Social Media and its Different Effects on the World

Social Media and its Different Effects on the World

Byron Xerxes Livsey
College of DuPage

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Abstract
Everyone today either uses social media, know what social media is and or has a friend or family
member who uses it. Using social media can give different people multiple advantages with their
life. Whether its using it for marketing, building or rekindling relationships or even just living
another life. Through many days and weeks of research, this paper sums up what Social Media
is, and what its main uses are. Social media has a way that can bring anyone together, from
celebrities to family, friends and also friends that have been lost over time. Social Media has a
big hold on the emotional relationships that are formed between people. It also has made its way
into the marketing aspect of the business world. Which is probably its biggest job today. The
paper describes the negatives and positives of social media. It goes into depth on how social
media is changing the world day by day from the marketing standpoint, dating and just everyday
life.

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Social Media and its Different Effects on the World

Everyone today either uses social media, know what social media is and or has a friend or
family member who uses it. Using social media can give different people multiple advantages
with their life. Whether its using it for marketing, building or rekindling relationships or even
just living another life. Social media as a whole has found a way to get a chokehold on the world.
Social media is in everyones life, whether its in a negative or positive way. Its there, and thats
what makes it such an intriguing topic.

What is Social Media?

Social media is when people interact via Internet and cell phones through social
networking sites. People can use social media to interact on a common interest or even activities.
Social media is a big thing that is quickly taking over. Social media can also be websites and
applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.
People are more into being on their mobile devices then a laptop, which is whats making social
media so popular. The fact that it is with you at all time, and its easy to access. Whether its
instagram, twitter or Facebook. These three social media sites are the biggest out of them all.
They're the most popular and most effective for social media marketing. (Arca, 2012, p. 4).

Americans mainly use social media for connecting with friends and family. 2/3 of adults
have stated that they use these sites to keep in touch with old friends that theyve lost touch with
in the past. The main social media use, is no other than Facebook, Facebook has a way that the
older adults and younger adults can use it together. Even though most teenagers are moving

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towards twitter and instagram. (Smith, 2011). Facebook still seems to be the number one most
used social media site. Most kids use Facebook to interact with there family and also there
friends. Twitter has seen to be more for a celebrity and friend interaction. Instagram seems to be
a mix of both. Snapchat is more of a friend-to-friend type of interaction. These social media sites
are blowing up, because of Americas needs to be social and interactive 24/7. (Lenhart, Purchell,
Smith, & Zickhur, n.d.)
The dark side of social media is always been a controversial topic. The older generation
seems to think that young people are more into the social media world then the "real world"
itself. This has been the biggest negative argument towards social media for the last several
years. Many people have argued that social media is a whole different world then social media.
Yes, the people are the same but social media takes the face-to-face aspect from it. As kids are
starting to grow up, they more likely to stay inside of the house and be on twitter, Facebook,
instagram and Skype. This takes away from kids being active and enjoying the "real world".
However most of the older generation doesnt understand that kids are growing up in a
technology based world. If everything around in our society is becoming technology based, how
does the older generation expect for children not to choose what they are growing up around.
(Duivestein & Bloem, 2013)

Stress is obviously the other downfall of social media. A person might say to themselves,
"How can social media stress me out when I can just turn it off?" The main reason of how stress
is caused is by seeing a post and letting it affect you. Whether its negative or positive, or even
reminders. People become stress when so much information is coming in and they cant handle it
all. This eventually stress a person out and they will most likely become negative and have

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negative thoughts. (Hampton, Shin, Raine, Lu, & Purcell, 2015). One last downfall of social
media is the privacy issue. Privacy was a big thing that people made sure was important to them.
However social media has somehow took privacy away, its not neccearsly the sites fault. Users
have found a reason to become way more comfortable with people knowing personal things
about them. This has become a big downside of social media. Of course, there are other
negatives that include, loss of the "real" world, rumors, and cyber bullys. As an overall, social
media has way more negatives than positives that people notice. Although people are starting to
have opposite identities on social media, privacy has still become a problem for social media
outlets. Big questions are should people even use their real name. People now days, are even
putting their middle name as their last name. This is most likely because college student have
post and pictures that dont appeal to their job, so they want to hide all of these things away from
them. (Duivestein & Bloem, 2013)

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Social Media Types

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Using social networking and social media types are benefitting people by bringing friends closer
together. Pewresearchcenter.com has documented and found that it has been statistically proven
that, most Americans who use social media types are more likely not to be isolated from the rest

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of society. (Social Networking Fact Sheet, 2014).

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Most adult users are using Facebook. This is because Facebook gives its users more than
just a social networking site between friends. Facebook gives the users many other things like,
being able to interact with many people across the country and even the world, games and
activities and also groups. Many older people lose friends and maybe a social life, Facebook is a
way for the older adult to be able to build their social life back up to what they like. (Social
Networking Fact Sheet, 2014). Mark Zuckerberg, and 4 of his college roommates founded
Facebook in 2004. It first started off as a dating site, and from there it skyrocketed to the biggest

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social media/networking site on the Internet. 71% of online adults have an active Facebook.
(Madden & Duggan, 2015). Facebook is the most common and most used social media/socialnetworking site. A decent amount of users comment on other people statuses, they comment their
opinions and how the feel. Most of the users like other people statuses that have been posted.
This gives the person who put up the post a good feeling. Liking someone elses post, means that
you either agree with them, and or you feel the same way they do, or you both have similar
interest. The minority of users sends private messages, which is 10%; these messages can either
be secrets, or maybe a way to start off a relationship. (Hampton, Sessions-Goulet, Raine, &
Purchell, 2011).

Even though people around the world can tell you the positives of Facebook, there are
some negatives. The way social media is today is that every little bit of news; rather negative or
positive, travels like wildfire. Having a Facebook can make you become aware of all the
negatives that surround your life; rather its in your hometown or even across the country. These
many different negative events can cause a high amount of stress in someones life. There is no
way to filter the negativity on your Facebook; you just have to deal with it. (Hampton, Shin,
Raine, Lu, & Purcell, 2015,).
Twitter has taken most of the active teens and young adults from Facebook. According to
Madden and Duggan research, as of 2014, 23% of all adult Internet users have an active twitter
account. The percentage in 2013 was 5% lower. Twitter has become the new Facebook for
teenagers and or young adults. There are more than 288 million monthly active users, and those
users send out roughly 500 million Tweets are sent per day. 80% of those users are tweeting and
accessing twitter from a mobile device. In addition to its relative novelty, the main appeal of

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twitter is that it's rapid and scan-friendly. You can also track hundreds of interesting tweeters, and
read their content in seconds. Twitter is also a great source for businesses to market. Thousands
of people advertise their recruiting services, their consulting businesses, their retail stores by
using Twitter. The modern internet-savvy user is tired of television and radio advertisements.
People today prefer business advertising that is less "in your face" and more of a turn off by will
type. (Madden & Duggan, 2015).

Instagram has become a mixture of both adults and teens. Mostly teens and young adults
use this social media site/app. Instagram is a fun and friendly way to share your life with friends
through a series of pictures. People will snap a photo with their mobile phone, and then they
choose a filter to transform the image into a memory to keep around forever. These pictures will
be liked, and sometimes commented on by other users and or friends. 26% of online adult users
are active members on instagram. Instagram is only applicable through a mobile device, which
means all active users must have a mobile device and or tablet, Ipad or iPod. In all columns that
have to do with the statistics of instagram, they have all risen tremendously since 2013.
Instagram has also become more of a teenager and young adult driven social media/networking
site. Theyre more females than males that are users on the site. (Madden & Duggan, 2015).

Most of these social media sites have skyrocketed and become so popular due to the fact
of their mobile device applications. These sites are more fun and easier to use because of the
smart phone applications. The younger generation takes the usage of social networking sites, by
using it on their phones. The usage of cell phones has skyrocketed the number of users for
different social media sites. In the article, the author gives statistics on how gender, race, age,

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education and income play a big role in the movement social networking on cell phones. The
statistics show that young people, blacks, Hispanics, the highly educated and those with a higher
annual household income are more likely to use social media sites on their phones than other
groups. (Social Networking Fact Sheet, 2014).

According to Amanda Lenhart of Pewreasearchcenter.com, The profit for mobile devices

has risen tremendously ever since the huge impact of social media applications. Most of the
phones that are being sold are smart phones. Smartphones make it easier for Americans (young
adults and teens) to access social media and social networking sites. Facebook, Twitter, and
Instagram have created mobile applications that allow users to access them any time and
anywhere. All of these apps are free through the specific application store of your smart mobile
device. Only smart phones are able to use these applications, even though each social media site
has a mobile site besides instagram, most people like the apps. (Social Networking Fact Sheet,
2014).

Social Media Relationships/Online Dating

Most of Americans between the ages of 20-40 are using dating sites. Dating sites are
helping most people through this age, because most of them are scared to interact face to face for
the first time. Most of the apps or sites people use are EHarmony and Match.com. The main
reason people use dating sites are to find people with common interest. Even though meeting
people online seems to have the image of "desperate", most Americans have either signed up for
an online dating site or know someone who has. (Lenhart, n.d.). These percentages are of a
census done in 2014 of couples and how the Internet and social media affect their lives. 10% of

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couples have stated that the Internet has affected them in a large way. 17% of those people say
that it only has affected them in a minor. The majority of people (72%) have stated that the
Internet holds no real weight on their relationship. 74% of adults have said that the Internet has
gave them a real positive impact.

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The negative impact was stated by 20& of the adults, while 4% said that, the impact was
either good or bad. (Lenhart & Duggan, 2014). Couples who have been together for a decade
and or less, have seem to have different views on technology and the way that it effects their
relationship. The couples that have interviewed for the article have stated that most of them have
used a dating site to find their significant other that they are currently with now. The longer that
the couple has been together, the more they stressed that social media and technology doesnt
have a huge impact on their relationship. However, the couples that havent been together for
more than a decade have stated that technology has had an impact on their relationship. Most of

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the controversy comes from sharing accounts and passwords. (Lenhart & Duggan, 2014).
According to Lenhart and Duggan (2014), 66% of adults that live in America that are married or
are in a type of committed relationship say that social media has a big key in the relationships.
(Lenhart & Duggan, 2014).
Americans view online dating and meeting people through social media as a bad thing.
Most people will never admit to using social media to find a dating partner and or sexual partner.
It seems desperate and frowned upon that people would try to find love on the Internet.
According to Aaron Smith and his poll that he took, 6% of adults have actually admitted that the
reason behind their social media accounts, is finding someone to love through the online
community. (Smith, 2014). One of the biggest negative things about online dating and or meeting
someone online is the trust factor. Meeting someone online doesnt always mean you are
interacting with someone who you think is true. People always lie on online dating sites.
Whether they do it because, they are truly ashamed of who they are, or because they find it fun to
play with people emotions. "Catfishing" has become a big part of online dating, and why the
view of it is so negative. Catfishing is the means to portray yourself to be someone youre not
online and trick someone into believing that. (Lenhart, n.d.)

Social Media Marketing

Marketing through social media has become well known and a better method for
companies. Social Media is seem to be more convincing than regular TV advertisements,
because social media is word of mouth. Even though companies have less control over if the

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comments, and whether they are negative or positive, it still seems to benefit them more. This
type of marketing is a new thing, but its marketing type that every company is expanding into.
More people are on the phone and on the Internet than watching TV. This world is becoming a
mobile device friendly society. (Arca, 2012, p. 4). Social media marketing is starting to become
the best solution for businesses and their marketing teams. The dying need to socialize in our
society has skyrocketed the way business profit from products. Yes, the negatives of the way
social media works are uncontrollable, but also how fast the positivity can spread is a good thing.

A couple tweets, Instagram post and Facebook posts can direct a consumers thoughts in a
couple minutes. People can hear more regulated reviews on the business website or on
commercials. With social media, you will always if no more get the honest truth from the
costumers. (Arca, 2012, p. 4). Social Media has lifted the industry to a predictable state in our
society. For example, when it comes to social media marketing, stores and other businesses that
sell goods, can predict a hypothesis of the profit. If something is badly commented about on
social media, the chances of the profit from the specific good will are negative and social media
can predict that. Also the way social media has a grip on peoples lives can predict the outcome
of many things, such as politic races, sport games, stock prices and winnings. (Asur &
Huberman, 2010, p. 5).
The prediction of outcomes and profits can be a negative of social media marketing.
However the negatives for social media marketing is not as big as the positives, but it is still one
of those things that each company pays attention to. According to Asur and Huberman of the
Social Computing labs in California, they have proven and stated, "The prices in these markets
have been shown to have strong correlations with observed outcome frequencies, and thus are

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good indicators of future outcomes". Most people would see this has more of a positive than a
negative, but in reality its a negative. If any company invests millions of dollars into a specific
product, and the social media hype is not a positive one. The company will start to figure out,
that their goals on a net profit will mostly not match up with the actual outcome. This can
severely hurt any type of business.

With these facts, the markets that have shown to be more negatively affected our movies,
and political debates and or elections. The negatives of social media marketing will never
change. It is always going to be the reviews and the knowing of a bad outcome. However, most
people say "bad press is good press", in this case that could be true. If so many people are
negatively commenting on a product, people might take it upon themselves to find out on there
on. Which will eventually cause positivity for the company. (Asur & Huberman, 2010, p. 5).

Conclusion
In conclusion, my research has in fact answered all of my questions. This research paper
has covered the main aspects of the use Social Media and how it affects the world on a day-today basis. I have found that there are a lot of more negatives to social media then what I
originally thought. Social media will only continue to rise and gain more of a control on what
Americans do in their daily lives. Social media will eventually be the main way Americans
interact and also how businesses market their brand.

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Works Cited

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every business create and develop its Social Media Sites?: Social media marketing.
Asur, S., & Huberman, B. A. (2010, March). Predicting the future with social media.
http://dx.doi.org.10.1016/j.apenergy.2013.03.027

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Duivestein, S., & Bloem, J. (2013). The dark side of social media (T. V. Manen, Ed.).
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