Social media refers to the interaction or communication among people in which they create, share or exchange ideas on online networks. Social media is a generally new concept. The first social media site, MySpace, was only invented in 2003. This might explain the fact that only one of five adults use social media sites, while four of five people age eighteen or under said that they belong to at least one social media site. Social media greatly influences our current society in many positive ways. It is used in schools, businesses, and for advertisement. While many people today argue that social media takes away from real life relationships and that it can be dangerous, it can be very beneficial if it is used in the correct way.
For my project, I focused my research on three very popular social media sites; Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Twitter, founded in March of 2006 by Jack Dorsey, has over 650 million members. Thirty-two percent of Internet users use Twitter and 37.6% of that number use Twitter for conversational purposes. On average, 340 million tweets are sent every day. Sixty percent of Twitter users are females. Jack Dorsey created Twitter before most mobile phones were able to send text messages. He wanted a service in which he could send a message to and it would distribute that message to all of his friends, and so he created “Twitter”. Today, Twitter is one of the top 10 most visited websites on the Internet.
Said to be “Twitter’s Twin”, Instagram was founded in October of 2010 by Kevin Systrom, and currently has over 150 million users that are active on a monthly basis. Instagram was intended to be an online photo-sharing and social networking service that lets its users take pictures and upload them so that anyone else with an account can see them. Twenty percent of women and fifteen percent of men who use the Internet use Instagram. Instagram is said to have a higher appeal to younger users, people who live in cities and people who are not Caucasian. The number of Internet users who are members of Instagram has increased greatly, from twelve percent in 2012, to thirty-five percent in 2013. As of today’s date, 35 million “selfies” have been posted on Instagram.
The most popular social networking site, Facebook, was created on February 4, 2004 and was originally intended for the use of Harvard students only. As of September 26, 2006, everyone over the age of thirteen was allowed to register for a Facebook account. Even though Facebook is almost a decade old, its number of members is still greatly increasing. In 2012, 67% of online adults used Facebook, while in 2013 seventy-one percent used it. Universities originally used Facebook as a way for their students to meet each other and communicate. It is now used as a way to communicate with friends often with no educational reason, similar to most other social media sites.
In conclusion, social media sites are very recent ideas, but they appear to have very bright futures. The opportunities that social media provides for our society are countless and many companies and organizations are using them to better their communication. It helps make advertising and communicating much more efficient and the message gets across to more people. While some people may argue that social media is a waste of time and can be dangerous, as our society develops, social media will begin to have more and more of an impact on our daily lives.
