The #VirtualWorld
Social media is the new norm and it plays a big role in our society today. Social media has its own world and is constantly on the rise. The impact of social networks on young people is significant. Children are growing up surrounded by mobile devices and interactive social networking sites such as Twitter, Instagram , and Facebook, which has made the use of technology and social media such a necessity in their life. Social networking sites are transforming the manner in which young people interact with their peers, parents, and how they make use of their time. Even though social media is a way to keep in contact it’s bad because it's a distraction to many young people and it can affect their future.
In the 1990s the World Wide Web was designed so people across the globe are able to see text graphics. During that time the only people who used the internet were the ones who essentially needed it such as librarians , scientist, engineers, etc. at that time there wasn’t any home internet use. So, how has the internet use changed so much? Well, since then we have created two separate worlds for ourselves a virtual world and of course our real world. Unfortunately we cannot keep the two away from each other since people carry their lives through an internet profile.
Social media is easily accessible through our smart phones, tablets, laptops computers. We can basically access it anywhere we go and with just a click of a button a video can go viral on every social media site. The bad thing about social media is the terrorizing impact it can have on people's lives. In the incident that Mona Eltahawy , author of “In Egypt,Twitter Trumps Torture,” she says, “ Khaled said is not the first Egyptian whom police allegedly beat to death. but his death has sparked a virtual revolution that is affecting Egypt’s tightly controlled society…His family said he was targeted after he posted a video online allegedly showing police sharing profits of a drug bust”(393). This is only one of the cases in which social media causes a bad video that goes viral. In this case it put an innocent bystander and his family in such danger.
In another incident also in egypt a video went viral and gave these people in all seriousness unwanted attention. Eltaway uses yet another sad story of a bad video going viral , she states, “This week, a woman in a full-length veil went on television to accuse two police officers of rapinf and robbing her. Her tearful segment has gone viral on youtube”(294). Social media is being used as a news reporting site but it's giving people attention that they don't ask for.
With all these new social media networks and online sites people don't communicate in person as often. Sarah B. Ference the author of “ How Social and Digital Media can be a #majorrisk” says, “ Electronic communication has substantially replaced regular mail, and, to a lesser extent, the telephone as the basic mode of communication” (16). This big movement of social media has made us so prone to only using computers we have forgotten about talking to people in any other ways.
People have found themselves in certain predicaments when they wish they could delete something, but what tends to happen is people can take pictures or screenshots putting them at risk of embarrassment. Sarah B. Ference says, “The Delete button is not an all-powerful eraser that wipes the slate clean. Individual recipients of electronic communication may have retained a copy of a deleted correspondence, or someone may have taken an electronic snapshot of a social media post before it was deleted” (17). The unfortunate disadvantages of all these social media sites are crucial to people's daily lives. People can post almost anything they want and they do but little do they know it puts them at risk so many other things. It may just be a picture or a comment but to someone else it's revenge or offensive or whatever they may think, in the end it can be harmful.
The advantages of social media is keeping contact with someone from around the world that you may have met along the years. There is also a lot of social marketing on social media. A lot of businesses use online marketing when other companies can't meet they may have some networking sites that show there products. Through social media people are able to form online communities and groups. Some people that are really busy may also have some advantages to having social media to keep in contact with people. It can be a great advantage if people are too busy they might send a message to a friend and wait for a response later in the day. There are advantages for college students using social media for school. According to Sahiba Pahba, “Statistics show that 85 percent of college admissions offices use social media, 61 percent practice social networking, 41 percent like blogging, 16 percent like podcasts, 48 percent video blogging, 36 percent message boards and 10 percent wikis.” This statistic goes to show that there can be some advantages to using social media.
As a witness and follower to the social media expansion over thousands of ideas, comments, thoughts, issues, videos, and photos are being made viral daily. Social Medias such as twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, etc. are a place to express all of these thoughts. These social Medias are made to communicate and share thoughts but overtime they have been used for the wrong reasons. These social medias are being used across the globe so anything that is posted can and will be seen from coast to coast.
Social media networks are a danger to our society and shouldn’t be used. As previously stated there can be a lot of harm from videos going viral to bullying online. Not only that but it hurts our communication with others because of face-to-face contact. We become so dependent on these social media sites. What would happen if one day everything shuts down? Would we be friendless with no memory of who was “your friend”? Social media is a record keeping place that can haunt people for the rest of their lives, so the next time you post something think about it.
Work cited
Eltahawy, Mona. "In Egypt, Twitter Trumps Torture." Print.
Ference, Sarah B., C.P.A., and Stanley D. Sterna J.D. "How Social and Digital Media can be a #majorrisk." Journal of Accountancy 221.3 (2016): 16-7. ProQuest.Web. 8 Mar. 2016.
Sahiba, Pahba.How Has The Internet Changed Education?