Since the industrial revolution, social media is considered the biggest change. The impact of social media is felt across many platforms. Social media has influenced communication, improved education, become a source of information, and promoted business opportunities.
Communication among people has been both negatively and positively affected by social media. The lack of censorship in the vast information communicated between the users is the reason why China put a ban on most social platforms (Sunstein, 2017, p. 63). However, social media is credited with encouraging self-expression among users (Ficarra & Francisco, 2011, p. 186). This is proven by the high number of posts, messages, and tweets across all the platforms. The posts are both personal and public; further illustrating the freedom encouraged on the social platforms.
Social media use in education incorporates a variety of methods and media platforms such as Skype, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (Arbor, 2011, p. 39). Learning in higher education is especially influenced by social media because of the freedom it offers. Lectures have been taken to the virtual world where “an online program allows users to see and hear each other over their computer screens” (Arbor, 2011, p. 39). Online classes are the same as physical classes because students ask questions and the lecturers answer them in real-time.
Information is provided in abundance across these social media platforms. From social media, “a quick search will tell you a great deal,” (Sunstein, 2017, p. 26). The unfiltered and abundant of supply information from sites such as Youtube, Facebook, Wikipedia, and other media platforms have shifted the acquisition from books. An example is the Haiti earthquake incident that saw the United States government agencies use social media technologies to mitigate the situation (Yates & Paquette, 2011, p. 6). Social media made an impact because of its ability to, “be flexible to the changing needs of the responders,” (Yates & Paquette, 2011, p. 8). The social media platforms provided information on the solutions, locations, maps of the city, and methods of retrieving the injured (Yates & Paquette, 2011). The successful shift in information sharing and gathering is attributed to the growing capabilities of social media.
The business world has revolutionized to embrace the significance of social media. The most significant influence social media has in business is marketing. “About 37% of the world’s population, are active on at least one social network,” (Tuten & Solomon, 2017, p. 20). The 37% equals over a third of the world’s population. The business world has since targeted this market because of its unlimited access. The social media platforms access millions of users at a single time; Facebook has over 1.8 billion users while Twitter has over 300 million (Tuten & Solomon, 2017, p. 23). A single advert is capable of being seen by all these users. The marketing systems of businesses are therefore investing in paid advertisements on social media. Business owners have also used social media for other purposes such as recruitment of new employees. Through LinkedIn, a social media platform that allows people with similar interests to stay connected, people and businesses find solutions. An example is when employees find jobs and, “business opportunities in response to recommendations from a contact in their network,” (Safko, 2010, p. 34). The connections are global therefore allowing businesses and people to be globally interconnected through these social platforms.
Conclusion
Social media is an important discovery that, however, requires censorship. Information on these sites is not regulated and governments, such as China, are keen on ensuring its control. The freedom in posting and access among the millions of users has created a vast pool of information and a market for businesses.
Works Cited
Arbor, A. (2011). How Social Media Can and Should Impact Higher Education. The Education Digest, 76(7), 39-42. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/openview/0a4dc78617c55256083c920762b5764d/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=25066
Ficarra, C., & Francisco, V. (2011). Microblogging as ana Assisted Learning Tool. In V. Paliktzoglou, & S. Jarkko, Handbook of Research on Interactive Information Quality in Expanding Social (pp. 186-187). Hershey: Information Science Reference.
Safko, L. (2010). The Social Media Bible (2 ed.). New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Sunstein, C. R. (2017). Divided Democracy in the Agw of Social Media. New Jersy: Princeton University Press.
Tuten, T. L., & Solomon, M. R. (2017). Social Media Marketing (3 ed.). Chennai: C&M Digitals.
Yates , D., & Paquette, S. (2011, February). Emergency knowledge management and social media technologies: A case study of the 2010 Haitian earthquake. International Journal of Information Management, 31(1), 6-13. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/8350258/Emergency_knowledge_management_and_social_media_technologies_A_case_study_of_the_2010_Haitian_earthquake?ends_sutd_reg_path=true
