressions of us (Wood, 2004). The idea is that in our front region, we display the part we want the world to see and in the back region is the part we want to keep to ourselves thus, we are seen as social ‘actors’. A possible example of Goffman’s dramaturgical model is the idea of social media, many influencers and bloggers often post what they want their audiences to visualize for example, frequently when influencers post they are happy, but in the back region, they are potentially not. And according to an article, these influencers are ‘virtual humans’ (Medium, n.d.), this means that in contemporary society, who people regard as influencers, celebrities, and role models are in fact socially constructed by society itself. Additionally, according to Goffman as individuals, we aim to portray a particular image of ourselves to our audiences. To achieve this, we must ensure that we control the impression that our performance extracts. This is induced through the constant study of our bystanders to visualize how they respond to us and thus, by monitoring our performances we are able to persuade them to accept the image that we sought to illustrate. This is emphasized by a contemporary study using Goffman’s theory, which is titled, ‘Dating Deception’. In this study, psychologists analyzed how individuals displayed themselves in the context of dating. At the end of the study, researchers found ‘male participants emphasized their positive characteristics more if the potential date was less salient’ That is they put on a positive ‘act’ if the meeting was through an email rather than face-to-face (Guadagno et al, 2012). This suggests that the self-presentation is almost deceptive, as Goffman had illustrated that as social ‘actors’ we perform in a certain perspective for our audience to watch and accept that portrayal. Thus, the study illustrates how the male participants attributed their positive characteristics knowing that the date is not interactive.

Similarly, Goffman’s ideas do build off Mead’s work of the self, who was also a micro-sociologist. Mead like Goffman challenges the idea that we are different because of our biological self. Mead’s concept of the ‘self’ and society are seen as inseparable as how we become ‘us’ is widely linked to our communication with others. To support this includes Mead’s words, ‘actions are spontaneous yet guided by how others respond to us’ (Macionis P, Plummer K, 2007, p.109). This is best encapsulated through Mead’s famous work of ‘taking the role of the other’. The idea is that we interpret other people’s meanings by taking the role of the other through imitative play, which we start doing during our early childhood and later we come to see ourselves from the view of the wider community, which makes us reflective. Therefore, as a concluding point referring back to Goffman who argues that, without our interactions, we cannot leave an impression of the self without ‘acting’ in a certain way so that others view us in that perspective, through the way we interact with them.

To critically analyze Goffman’s micro-sociological approach, firstly advantages of his dramaturgical model to studying society include some ideas such as, Goffman explores how we interact with different people individually and his work is useful in studying organizations, institutions as well as individuals. For example, this is emphasized in his book, “The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959). Observing life closely on those islands… seeing social life as a kind of drama” (Macionis and Plummer, 2007), this suggests that Goffman’s work applies to different societies. However, Goffman’s micro approach fails to recognize emotional factors that may assert people to act in a certain way. Additionally, Goffman’s dramaturgical model fails to acknowledge that as social ‘actors’ people play the part of both the audience and the actor, this is because interactions are usually unpremeditated. Thus, a macro-sociological approach “allows observation of large-scale patterns and trends” (The Sociological Approach, n.d), this is because sociologists are able to look at social groups which are less time-consuming to study, in juxtapose to the micro-sociological approach which assesses individual interactions in understanding society. An example of a theoretical macro-sociological approach is the view of Anthony Giddens, who studied society through the way our self-identities have changed from post-modern society to modern and contemporary society, one key idea is industrialization, for instance, Giddens stated, “There is a social structure… established ways of doing things… people start to ignore them, replace them or reproduce them differently” (Giddens, 1991, p.103). This suggests that our self-identities have transferred to new ways of production and consumerism such as the way the media now advertise certain products, through the focus on popular culture, for instance, popular products such as an iPhone are advertised to the appropriate target audience through its utilization of music and color.

However, it could be argued that whilst both micro and macro-sociological approaches may have advantages to studying and acknowledging society, it may be that each approach depends on the type of society sociologists are studying. For example, if sociologists study suicide rates it may differ in one society because of discourses such as various faiths. For instance, in Durkheim’s study of suicide (1897), he found that Protestants had a higher suicide rate than Catholics because of the lack of integration within Catholicism in comparison to Protestantism (K,n.d), which are social factors rather than psychological causes.

In addition, perhaps another method of studying society using the suited method regardless of the usefulness of both micro and macro-sociological approaches is the method of triangulation. This method ensures validity as it combines various methods of research to find the suited one for the same study, in this case, the study of society. Therefore, to some extent, both micro and macro-sociological approaches may not be suited to studying a society as it depends on the phenomena that sociologists are analyzing.

To conclude, the most useful approach in studying contemporary society is the micro-sociological approach. This is because micro-sociologists study individual interactions which is applicable to contemporary society as society now is complex, where there is a plethora of choices in the type of clothes people want to wear to the type of class they choose to belong to. As, Goffman had revealed that people may choose to portray themselves in a certain way, in contrast to macro-sociological approaches which fail to ignore the study of individuals in society. An example of this is Marxism (Chappelow, 2019), Marx believed that there are two classes in society, the bourgeoisie who own the means of production, and the proletariat whose labor is exploited for profit. Thus, the bourgeoise maintains capitalism as they are able to control and create ideologies through institutions such as the family, the education system, religion as well as the mass media. This macro-sociological approach is criticized for ignoring the smaller picture as with other macro-approaches, the idea that every individual may not be undergoing class conflict, it could be other social issues. This, therefore, refers back to Goffman and his micro-sociological approach that the study of individuals is significant because each person puts on their own ‘act’, leading to the idea that micro approaches are useful in studying society, in comparison to macro approaches.

References

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Social media contributes to facilitating information exchange and promoting interaction. The usage of Social media is an epidemic in recent years. Given the existing social media platform, an increasing number of social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, is developed in recent decades. Lenhart (2015) reports that a majority of adolescents report access to social media daily. This is no doubt that social media provide them with a great deal of information. However, this paper argues for the proposition that social media should be banned from adolescents for two reasons, which include having an adverse impact on physical and psychological health and affecting their personal growth.

Regarding personal health, the use of social media could have negative impacts on adolescents, both physically and psychologically. According to Boers, Afzali, Newton, and Conrod (2019), high levels of social media use were associated with increased depression, and each one-hour increase in the average time spent on it was associated with an increase in the severity of depression symptoms within that same year while interacting with media outlets that were more conducive to promoting upward social comparisons was highly related with a drop in self-esteem. Adolescents are experiencing the transitional development stage of transforming from childhood into adulthood. External environmental factors are influencing them easily, including social values and norms and the changing roles, responsibilities, relationships, and expectations of this period of life (World Health Organisation, 2017). Today, People are more likely to bring their perfect side to others. Meanwhile, luxurious lifestyle trending is very likely to be observed when browsing those platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Often, susceptible adolescents may even imitate the lifestyle of their friends posted on those platforms to search for social belonging. Feinstein et al. (2013) reported that the unfavorable self-comparisons resulted in a greater risk of developing depressive symptoms, posing negative influences on psychological health. Additionally, addiction to social media, in turn, could affect physical health. Adolescents considered the active use of social media as an obligation for fear of missing out (Fox and Moreland, 2015) and tend to increase their usage of social media, resulting in social media addiction. Subsequently, they would perhaps devote all their time and energy to social media, neglecting all their basic essentials of life. This would harm their physical health gradually as a majority of them do not maintain a regular and stable biological clock. Therefore, for the above reason, both the physical and psychological health of adolescents would be very likely to be affected by social media.

In relation to moral and ethical aspects, social media might have negative impacts on the personal growth of adolescents. Currently, adolescents can have ultimate access to almost all social media. At present, people tend to over-share all aspects of their life and their thought via social media, which may include some unhealthy habits and ideas, violence, and even pornography. Even though various social media platforms have established policies to filter the content and limit access to certain age groups, they could sign up and access filtered information by intentionally claiming themselves as authorized (Garber, 2014). As they do not need to provide any evidence to prove the accuracy of personal information, including their age, when signing up for most social media accounts, it is nearly impossible to prevent them from approaching inappropriate information if they are intended to do so. According to Pew Research Centre (2011), 88 percent of adolescents have witnessed mean or cruel behavior on social media while among those who use social media while 21 percent admitted that they have personally joined in on the harassment of others on a social network site. In the end, inappropriate information may ruin their minds as they are easily influenced by others. Most importantly, those undesirable beliefs may then embed in their mind when they approach them in early adolescents, posing a disruptive impact. In short, the use of social media might have severe adverse impacts on adolescents’ personal development.

Social media provide platforms for interpersonal communication, enlarging the social circle. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, people need social belonging. Emotion regulation, which pertains to how people control, experience, and express emotions as they unfold over a very brief period of time, can be examined via social media (Quoidbach, Mikolajczak, and Gross, 2015). Leung (2007) found that adolescents regulate feelings of loneliness and stress using social media. It seems that social media could serve as a platform for them to express themselves, gather opinions, and seek advice. Valkenburg, Schouten, and Peter (2011) suggest that online interaction via social media may promote a positive sense of self. Hence, perceived social support or the perception that social relationships could provide needed emotional and instrumental resources can be a powerful moderating factor to lessen psychological stress and intensify physical and psychological well-being (Nabi, Prestin and So, 2013). However, it may also be used as a venue for negative emotions and result in emotional dysregulation. Excessive use of Facebook has been linked to rumination (Blumberg, Rice, and Dickens, 2016). Those exposed to negative content would perhaps cultivate a relatively pessimistic mind, which is unfavorable for their personal growth. Even though emotion regulation through social media could sometime contribute to a certain extent of social support, most of them are usually short-term as in-depth and comprehensive are usually impractical through social media. In addition, friendships developed via social media would be relatively superficial when compared with face-to-face friendships (Bloomfield, 2015). Fundamentally, people require long-term social support, including emotional support, instrumental support, informational support, and appraisal support. Ultimately, digitalized friendship is unlikely to provide long-term social support as it is usually not as deep and profound as face-to-face friendship. Digitalized friends, to some extent, are unable to provide practical advice and may even intentionally or unintentionally disclose personal information and secret. Social media can be a means for adolescents to communicate with their face-to-face friends but technologically mediated friendships, to a large extent, are inferior to face-to-face friendships. Therefore, social media are unlikely to provide long-term social support.

To conclude, social media undoubtedly provide a convenient means of constant connection with the world (Lin and Lu, 2011; Takahashi, 2014). It, nevertheless, may lead to possible harm to adolescents’ health and personal growth. Despite the social support obtained through social media, they are unable to be maintained in the long run, while adolescents may even suffer from a great deal of depression and mental illness when they are exposed to social media where people perpetually express their negative thought, not to mention the possibility of unethical believes being implanted into adolescents’ mind. As a result of potential threats, adolescents should be unable to access social media by all means.

The most accessible technological devices available to adolescents are smartphones and personal computers. The most common application used by these teens is Snapchat. It is a multimedia messaging app used globally. The product is used to send photos that disappear after being opened or after 24 hours on the user’s ‘story’.

The message presented through the advertising of this social media giant is their product. Screenshots used as advertising of the product have a wide range of vivid colors and positive images of users to entice potential users to download their product. The advertising is appealing to the user due to the complex colors, the expression of fun with friends, ‘live in the moment’, and seeing where your friends are on Snap Map. The advert’s page displays a star rating of 3.9 with potential users to glance through reviews made by current users, the age rating of 12+, but does specify certain mature content that may be seen, and the description does state the main features of the app include App, Chat, Discover, Snap Map and Memories. Snapchat stories (sometimes called ‘MyStories’) include a collection of pictures and videos that last 24 hours.

The impact of the application on the user is both socially positive and socially negative. Snapchat’s positive impact on the user’s ability to connect with the outside world and make new friends and family.

The negatives that can affect the user are depression and FOMO (fear of missing out), according to Dr. Amy Summerville, a professor of psychology at Miami University in Ohio. Dr. Amy Summerville is an expert on issues of regret and the psychology of ‘what might have been’. She later explains: “FOMO is an extension of larger issues of inclusion and social standing. Once our basic needs are met like food, shelter, and water, the need for inclusion and social interaction ranks right up there”. FOMO is caused when a user uses their Snapchat stories, which include a collection of pictures and videos that last 24 hours. So you get to see all the fun things your friends do and have done in the past day. FOMO here is way worse than individual snaps, especially if a group of your friends is altogether. You get to see what you’re missing out on from several different views and FOMO grows with each new story view. Since this story is up for 24 hours, you can live your FOMO out for a whole day if you so choose. FOMO can lead to depression because Snapchat is all about sharing your best, showing off, seeing who’s better, and living the ‘perfect’ life. Counting likes or views for Snapchat is a huge player to see who is living the perfect life and to see who the popular users are. The more views, the more fame. Lack of attention can cause stress or even depression, and together with social comparison, all of these factors could theoretically cause depressed behavior in today’s teenagers.

Snapchat is a way of interconnecting over a smartphone to send your friends and family a ‘snap’, but only permits you to see it for one to 10 seconds, depending on what the user sets the timer to. Once your time is up, the app ‘permanently deletes’ the snap forever. Studies have shown that Snapchat keeps your pictures for up to 30 days after being sent, and possibly longer if they want to. The so-called 10 seconds and it’s gone is not the case at all. The social media giant owns all the photos you send and post to your ‘story’, which is stated in the terms and conditions. The stigma around Snapchat is that it’s a ‘safe place’ to share photos of anything and not see them again because you believe they disappear after those simple 10 seconds, but they don’t. These photos can haunt you for the rest of your life with NSFW photos being shared with your boss at work and your family. The user chooses to use Snapchat for all the wrong reasons, but they still choose to use it, even though it poses a massive risk.

The identity you create in these virtual worlds can be the person you want to be or something you could never achieve. This new you are so coded in your phone and it only exists in the eyes of your users and the apps, you use to fake yourself. Your new personality is just a bunch of filters and free give away you use to include more people in your fake life. The danger of this virtual construct is that you lose yourself in the void.

Social media is part of our daily lifestyles in our days, and there are special approaches to defining it. It is a computer-based technological know-how that helps share ideas, thoughts, and formation via viral networks and communities. It is a collective period for websites and functions that center attention on communication, community-based input, interaction, content sharing, etc. According to Blackman (2022), the term ‘social media’ describes interactive computer-mediated applied sciences that facilitated the advent or sharing of information, ideas, career pastimes, and different types of expression by using visual communities and networks. The most important factor about social media is that it makes existence very easy. However, it has both pros and cons. The pros of social media include awareness, records, updates, as well as education, while on the other hand, the dangers of social media consist of cheating, relationship issues, hacking, and cyberbullying. The topic of the pros and cons of social media is what this essay is devoted to.

The most important role of social media is awareness. As people, we are in a position to be aware of happening around the world due to social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, and many more. Social media create attention in our minds as people. It acts as a medium of facts that helps human beings to do innovations and achieve success via the enhancement of abilities and knowledge. Social media has made all humans aware of happenings around the world.

Furthermore, social media serve as a supply of information and updates. Through social media, we can maintain ourselves up to date with statistics about any component happening in the world or anyone’s life. Apart from television, radio, or information papers, social media helps us to grant the right facts by way of displaying the authentic picture of content material and sources. For example, as Blackman (2022) states, we see a commercial of an automobile advertised by using a spar superstore and we are now aware of the competition provided by way of that spar. Social media helps in showcasing the actual world globally.

Furthermore, social media decorates instructional programs. This refers to teaching and mastering taking place effectively, however not with faculty premises, but in social media such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. For example, existing firms have been capable to pool their extensive wide variety of professional corporations into streams of digital education output handy to a healthcare practitioner working inside intensive care with get entry to the Internet. It makes gaining knowledge simpler by connecting educators and professionals all over the world with learners. It also helps in enhancing skills by using improving understanding and creativity. More than that, it creates flexibility in gaining knowledge of the procedure of willingness and educators can connect at their very own pace of time.

However, there are some cons of social media, such as cheating and relationship issues. People have started using social media as a platform to find their soulmates and get married to them. But after a few years, it may lead to unhealthy relationships or even divorce just due to the fact they have given improper data about each other. It can damage their total lifestyles using cheating on each other. It can also lead to infatuation among teens, which can distract their minds and provoke them to do something wrong.

Furthermore, any other downside of social media is hacking. That is a properly recognized threat of social media where hackers can without difficulty hack a person’s account and statistics It has resulted in serious troubles in one’s life.

Besides hacking, there is additionally cyberbullying in social media. Many people, particularly children, have to turn out to be victims of cyberbullying as it is very effortless at present to create face debts and faux profiles and threaten other people. Cyberbullying has resulted in many suicides, melancholy issues, etc. People have started out using social media as a platform to unfold faux information and rumors, which has prompted an unhealthy environment in society.

In a nutshell, social media has pros and cons. People can meet on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram and get married, which is one of the fantastic aspects of social media. Teaching and mastering can take location successfully on social media instructors, enticing learners. A vendor or service company can be to meet practicable customers now, not customers effectively. People lost their lives due to social media due to the fact they get wrong information such as faux unemployment opportunities. Therefore, it is extremely necessary for a character to be greater cautious when using social media.

In our everyday lives, we see our sense of how we are based on our social groups. Through various social media outlets like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and many others. It is how we tend to perceive ourselves toward others. As these groups tend to be the source of self-esteem and pride.

The majority of the youth majorly rely on social media in developing their social lives, they will tend to build their relationships, and within their networks, they get informed about any social activities. There are so many social media outlets out there that allow a user to update statuses. These social media may include WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. Everyone is different and not all are on the same social group. Frequent updating of statuses tends to put us in our own social groups. Our statuses tend to group us. These statuses may either be in the form of photos or texts. Thus, this tends to maintain social connections. In linking photos, which includes sharing and tagging of photos, which is a form of social approbation, we young people tend to regain and maintain social connections. These exchanges tend to community binding together and also may lead to social anxiety as this may lead to young people feeling secluded by the comparisons in this exchange.

On my Facebook page, I looked at my friends’ statuses and compared theirs to mine. Like for example, I take an example of selfies. In our generation, selfies are a norm in all of our social media outlets. Most of my friends were posting fun selfies and what caught my eye was the number of likes they were gaining. This got me thinking and almost led me to social pressures where I try posting fun selfies and trying as much as possible to garner the most likes. This also led to the lowering of my self-esteem. And yet we are in the same group that is age and gender. Looking at my friend’s timelines, social media was exposing me to the ‘perfection’ of my friends’ lives.

Facebook, being one of the biggest social media outlets, has used the principles of social identity theory, which was first put forth by Leon Festinger in 1954. In the USA, Facebook tends to display social identity by covering all principles of social categorization and comparison. Facebook allowing new users to create profiles tend to enable them to join the group. Self-customizing your profile so s to fit in certain groups of interest. For example, I post a post relating to a certain celebrity and one of my friends on Facebook likes my post. With the liking of my post, it tends to appear in his friends’ timelines who see the sense in my post and like to my post. He/she tends to visit my profile to view my interests. He/she sends a request which I accept when I see that our interests match. Thus, this leads to a social tie and reaffirms our identity and being active users of Facebook. This is just an example of one user. In the USA alone, it’s believed that there are about 150 million Facebook users, so in a matter of time, you would be in a huge social group with so many members. Thus, in the USA my posts and my friends’ posts clearly state the social identity as an American identity.

Different statuses tend to interconnect with issues like race, class, gender disparity, and deviance. Race the difference in one’s color skin has been brought about by the posting of different statuses leading to social ununiformed or one part of the society with the same race feeling undermined. Posting of statuses also led to subdividing themselves into certain classes, mostly financial capability classes. Social identity being promoted by the posting of statuses has also brought issues like one sex feeling like underdogs to the other genders. It also interconnects with the come behaviors that do not conform to the set-up code of conduct, thus bringing deviance.

In social identity, in putting the use of the social identity theory, social media isn’t a bad trend, but how someone uses the three concepts to make use of social media. Fewer issues would rise and more social groups would be formed. Thus, the social connection among people would be better. One should view social comparison, one of the elements in the theory as one that evaluates himself from his peers, not creating ‘perfection’ in our lives.

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