Effects of Social Media on Society - Essay Example

Effects of social media on society Table of Contents Introduction 3 Discussion 3 Conclusion 8 References 10 Introduction Social media has a great impact on the life of people in human society. The emergence of new set of social media tools has enhanced the life of people in many ways. Development of social networking websites, such as Facebook, twitter, YouTube etc. have enabled people to get in touch with each other easily. The networking websites have become the basis of communication for millions of people worldwide. The convenience and accessibility has made communication process more interesting for all generations. According to modern scientists and researchers the social networking websites have not only attracted individuals but have also become powerful tool for building business and generating sales. Unfortunately, there are some negative impacts of social networking websites in the life of people especially related to privacy. Social media is assembled on a network system of weakly-connected links and lacks central headship arrangements. This factor reduces the security of personal information and data uploaded on the social networking websites. The information uploaded on the websites can be easily accessed by computer programmers and hackers. This essay highlights the positive effects of social media along with its limitations related to privacy. Discussion Social media has numerous positive implications in the life of people because it provides the ability to connect different people with each other. The rapid development of internet has provided great opportunities to individuals and financial groups to share information and experiences worldwide. The mode of communication has sped up greatly since the social media has been introduced. Social media allows people with common interests to converse and connect with each other. Professionals are also allowed to network easily with the access of social media. Websites like LinkedIn has helped in building businesses and enhancing sales with the help of advertisements. On the other hand websites like Facebook has provided people the ability to communicate, upload videos and pictures and share knowledge. With the help of Facebook people are able to upload their own pictures and comment on the pictures and videos posted by others. These opportunities might seem common in the present world with the rise of technology but it is has brought some positive changes in the cyber-world. Entertainment websites like YouTube has enabled people to upload and share videos for entertainment purposes as well as educational purposes (Peterson, 2013, p.5). There are many universities that use social media in the educational curriculum and they post classroom lecture videos for their students. Undoubtedly, the social media has brought a great revolution in the traditional methods of communication as well as education. Websites like Facebook and twitter enables a person to create their own profile pictures and share information, experiences and comments, which enhances social relationships. There are many arguments provided against the usage of social media stating that social media is replacing face-to-face interactions. The argument is not entirely correct because social media has not replaced face-to-face interactions in-fact it has become a substitute for actual human contact. Currently social media encompasses several different forums of media including music, pictures and videos and soon it will include other forums, such as augmented reality. Social media has completely changed the way information was exchanged previously. In the modern world, with the emergence of social media important information are available on websites like Yahoo and users can avail information from these websites to enhance their general knowledge. Websites like Wikipedia provides knowledge replacing the traditional encyclopaedia books. Digital knowledge is valued all over the world and with the rise of technology usage of social media is also expected to increase. There is sufficient information available on the internet today and most of the information comes from expert views and researchers theories. Students get benefited with the use of social media because they get the opportunity to acquire knowledge from different types of sources. Students are exposed to wide-variety of knowledge providing websites with the use of internet and social media (Zittrain, 2008, p.16). It has been observed that students learn fast when they are connected to other students because they learn with interest. Hence it can be stated that social media has many positive impacts because it allows people from different places to communicate and share their experiences with each other. Social media has gone through lot of changes since it has been introduced. Initially social media enabled people to communicate and locate with others however it is used for numerous purposes in the modern world. Social media allows people to send messages, have verbal communication and see each other during conversations. Social media also enables people to communicate with people they6 prefer and disregard conversations from unwanted users. Social media has also become an important platform for sending invitations and letting people know about social events without much effort. In the traditional world people had to send invitations by calling up or going to different places. With the implication of social media information about social events can be sent to many people at the same time. The implications of social media have also enhanced the working and information sharing ability of organizations. With the use of twitter organizational updates can be provided and employees can get recent updates at the same time. It has been observed that teenagers use social media on a huge extent. With the help of social media they recreate by sharing with friends about their experiences and daily updates. Social media has also helped people to choose their preferred items online with the help of online markets like Amazon.com (Nagy, 2011, p.32). Most of the people in the modern world prefer to select their favourite items online and purchase them by making payments. The product is delivered to them directly to their selected address. This has helped on a large scale to people, who do-not like to visit markets on a regular basis. This shows that social media has definitely changed the way society works. Social media has many advantages and it has made life of people simple and easy however there are some limitations social media has with respect to privacy. With the increased usage of social media people have the tendency to share their experiences, make unknown friends and upload their picture and address in social networking websites. The information uploaded on the websites is placed on a low security link, which can be easily accessed by using forced algorithms. The brute-force algorithm is one of the most well-known computer-programs, which was developed for port hacking. This algorithm contains several trial and error methods based on which secured passwords can be decoded. There are several other algorithms and programs that can break the security level of social networking websites. Websites like Facebook are highly unsecured because they do-not have proper security systems for protecting user’s information. Information like date of birth, phone number, name and address are easily available from Facebook details. Anti-social elements can misuse the private information of people. In the social networking video websites like YouTube, people can post illegal videos and private pictures of other people which are not ethical (Quigley, 2008, p.56). There are many instances in the past, which show that with use of social networking websites personal details have been hacked and they have been used for mischievous activities. Government and federal agencies have protocols and links, which can be used to obtain personal details of people stored in social networking websites. Government agencies might access personal information for security purposes but it leads to privacy erosion. Accessing personal information of others should not be done. However, social media provides great opportunity for people to access the personal information of others. According to various surveys conducted by researchers it has been observed that the privacy of younger generation is being eroded on a huge scale due to optimum use of social media in their life. The younger generation prefers to share their knowledge as well as experiences with their friends due to which their information is easily available on the websites they use regularly. People believe that their social networking websites like Facebook, Gmail, twitter etc. are secured because they require username and passwords before they are accessible. However, the conception people have is completely wrong because the social networking platform is generally built on weaker links so that they can be easily accessible by users. For example, accessing Facebook in poor internet connection is possible but accessing bank statements on the same signal strength is not possible. Moreover, the banking websites are constantly observed by computer experts and admission of unknown sources in restricted areas may lead to immediate crash of the website. This is done in order to ensure maximum safety for the customers of bank. In case of social networking websites there is absence of computer experts at the back-end and the websites can be made to crash in case of illegal intrusions because social networking websites have many consumers (Buckingham, 2008, p.92). Hence illegal intrusions to the private zone of others are easily possible in the social networking websites. Social networking websites like Facebook and twitter can help building a business but it also has the probability to disparage it. Hence social networking websites should be used with optimum care. Social media has positively changed the communication process for individuals and helped in business developments but it has some concerns related to privacy that can-not be ignored. With respect to the wide range of uses of uses social media possess, its usage can-not be stopped. Social media has enhanced the way of communication for people and made the information sharing process easy. With the advanced applications of social media and the networking websites, life of people has become comfortable. Many organizations are also able to post information about their products in the social networking websites and it has attracted many consumers towards their products. The development of social media has also been helpful for people while sharing information about social events in public domain. Uploading pictures and videos are some common trends in the modern world and the dependency on social media can-not be shifted. On the other hand, the privacy issues related to social media can-not be ignored because there are many risks associated with it. Anyone in the world would not like their private information to be accessible by someone else but social networking websites have provided the opportunity to access others information (Boyd, 2014, p.42). Moreover, the government agencies can also use information from social networking websites for security purposes, which is not an ethical stand. With the rise of technology and vast usage of social networking websites personal information are left unsecured and people with mischievous minds can easily tamper with the information available to them. Social; networking websites should have strong password protections and they should be built on stronger links in order to secure private information of people. The dependency on social media will always exist but it is also essential for users to share limited information on unsecured websites for safety of their personal information. Conclusion Based on the above discussion it can be concluded that use of social media is essential in the modern world but some precautions should be taken in order to protect private information of users. With the rise of technology social media has been advanced and it contains many features that are helpful for people. Students can also use social media for knowledge sharing purposes because social media provides wide range of opportunity for learning. Social media not only helps individuals but it is also beneficial for business development because it can help in product marketing. Despite the uses of social media there are some threats that social media possess related to privacy of information. In the modern world due to advancement of technology social media is accessible to almost every person. There are huge chances of privacy leakage due to the weak network links on which the social networking websites are built. In order to secure the private information of users, website developers should incorporate proper security measures in order to secure the private information. Therefore it is clear that social media tools have eroded privacy of users because people with impish mind can get access to private information of others. References Boyd, D., 2014. Its Complicated: The social lives of networked teens. London: Sage. Buckingham, D., 2008. Youth, Identity and Digital Media. London: Routledge. Nagy, S., 2011. The handbook of emergent technologies. New York: Springer. Peterson, A., 2013. The policing and transnational protest. London: Kogan Page. Quigley, M., 2008. Encyclopaedia of information ethics and security. London: Kogan Page. Zittrain, J., 2008. The future of internet. London: Routledge. Read More