A TERM PAPER

IMPACTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Introduction

Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the creation, sharing and aggregation

of content, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and

networks. Social media refers to new forms of media that involve interactive participation

(Aichner, et al 2021).

Some of the most popular social media websites, with more than 100 million registered users,

include Twitter, Facebook (and its

associated Messenger), WeChat, ShareChat, Instagram (and its associated

app Threads), QZone, Weibo, VK, Tumblr, Baidu Tieba, and LinkedIn, YouTube,

Letterboxd, QQ, Quora, Telegram, WhatsApp, Signal, LINE, Snapchat, Pinterest, Viber,

Reddit, Discord, TikTok, Microsoft Teams, and more. Wikis are examples of collaborative

content creation (Kietzmann, et al. 2011).

Social media outlets differ from traditional media (e.g. print magazines and newspapers, TV,

and radio broadcasting) in many ways, including quality, reach, frequency, usability,

relevancy, and permanence. Additionally, social media outlets operate in

a dialogic transmission system (i.e., many sources too many receivers) while traditional

media outlets operate under a monologic transmission model (i.e., one source too many

receivers). For instance, a newspaper is delivered to many subscribers, and a radio station

broadcasts the same programs to an entire city Kietzmann, et al. 2011).

Users usually access social media services through web-based

apps on desktops or download services that offer social media functionality to their mobile

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devices (e.g. smartphones and tablets). As users engage with these electronic services, they

create highly interactive platforms in which individuals, communities, and organizations can

share, co-create, discuss, participate, and modify user-generated or self-curated content

posted online. Additionally, social media are used to document memories, learn about and

explore things, advertise oneself, and form friendships along with the growth of ideas from

the creation of blogs, podcasts, videos, and gaming sites (Aichner, et al 2021). This changing

relationship between humans and technology is the focus of the emerging field

of technological self-studies.

Early computing

The PLATO system was launched in 1960 after being developed at the University of

Illinois and subsequently commercially marketed by Control Data Corporation. It offered

early forms of social media features with 1973-era innovations such as Notes, PLATO's

message-forum application; TERM-talk, its instant-messaging feature; Talkomatic, perhaps

the first online chat room; News Report, a crowdsourced online newspaper, and blog and

Access Lists, enabling the owner of a note file or other application to limit access to a certain

set of users, for example, only friends, classmates, or co-workers.

ARPANET, which first came online in 1967, had by the late 1970s developed a rich cultural

exchange of non-government/business ideas and communication, as evidenced by

the network etiquette (or "netiquette") described in a 1982 handbook on computing

at MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.[15] ARPANET evolved into the Internet following

the publication of the first Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)

specification, RFC 675 (Specification of Internet Transmission Control Program), written

by Vint Cerf, Yogen Dalal, and Carl Sunshine in 1974. This became the foundation

of Usenet, conceived by Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis in 1979 at the University of North

Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University, and established in 1980.

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A precursor of the electronic bulletin board system (BBS), known as Community Memory,

appeared by 1973. True electronic BBSs arrived with the Computer Bulletin Board System in

Chicago, which first came online on February 16, 1978. Before long, most major cities had

more than one BBS running on TRS-80, Apple II, Atari, IBM PC, Commodore 64, Sinclair,

and similar personal computers. The IBM PC was introduced in 1981, and subsequent models

of both Mac computers and PCs were used throughout the 1980s. Multiple modems, followed

by specialized telecommunication hardware, allowed many users to be online

simultaneously. CompuServe, Prodigy, and AOL were three of the largest BBS companies

and were the first to migrate to the Internet in the 1990s. Between the mid-1980s and the mid-

1990s, BBSes numbered in the tens of thousands in North America alone.

Message forums (a specific structure of social media) arose with the BBS phenomenon

throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. When the World Wide Web (WWW, or "the web")

was added to the Internet in the mid-1990s, message forums migrated to the web,

becoming Internet forums, primarily due to cheaper per-person access as well as the ability to

handle far more people simultaneously than telco modem banks.

Digital imaging and semiconductor image sensor technology facilitated the development and

rise of social media. Advances in metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) semiconductor device

fabrication, reaching smaller micron and then sub-micron levels during the 1980s–1990s, led

to the development of the NMOS (n-type MOS) active-pixel sensor (APS) at Olympus in

1985,[19][20] and then the complementary MOS (CMOS) active-pixel sensor (CMOS sensor)

at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in 1993. CMOS sensors enabled the mass

proliferation of digital cameras and camera phones, which bolstered the rise of social media.
[18]

Development of social-media platforms

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In 1991, when Tim Berners-Lee integrated hypertext software with the Internet, he created

the World Wide Web, marking the beginning of the modern era of networked

communication. This breakthrough facilitated the formation of online communities and

enabled support for offline groups through the use of weblogs, list servers,

and email services. The evolution of online services progressed from serving as channels for

networked communication to becoming interactive platforms for networked social interaction

with the advent of Web 2.0.

Social media started in the mid-1990s with the invention of platforms

like GeoCities, Classmates.com, and SixDegrees.com. While instant messaging and chat

clients existed at the time, SixDegrees was unique as it was the first online service designed

for real people to connect using their actual names. It boasted features like profiles, friends

lists, and school affiliations, making it "the very first social networking site" according

to CBS News. The platform's name was inspired by the "six degrees of separation" concept,

which suggests that every person on the planet is just six connections away from everyone

else.

In the early 2000s, social media platforms gained widespread popularity with the likes

of Friendster and Myspace, followed by Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, among others.

Research from 2015 shows that the world spent 22% of their online time on social networks,

thus suggesting the popularity of social media platforms, likely fueled by the widespread

adoption of smartphones. There are as many as 4.76 billion social media users in the world

which, as of January 2023, equates to 59.4% of the total global population.

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Discussions

Observers have noted a wide range of positive and negative impacts when it comes to the use

of social media. The following are some positive impacts of social media:

 Social media can help to improve an individual's sense of connectedness with real or

online communities and can be an effective communication (or marketing) tool for

corporations, entrepreneurs, non-profit organizations, advocacy groups, political

parties, and governments.

 Observers have also seen that there has been a rise in social movements using social

media as a tool for communicating and organizing in times of political unrest.

 Social media can also be used to read or share news, whether it is true or false.

 Social media apps are online platforms that enable users to create and share content

and participate in social networking.

 User-generated content such as text posts or comments, digital photos or videos,

and data generated through all online interactions is the lifeblood of social media.

 Users create service-specific profiles for the website or app that are designed and

maintained by the social media organization.

 Social media helps the development of online social networks by connecting a user's

profile with those of other individuals or groups (Aichner, et al 2021).

While social media is useful in the above ways, observers have also put forth some negative

impacts of social media.

 Distract from homework, exercise and family activities.

 Disrupt sleep.

 Lead to information that is biased or not correct.

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  Become a means to spread rumors or share too much personal information.

 Lead some teens to form views about other people's lives or bodies that aren't

realistic.

 Expose some to online predators, who might try to exploit or extort them.

 Expose some teens to cyberbullying, which can raise the risk of mental health

conditions such as anxiety and depression.

 It leads some youths to engage in unnecessary competitions

 It takes away originality from our society

 It leads to cybercrime

 Social media has become a platform for show of nakedness

 Social media has promoted academic laziness amongst others (Aichner, et al 2021).

Conclusion

The term social in regard to media suggests that platforms are user-centric and enable

communal activity. As such, social media can be viewed as online facilitators or enhancers of

human networks webs of individuals who enhance social connectivity. Certain content

related to risk-taking, and negative posts or interactions on social media, have been linked

with self-harm and rarely, death. The risks of social media use are linked with various factors.

One may be how much time teens spend on these platforms. In all, social media has harm

than good to our youths and society. We can reduce the effects of social media on youths by:

 Setting rules and limits as needed

 Turning on privacy settings

 Monitoring their accounts

 Having regular talks with them about social media

 Being a role model for your them

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 Explaining what's not OK

 Encouraging face-to-face contact with friend

Bibliography

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