The Effects of Social Media in Todays Society - Essay Example

The Effects of Social Media in Today’s Society The Effects of Social Media in Today’s Society Introduction Social media is a term that allows communication between people from different parts of the world in order to share information online. There are various tools through which information can be shared and some of the most basic ones are Facebook, Twitter and Linkedln. The biggest advantage of social media is that it is mostly free of cost and highly effective. It is also reachable to a large audience. Anyone with an internet connection can access social networking sites. Since 1975 when the first type of social networking was introduced in the form of Hotmail, social media has come a long way. It has been observed that social networking sites like Facebook and Orkut leads to time wastage but its benefits cannot be completely ignored. This research paper aims to measure the positive and negative effects of social media on society. Who do social media reach and how can it influence their lives? Social media is accessible to anyone who has a simple internet connection at home, office or anywhere to his or her entourage. It is reachable to people from all walks of life, from students to business professionals. Websites like MySpace and Bebo helps to connect friends and family by bringing them under a single platform. Similarly social networking sites like eBay brings buyers and sellers to exchange commodities between them. In short, social media brings B2B (business to business), B2C (business to consumers) and C2C (consumers to consumers) to interact; share information or files and trade all under a single platform (Hendricks, 2012). Social media influences our life and daily routine in great many ways depending how we utilize these networking tools. Time is of essence and this is what it helps to save. People find it much easier to go online and read articles and electronic books rather than newspapers or books that are physical in nature. In this fast moving world, people have adopted to the technological development made especially in the last decade. There has been a huge decline in book readings as people have turned to social media to meet their reading needs. Social media is changing the social habits of people. Though eBooks save time, they cause massive exertion and fatigue (Coupland, 2912, p. 103). People find it much easier to shop online than to physically go to shops and malls to make purchases. Social media is changing the way people shop nowadays. Products can be ordered with just a single click and can be delivered right at the doorsteps. Such facilities have made life very convenient for people. However there are major drawbacks of shopping online. People have become more careful when making purchases. Buyers often complain that the products delivered to them do not match the seller’s description. In some cases they were charged twice as much as the initial cost. Cyber crimes are on the increase and many people have reported against identity and credit cards theft (Close, 2012). How social media can change the global climate Social media can change the global climate by making people aware of the rise in global pollution and the damage it is inflicting to the ozone layer. Altogether about 300 million people use various types of social media and upload around 220,000 videos on YouTube daily. Such is the power of social media and if these people can be reached with an effective message then the results could be very successful. Efforts are being made with a simple plan in mind. Most charitable and non-governmental organizations have joined hands for a peaceful revolution against massive pollution. The main idea is to create a community on social networking sites and blogs and try to get as many likes as possible. Frequently posting articles helps to educate the readers about the dire consequences of pollution and how the planet can be saved. These articles are read and then shared by readers to their friends and family. A few from them like it and share it to their friends and so the cycle continues (Cox, 2010, p. 211). Connect4Climate is a global community that invites experts to share their opinions and give light to what can be done to preserve the nature and save the planet. With more than 250,000 members, it is one of the most famous social communities online. These experts are mostly in touch with the members and constantly guide them towards safer living for them and the communities they live in. Active participations have only encouraged more people to join in an effort to make the planet green and lively again (Cox, 2010). These types of efforts have been made time and time again but nothing concrete has happened so far. People participate with high spirits and enthusiasm but not for very long. They tend to forget about environmental issues over a period of time. The reason is because social media provides a platform that is physically not present. Online campaigns are not effective when it comes to climatic issues as people do not take it seriously enough. In reality there are very few people who constantly look to make an effort in shaping the world a safer place to live in (Doyle, 2005).  What was life like before the invention of social media? People had a very different approach towards life before the invention of social media. Internet was introduced for the public by 1994 and it was after its invention that so many technological developments related to social media took place. Before social media came into existence, people used to make expensive calls abroad to their loved ones. This was mainly because there were no tools like Facebook chat or Skype. Even business had to bear a high cost of sending their representatives to foreign land in case of complexities (Lund, 2011). It was not possible for small entrepreneurs to engage in business activities like they do today. For example there was no opportunity for new fashion designers or students to sell and promote their products through networking sites like Facebook simply because it never existed. Before the 1990s, most students and designers had to set up a physical outlet to make their presence known. Consumers too have so much to choose from the online market place like Amazon and eBay (Marovich, 2010). People were not blessed with sites like YouTube, which is one of the most visited websites by the folks of this generation and mainly because it possibly contains every video one can think of. People have also found their soul mates or life partners through matrimonial services that never existed before the coming up of social media. LinkedIn and Craigslist are two websites that have provided a lot of jobs for people of this generation. Traditional ways comprised of physically moving to different locations in search of jobs plus disappointment that came with its refusal (Lund, 2011). To some extent, life was safer for people who did not have to suffer from cyber crimes. Reports of missing women who left home to meet some stranger on the internet are just piling up. In Asian countries like India, women get harassed and raped and are asked to keep quiet for the sake of their families. Moreover hundreds of girls and children get bullied and sexually abused through these social media every day around these networking sites and they tend to stay pre occupied with it. Social media has overtly transformed the way people talk and communicate with each other. Because there was no Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter etc, people used to meet more often. These media tools have made people more anti social over the past few years (Halder, 2012). Can social media be used to change the world? Social media is a highly effective tool for the masses to express their feelings. Events in the past few years have been better covered and reported by general public and displayed on social media tools as compared to news reporters of famous news channels. For example the protests held by the locals of Egypt in early 2011 against President Hosani Mubarak was so successful that even Facebook and YouTube gave the right to share those videos. Such video leads to greater exposure and more backing from people all around the world who join hands to seek social justice (Amerland, 2012). In many cases, people through social media have come to know about famine and deadly diseases in North Africa. People have generously contributed food, money, clothing and shelter for the unfortunate ones and are still continuing to do so. Some have also protested against the UNO and forced them to help the needy people in those parts of the world. It is nearly impossible that a social issue can go unnoticed in the presence of social media. Even the most minor crimes in the farthest countries of the world like Somalia are shared through videos. This makes people aware of the situation and makes them question peacemaking organizations like the UNO and WHO (Amerland, 2012). One of the latest trends these days is to inform people about social issues like healthcare through smartphones. Dr. Jenny Francis of Mount Sinai Medical Centre sends text messages to teens so that they could take birth control measures. Dr. Jenny believes that teens should be guided so that they could take appropriate measures. This kind of technique is much required in US where the rate of pregnancy is the highest among teenagers (Amerland, 2012). The impact of social media is great as there are millions of users and viewers involved. Everything has to be closely monitored and controlled or it could hurt the sentiments of hundreds and thousands of people. YouTube is banned in Pakistan for more than 6 months now. It could not control and remove a video that showed a wrong image about the Prophet of Islam. It angered Muslims all over the world who demanded an explanation. Such issues should be handled with care or it could lead to violent protests that could harm the image of social networking sites (Hendricks, 2012). Whose rights are violated through the use of social media? Social media can violate the rights of teachers, students, business individuals and employees from nearly every profession. Conor Riley became the first person to have lost her job after she tweeted “Cisco hired me with a fatty pay check but to be honest I just hate the job.” Riley said that the tweets were a personal part of her life and had nothing to do with the company. She felt that her rights were being invaded. The incident happened in 2009 and after this incident many people elsewhere have been fired from their job for showing misconduct (Reiman, 2012). In schools and colleges, students are constantly reminded to follow a certain set of rules or face dire consequences. They are not given the liberty to say inappropriate things about the school or the teachers. Students feel they are being held back from speaking their hearts out. There have been cases in which students have gone against the atrocities of teachers through Facebook and forced the school in considering their appeals. Even employers from various organizations have made social media their voice against organizational crimes (Reiman, 2012). However, sometimes the stake and image of the employee and its organization is at stake because of false rumours arising from social media tools. Alejandra Sosa, an honorary student called her teacher a paedophile when she was angry just angry about something. The statement put the teacher’s career at risk and under investigation. Later it was found out that the teacher was innocent who had not committed any crime of that nature. Sosa was suspended for 10 days but the teacher could not get his reputation back (Reiman, 2012). What ethical values are expressed implicitly or explicitly by this technology? When ethics is taken into account, it expresses the values and culture of an organization, society and individual. Ethics are principles which provide guidelines to organizations and individual to act in an acceptable manner and exhibit good behaviour. Business terminologies like Corporate Social Responsibility take ethics into account when an organization is dealing with the environment and its employees. Social media can be a dangerous tool when there is no trust between the employer and the employee which generally leads to breaking the ethical code (Drushe, 2011). A few organizations are now looking at social media when providing people with jobs. They are looking how people socially interact with each other. Organizations claim that the ethical issue is not what a person does but whether or not he is honest about it. More than right or wrong, a person takes advantage of a situation thinking that he will never get caught even if he breaks the code of conduct. Some employees download copyrighted materials from the net which is not permissible until the author declares. Even students and teachers break this code of conduct which is highly unadvisable. If organizations could just define the boundaries to teachers or business employees by telling them what is legal and illegal to copy from social media websites then it will reduce the problems of ethics (Drushe, 2011). Is there a code of ethics when using social media devices? The code of ethics is to wisely use social media and in the appropriate time. Using social media to stalk, molest and privately monitor people’s activity is highly unethical. This is known as invading privacy by secretly keeping an eye on someone. People sometimes use foul language and discriminate others thinking they will never get caught but these acts could be intense and life changing for someone. There are numerous instances when people committed suicide after they were bullied and abused on social networking places. Considering how dire the consequences could be, one should refrain from these kinds of activities (Drushe, 2011). Many people use the company’s account to share and receive information or date via the social network which is not permissible in cases the author disapproves of it. It is also a common practice to use social networking websites in schools and business institutions by some individuals. People fail to follow the company’s code and break it during the time they are getting paid to do office work. These acts are again not tolerable and should be strictly discouraged (Drushe, 2011).  What is some Security Consideration to keep identity safe? Though there are laws in nearly every country to protect the social identity of people, but a person should take maximum precautions to protect his identity. The first precautionary measure a person should take is to keep his identity hidden from strangers. One source of information for strangers is to surf through social networking profiles to gain information about others. A person should always restrict a user to send him or her friend requests and private messages. Such restrictions keep the identity safe from being intruded. Sharing plans through social media is also not a very good idea especially when it’s at the stage of execution. Moreover, doing so in public blogs could result in theft of those plans and ideas (Halder, 2012). A person should not display his or her phone number, e-mail address or house address for that matter. If this information is given then it makes a person much more reachable and vulnerable. People should be cautious in giving out personal details to people they have recently met. Nothing should be shared unless the person can be trusted (Halder, 2012). Conclusion Social media has a great amount of benefits to all its users as it gives them a single platform to interact with each other. Life would be very different if there was no such platform. People would not have known about the feelings of other people. Social media gives an insight to people’s life during wars, elections, celebrations and much more. It tells people how other communities react in different situations. Being critical about social media will not overshadow the benefits it gives consumers while shopping, businesses while promoting, teacher and students while researching and friends and family members while socially connecting to one another. If social media is used with full ethical codes then it is one of the best forms of human interaction (Hendricks, 2012). References Amerland, D. (2012). The Social Media Mind: How social media is changing business, politics and science. New York: New Line Publishing. Close, A. G. (2012). Online Consumer Behavior: Theory and Research in Social Media, Advertising and e-tail. New York: Routledge. Coupland, J. (2912). Accelerate Your Social Media. Herts: Ecademy Press. Cox, R. (2010). Environmental Communication And The Public Sphere. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications. Doyle, T. (2005). Environmental Movements In Majority And Minority Worlds: A Global Perspective. Piscataway: Rutgers University Press. Drushe, B. E. (2011). The Ethics of Emerging Media: Information, Social Norms, and New Media. Auckland: Continuum International Publishing Group. Halder, D. (2012). Cyber Crime and the Victimization of Women: Laws, Rights and Regulations. London: IGI Global. Hendricks, J. A. (2012). Social Media: Usage and Impact. Plymouth: Lexington Books. Lund, P. (2011). Massively Networked: How the Convergence of Social Media and Technology Is . San Francisco: PLI Media. Marovich, M. (2010). Cutting-Edge Social Media Approaches to Business Education. New York: Information Age Publishing, Inc. Reiman, C. (2012). Public Interest and Private Rights in Social Media. London: Woodhead Publishing Limited. Read More