Impact of social media by Darren Phang (November 2019)

Impact of social media by Darren Phang

November 2019

In a world where technologies and machinery are currently skyrocketing to be more advanced and complex, the use of social media has been increasing rapidly these past few years due to the utilization of mobile phones. Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have become so popular and have captured not dozens but millions of people across the world. It is slowly but surely becoming a priority in everyone’s lives as the benefits outshine their workloads.  This paper discusses the impact of social media upon our society.

According to Ahmad (2019), social media is most known for its ability to connect with anyone around the world regardless of their distances from each other. The beauty of connectivity is that people are able to express their opinions and beliefs despite of their skin colour or religion. People’s thoughts and theories are able to be spoken out and be heard of due to the overwhelming replies and shares the media holds. Social media can help reach larger audiences as there are millions of users on every social media platforms. This not only brings awareness to everyone in a short period of time, but also saves the cost of communication unlike the ancient era where newspaper was still the common use.

Other than that, social media provides us information and facts that may help us in the near future. It is so vast and accessible that everyone is able to know the latest and shocking events that are happening around the world within seconds of just clicking. The help of social media has tremendously revolutionized the way in sharing information. News coverage on television and print medias these days are mostly corrupted and biased because they rarely states the truth, which leaves people questioning on what happens behind closed doors. Therefore, people tend to look up on the internet for the true details by doing some research as they seem more believable and accurate. It is undoubtedly insane how fast the media is able to obtain information on a certain event that happened just minutes ago (Ahmad, 2019).

Gawkroger (2019) stated that building a brand on social media is also commonly regarded as a good marketing technique for a business. Almost every social platform allows people to post original content and promote products which strengthen the structure of their brand recognition. This technique not only builds brand loyalty among their audience or consumers, it also provides better customer service and gains honest reviews or feedback regarding the state on how well their business is doing so far. They can reach out to customers who are having issues and address them accordingly through direct messages which can encourage customers to further consumption of their product in a positive manner.

          

Nonetheless, social media also have its downsides. Social media can be used by the likes of people who crave the urge to bring other people down online as it does not acquire face-to-face interaction. The media platform is so huge that anyone is able to create a fake account without being traced to start wrecking havoc on the internet. People can send death threats, rumors and disturbing messages to an opposing person, otherwise known as cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is another form of harassment that mostly teenagers would commonly do as they presume it is nothing but a plain joke. This can happen anytime of the day as it is not physical interaction but by the utilization of digital phones. If there is no actions taken from further harassment, they will seek to commit suicide as they feel like their self-being is worthless or pointless (Blake, nd).

In conclusion, social media can be used as a dangerous tool and has no doubt changed the society’s perspective to be more permissive. It can leave malicious effects or provide a smoother lifestyle for people. Although there are mixed responses on whether social media has been a huge part of our lives, but we can’t deny that it has been a huge lifesaver to us when it comes to communication or transport. The presence of social media can be bittersweet among the society as it can used for the goodness or for the worse. People should start seeing social media as a virtual world where communication is an ease and information exists in all different forum sites. It is no doubt that social media will continue to capture many more individuals in the future as it is a diverse element.

References

Ahmad, B. (2019).  Advantages and disadvantages of social media for society. Techmaish.com. Available at: https://www.techmaish.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-social-media-for-society/ [Accessed 10 Nov. 2019].

Blake, M. (nd). Social networking. https://socialnetworking.lovetoknow.com/ [Accessed 9 Nov. 2019].

Gawkroger, P. (2019).  Advantages of social media. https://medium.com/@clinguen/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-social-media-47cd957b73d5