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Edison State Darke County Campus
Social Media: A
Good Thing or a Bad Thing?
By Jonathan Holman, Edison Comp 1 Student
Social media is one of the most argued subjects of today. From parents,
teachers, and reporters, to kids, students, and entertainers. It seems
as though everyone has a strong opinion on the subject in one way or
another. But this is all recent. The concept of social media has been
around for centuries. It wasn’t until now that people are starting to
question its methods and existence. It has been proven that there are
many things that make the idea seem both very good and bad. After you
have learned a thing or two about it, which side will you choose?
Per Drew Hendricks, from smallbiztrends.com, interacting with friends
and family across long distances has been a concern of humans for
centuries. As social animals, people have always relied on
communication to strengthen their relationships. When face-to-face
discussions are impossible or inconvenient, humans have dreamed up
plenty of creative solutions (Complete History of Social Media: Then
and now).
The roots of social media stretch far deeper than you might imagine.
Although it seems like a new trend, sites like Facebook are the natural
outcome of many centuries of social media development. The earliest
methods of communicating across great distances used written
correspondence delivered by hand from one person to another. In other
words, letters. The earliest form of postal service dates back to 550
B.C., and this primitive delivery system would become more widespread
and streamlined in future centuries (Complete History of Social Media:
Then and now).
In 1792, the telegraph was invented. This allowed messages to be
delivered over a long distance far faster than a horse and rider could
carry them. Although telegraph messages were short, they were a
revolutionary way to convey news and information. Although no longer
popular outside of drive-through banking, the pneumatic post, developed
in 1865, created another way for letters to be delivered quickly
between recipients. A pneumatic post utilizes underground pressurized
air tubes to carry capsules from one area to another (Complete History
of Social Media: Then and now).
Two important discoveries happened in the last decade of the 1800s: The
telephone in 1890 and the radio in 1891. Both technologies are still in
use today, although the modern versions are much more sophisticated
than their predecessors. Telephone lines and radio signals enabled
people to communicate across great distances instantaneously, something
that mankind had never experienced before (Complete History of Social
Media: Then and now).
Technology began to change very rapidly in the 20th Century. After the
first super computers were created in the 1940s, scientists and
engineers began to develop ways to create networks between those
computers, and this would later lead to the birth of the Internet. The
earliest forms of the Internet, such as CompuServe, were developed in
the 1960s. Early forms of email were also developed during this time.
By the 70s, networking technology had improved, and 1979’s UseNet
allowed users to communicate through a virtual newsletter. By the
1980s, home computers were becoming more common and social media was
becoming more sophisticated. Internet relay chats, or IRCs, were first
used in 1988 and continued to be popular well into the 1990’s (Complete
History of Social Media: Then and now).
The first recognizable social media site, Six Degrees, was created in
1997. It enabled users to upload a profile and make friends with other
users. In 1999, the first blogging sites became popular, creating a
social media sensation that’s still popular today (Complete History of
Social Media: Then and now).
In 2002, social networking really hit its stride with the launch of
Friendster. Friendster used a degree of separation concept similar to
that of the now-defunct SixDegrees.com, refined it into a routine
dubbed the “Circle of Friends,” and promoted the idea that a rich
online community can exist only between people who truly have common
bonds. And it ensured there were plenty of ways to discover those bonds
(The History of Social Networking).
After the invention of blogging, social media began to explode in
popularity. Sites like Myspace and LinkedIn gained prominence in the
early 2000s, and sites like Photobucket and Flickr facilitated online
photo sharing. YouTube came out in 2005, creating an entirely new way
for people to communicate and share with each other across great
distances. By 2006, Facebook and Twitter both became available to users
throughout the world. These sites remain some of the most popular
social networks on the Internet. Other sites like Tumblr, Spotify,
Foursquare and Pinterest began popping up to fill specific social
networking niches (Complete History of Social Media: Then and now).
As expected, the ubiquitous Facebook now leads the global social
networking pack. Founded, like many social networking sites, by
university students who initially peddled their product to other
university students, Facebook launched in 2004 as a Harvard-only
exercise and remained a campus-oriented site for two full years before
finally opening to the general public in 2006. Yet, even by that time,
Facebook was considered big business. So much so that, by 2009, Silicon
Valley bigwigs such as PayPal co-founder and billionaire Peter Thiel
invested tens of millions of dollars just to see it flourish (The
History of Social Networking).
Facebook is king for a reason. It wasn’t just through luck that founder
Mark Zuckerberg’s darling came to reign supreme over the social media
kingdom. It was, in fact, a series of smart moves and innovative
features that set the platform apart from the rest of the social media
pack. First and foremost, the 2007 launch of the Facebook Platform was
key to the site’s success. The open API made it possible for
third-party developers to create applications that work within Facebook
itself. Almost immediately after being released, the platform gained a
massive amount of attention. At one point in time, Facebook had
hundreds of thousands of apps built on the platform, so many that
Facebook launched the Facebook App Store to organize and display them
all. Twitter, meanwhile, created its own API and enjoyed similar
success as a result (The History of Social Networking).
Today, there is a tremendous variety of social networking sites, and
many of them can be linked to allow cross-posting. This creates an
environment where users can reach the maximum number of people without
sacrificing the intimacy of person-to-person communication. We can only
speculate about what the future of social networking may look in the
next decade or even 100 years from now, but it seems clear that it will
exist in some form for as long as humans are alive (Complete History of
Social Media: Then and now).
In March 2014, Facebook acquired Oculus VR, a company on the cusp of
mass producing virtual-reality headsets. Upon sealing the deal,
Zuckerberg commented regarding the communication potential for the
platform, highlighting the slew of potential uses for the virtual
technology when it comes to academics, viewing live events, and
consulting with doctors face-to-face. However, Facebook has taken a
hands-off approach in its management of Oculus VR, allowing the company
to continue focusing predominately on gaming applications while other
parties — i.e. the Pentagon — quietly look into using virtual reality
headsets for military purposes. A number of medical experts have even
begun using virtual reality to treat anxiety, combat-induced P.T.S.D.,
and other pronounced mental illnesses. Adult entertainment, meanwhile,
has invested in virtual reality for years (The History of Social
Networking).
It appears a good deal of people have high hopes that virtual reality
will become the next blockbuster computing platform. The technology
already exists, and with the consumer version of the Oculus Rift VR
headset released on sale in late 2014 for under $300, the potential for
widespread adoption of virtual reality has never been greater. Note
that augmented reality differs from virtual reality in that it applies
digital interaction to the real world instead of creating an
audio-visual experience from scratch. In terms of social networking,
augmented reality offers a number of possibilities. For instance,
people could share their name, interests, relationship status, and
mutual friends all within a digital sphere (The History of Social
Networking).
Believe it or not, augmented reality already exists in apps like Yelp
and Google Ingress. Smartphones are more than capable of delivering
augmented reality, and as one might expect, the technology is the
entire concept driving Google Glass’ digital integration with the real
world. Google’s deliberate decision to sell Glass at an inflated price
of $1,500, however, is likely meant to exclude the general public while
the tech giant and a selective group of consumers — aka “explorers”
work to hammer out the device’s flaws. The day Google lowers the price
of Glass to its estimated production cost of $150 marks the day when
widespread adoption of augmented reality, including augmented reality
in social networking, becomes a greater possibility. Until then,
there’s always Snapchat and the overuse of hashtags in just about
everything we do (The History of Social Networking).
As long of a history as social media may have, its evolution has
created some very split opinions on the subject. Many people may view
social media as a good way to catch criminals, while others may view
this as privacy exposure. For example, socialnetworking.procon.org
mentions that law enforcement uses social networking sites to catch and
prosecute criminals. 67% of federal, state, and local law enforcement
professionals surveyed think "social media helps solve crimes more
quickly." In 2011 the NYPD added a Twitter tracking unit and has used
social networking to arrest criminals who have bragged of their crimes
online. When the Vancouver Canucks lost the 2011 Stanley Cup in
Vancouver, the city erupted into riots. Social media was used to catch
vandals and rioters as social networking site users tagged the people
they knew in over 2,000 photos posted to the sites (Are Social
Networking Sites Good for Our Society).
While on the contradicting side, socialnetworking.procon.org also
mentions that Social networking sites lack privacy and expose users to
government and corporate intrusions. Thirteen million users said they
had not set or did not know about Facebook's privacy settings and 28%
shared all or nearly all their posts publicly. The US Justice
Department intercepted 1,661 pieces of information from social
networking sites and e-mails in 2011. The 2009 IRS training manual
teaches agents to scan Facebook pages for information that might
"assist in resolving a taxpayer case.” Nearly 4.7 million
Facebook users have "liked" a health condition or medical treatment
page, and that information is sometimes used by insurance companies to
raise rates (Are Social Networking Sites Good for Our Society).
However, social media has proven to be most useful when it comes to
finding the news or contacting friends or businesses. In fact, AJ
Agrawal, from forbes.com mentions that with so much of the global
community being nearly constantly connected to social media, delivering
news alerts on social media channels reaches more people faster. News
outlets can share breaking stories, alerts and other important bits of
news instantly with their followers. When more people are aware of a
situation, those working to secure locations and ensure the safety of
the general public can perform their job duties more efficiently (It's
Not All Bad: The Social Good of Social Media).
Ann Smarty from seochat.com, also mentioned that we are living in a
time where the world is open to us. We can contact anyone around the
world, at any time, with just a few keystrokes. It is free, unlike
calling across the ocean, and live. We can also share elements of our
life, from what we enjoy to photos of ourselves and those in our lives.
It is like being a part of that person’s world, even though distance
keeps you apart (Social Media and Society: The Good, the Bad and the
Ugly).
While on the other hand, Michael Kwan from
socialnetworking.lovetoknow.com, mentioned that Social networking, with
the noted exception of professional networks like LinkedIn, is mostly
geared toward personal use as a casual, leisurely activity. However,
social media addiction may be hampering worker's productivity when they
are in the office. Workers who surf social media instead of doing work
could be costing their employers millions of dollars in lost
productivity (Reasons Why Social Networking Is Bad).
Sarah Snow from socialmediatoday.com, also mentioned that Social media
has some serious repercussions on productivity. People are using social
media while they are supposed to be working. Social media has caused,
in a sense, the death of privacy. Not only do your friends and family
know everything about you, so does any company that can pay for your
data. Trolls. Social media and the Internet at large open us up to
criticism from anonymous trolls (Is Social Media Bad for Us).
On a different subject, Kelly Wallace from cnn.com, mentions that teens
say social media is more positive than negative. In fact, according to
a report last year by the nonprofit child advocacy group Common Sense
Media, one in five teens said social media makes them feel more
confident, compared with 4% who said it makes them feel less so. In the
survey of more than 1,000 13- to 17-year-olds about how they view their
digital lives, 28% said social networking made them feel more outgoing
versus 5% who said it made them feel less so; and 29% said it made them
feel less shy versus the 3% who said it made them feel more introverted
(The upside of selfies: Social media isn't all bad for kids).
Netessays.net, however, said that as teens become more and more
enthralled with social media, their everyday attitudes and behaviors
begin to change. Studies show that minors who are frequently active on
social media sites are more likely to use drugs and alcohol, be more
sexually active, and violent. Today it is normal for modern technology
to show many forms of violence such as gun battles, riots, sniper
attacks, and acts of physical violence (Is Social Media Good or Bad).
However, Nathan E. Baker from techwalla.com, said that for young people
and adolescents, using social media can lead to better social skills
like making friends and carrying on a conversation. Shy and introverted
users find it easier to interact with strangers when a computer screen
stands between them. This can be a great benefit for children with
handicaps that confine them to the home, giving them an opportunity to
interact with others while feeling safe, which can lead to greater
self-confidence (Six Good Things about Social Networking).
Yet at the same time, Brian Jung from smallbusiness.chron.com, mentions
that the immediacy provided by social media is available to predators
as well as friends. Kids especially are vulnerable to the practice of
cyber-bullying in which the perpetrators, anonymously or even posing as
people their victims trust, terrorize individuals in front of their
peers. The devastation of these online attacks can leave deep mental
scars. In several well-publicized cases, victims have even been driven
to suicide. The anonymity afforded online can bring out dark impulses
that might otherwise be suppressed. Cyber-bullying has spread widely
among youth, with 42% reporting that they have been victims, per a 2010
CBS News report (The Negative Effect of Social Media on Society and
Individuals).
As for what has been listed and argued, social media/networking is a
topic with a great deal of controversy. But that was the idea for
social media in the first place, “communication.” There have been many
arguments on social media based on whether it is a good or bad thing.
But in my opinion I still view it as a good thing. I know there are
several things that may consider it to be bad, but I think it is more
useful than harmful. On the points of no privacy, stalkers, and less
productivity, there are ways to prevent this. You can secure your
accounts, be less open to the public, and a manager could put
restrictions on how social media is used on the job. My philosophy is
that if it can be fixed, than it’s not broken. Or in this case, if it
can be prevented, then it’s not a bad thing.
Jonathan Holman was
a Composition 1 student at Edison State Community College, Darke County
Campus, in the fall semester. His essay, “Social Media: A Good Thing or
a Bad Thing?” was his Capstone Research Commentary. It is being
published with permission, and was chosen for CNO readers due to the
quality of the assignment submission and relevance of the topic. It
does not necessarily represent the opinion of County News Online or
Edison State Community College.
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