Over the last decade social media
has become an integral part of society. It provides an easy way to interact
with friends and family. In addition social networks are great for having fun.
It also allows one to keep up with current events whether it be in the news on
a macro scale or within their personal lives on a micro scale.
On the other hand social media can
sometimes have a dark side. For example, as seen in The Wire article “FacebookPrivacy Is So Confusing Even the Zuckerberg Family Photo Isn’t Private”, it
explains how confusing privacy settings on facebook can be. In fact when one
posts photos on social media there is very little control on those pictures.
The key is as illustrated in the article “don’t expect to hide something if you
do everything can be share and re-shared these days”.
Social Media is also a vital part
of many corporations. For starters social media is an easy way to learn about
ones audience. Leaning different analytics about ones audience such as age,
geographic, etc. allows companies to better succeed. Companies can even geo
target certain audiences through social media. This is seen in applications
such as twitter and Facebook. Another advantage for corporations is that it
allows companies to expand audiences. The beauty of the quick response of
social media is that it allows instant feedback from the customer about the
service. Furthermore, it allows companies to get ahead of their competitors by
studying and monitoring their competitor’s activities. It may sounds simple but
the fact that one can share content easier and faster with social media is a
huge advantage to companies and their ability to share new content with their
customers. Social networks like LinkedIn link the corporate and social media
aspects to create a very effective site.
So the question is what does the
future hold for social networking? Although social media has a bright future
for society I want to focus on the negative it could continue to have moving
forward and way into future. One of Social medias biggest problems is that it
is increasing Anti socialness in society. As the New York Times article “Anti-SocialNetworking?” suggests that children used to actually talk to their friends.
However, nowadays children are consumed by their phones and emails. The problem
is people aren’t connecting as much with one individual and are often involved
in group chats. The pew research center found that “ages 12 through 17 send 50
or more text messages a day and that one third send more than 100 a day.” These
numbers have suggested the amount of time children spend alone with their
phones instead of with others. In fact even when they do hang with friends they
are still consumed by their phones. However, on the bright side social media
will focus more in the future of incorporating more multimedia content. This
has already begun with things like twitter.
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