Source(what is social media)- https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/social-media.

asp

What Is Social Media?

Social media facilitates the sharing of ideas and information through virtual
networks. From Facebook and Instagram to Twitter and YouTube, social
media covers a broad universe of apps and platforms that allow users to
share content, interact online, and build communities. More than 4.7 billion
people use social media, equal to roughly 60% of the world’s population

Social media originated as a way to interact with friends and family but soon
expanded to serve many purposes. In 2004, MySpace was the first network
to reach one million monthly active users.
On average, global users spent 2.24 hours each day on social networks in
2020, the highest across almost any media type.
People use various social media applications to network career opportunities,
find others across the globe with like-minded interests, and share their
political views. Entertainers and politicians use social media to engage with
constituents and voters.
Source(what was life like before social media)- https://brilliantio.com/what-was-life-like-
before-social-media/#:~:text=Life%20was%20much%20simpler.,while%20others%20were
%20much%20slower.

What Was Life Like Before Social Media

Before social media, people were less connected but more involved in their
communities. They had fewer connections online but stronger relationships in
real life: they went to church together on Sundays or played board games as a
family; they met at bars after work; they helped each other move into new
houses or build fences around their property.
  It means that our sense of community has changed, our ability to connect face-to-
face with our social networks and share experiences as people in real-time on a social
media platform. And when we lose those skills, we also lose our understanding of
what it means to be human ourselves – because we have fewer opportunities to use
them in our daily life.
Source-https://theconversation.com/the-internet-hasnt-killed-privacy-but-it-has-
changed-it-forever-47220

Social media has changed the meaning of privacy

While it’s true that we’re sharing more information online than ever before, this
doesn’t mean that we no longer care about privacy. On the contrary, some curious
trends in how users share information on social media suggest we’re actually
becoming more cautious.

Back in the early 2000s when the first social networks MySpace and Facebook
appeared online, users were much more open with their personal information. Most
had “public” profiles, which could be accessed by anyone, and few cared much about
privacy.

But a host of high profile incidents have flashed through the mainstream media in the
last decade. People have been fired from their jobs, had their secrets
revealed, divorced and cyberbullied because of content on Facebook. So it’s no
wonder that users began to understand the perils of poor management of their online
privacy, and that Facebook users in particular have become more protective of their
personal information. Recent research proved that people are increasingly limiting the
data that is publicly shared with other Facebook users.

Multi-party menace
there are some privacy issues that can’t be addressed by adjusting user settings or
sharing in-jokes. Privacy is no longer only about what you say or disclose about
yourself online. It’s also about what others say or disclose about you. Privacy is
becoming a collective phenomenon.

At the moment, mainstream social media only gives control over privacy settings to
those who upload photos – not those who are in them. Take a simple but illustrative
example: if Alice uploads a photo of her and Bob, Alice is the one who controls who
gets to see the photo. But if Bob doesn’t want Alice’s friends to see him, it’s up to him
to get Alice to take the photo down, or else report it to the site administrator.

Privacy will keep changing forms in the future – particularly as new technologies are
created, existing ones mature and users’ perceptions of privacy evolve. The biggest
challenge will be to make sure that users have the tools they need to keep up with
these changes, and protect their privacy as they see fit.