The uses and abuses of social media

Social media has become a very important aspect of our daily lives. Nine years ago Facebook had around 175 million users (Kaplain & Haenlein, 2010) and Instagram, Whatsapp, and Snapchat were barely an idea. Nowadays Facebook has around 2.196 billion users (N.d., 2018).

Social media has become engrained into society. Many people find it very hard to not check their phones every few minutes. This is because it has been scientifically proven that using social media releases dopamine, the feel good hormone, in to our system (Hosie, 2017). In her article in the UK newspaper The Independent, Hosie (2017) explains how the expectation of comments and likes on social media is what releases the dopamine.

So what we get addicted to is not the actual rush of, say the comment you just received on your latest Instagram, but rather the anticipation of it - most of the time, actually reading that comment doesn’t live up to our expectations (Hosie, 2017).

This reason, amongst others, is the reason why social media is extremely addicting. As with all things there are advantages and disadvantages to social media. Some people abuse it for their own person gain.

Although many people believe Facebook to be the mother of all things social media, it wasn’t the first social media system. In 2011 AdWeek published an infographic on their website showing the history of social media (O’Neill, 2011). Below you will find the different media that led to the creation of Facebook and others like it.

Social media’s initial use was to create a connection between multiple people, to create a community. Although this is still what social media is mainly used for, its purpose has changed slightly throughout the past few years. Facebook started out as a way for Harvard students to openly communicate with each other, nowadays Facebook is available in almost every country in the world. It also has evolved slightly in its use. In 2008 you would post on your wall. It was a sort of metaphor for writing graffiti on a wall. This then changed into a timeline. This is important to note as Facebook moved from just posting a short statement about your day to being a sort of presentation of your life and your achievements. Facebook adapts itself to what its users are doing and how they are using it. When Facebook saw that their users were creating Facebook groups in order to sell items, they created the marketplace option for groups. They starting monetising videos like YouTube does and they even recently started giving people the option to donate money through Facebook. Facebook has also become a way of advising loved ones about your safety in the event of a catastrophe in your area by marking yourself as safe. This is a far cry away from a small social network allegedly made to rate girls.

Although Facebook is the social media that changed the most since its conception some of the other popular social media have also changed their purpose and uses since their births. Snapchat was released back in 2011. Initially snapchat was created as an alternate way of messaging your friends by messaging using just pictures that would delete after the receiver viewed them. Over time snapchat grew and started to include stories. Rather than have a perma-death, stories allow any friend to view them over a 24-hour period. In 2015 Snapchat introduced filters. This revolutionised social media in general. Soon after Snapchat introduced filter, Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp all came up with their own versions of stories and filters. 

Since social media is such a large part of society nowadays the negative aspects of society are also prevalent. Unfortunately, computer screens and mobile phones have become a sort of shield. However, instead of protecting users from negativity they protect negative people from the consequences of their actions. This leads to an increase of cyberbullying. 

One great thing about social media is that people are free to post whatever they want without repercussions. At least people have the illusion that they can post whatever they want without repercussions. What tends to happen is that people forget that although Facebook might not have laws (although they do), their country still has laws. This brings about the question as to whether countries should have a say in what is censored on the internet or if the social media company itself should be held responsible for what is said on their site. In 2016 two men in Malta were fined 3000 euros each for hateful comments they posted on Facebook (Camilleri, 2016). However, is it truly possible to fine every person who makes hateful comments on the internet. If that were the case the state would be a lot richer than it currently is. Where do you draw the line? Can you sue someone for libel for something they posted on their personal Facebook or Twitter page? The lines between law and censorship are blurry and believe it or not social media is still in its infancy. Most probably these questions will end up getting answered over the next few years as governments start to realise that they must adapt alongside the internet. 

Although social media has come a long way over the past 10 to 15 years it still has a long way to go. The internet is constantly sprouting out new social networking sites. There is a large possibility that the social networks we all know and love today will be obsolete in the next five years. The next generation of social networks will have a strong foundation of what to do and hopefully society will learn from its past relationships with social media and the list of abuses will be shorter in the future.

References

Camilleri, N. (2016). Two men fined €3,000 each for hate speech over racist facebook comments. The Malta Independant Retrieved from http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2016-11-29/local-news/Two-men-fined-3-000-each-for-hate-speech-over-racist-Facebook-comments-6736167258

Hosie, R. (2017). The psychological reason you can't stop checking your phone. Independent Retrieved from https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/why-keep-checking-phone-psychology-smartphone-notifications-social-media-a7572916.html

Kaplan, A. M. & Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2009.09.003

N.d. (2018). Number of monthly active Facebook users worldwide as of 1st quarter 2018 (in millions) Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/

O'Neill, M. (2011). Do you remember what “Social” was before facebook? Adweek Retrieved from https://www.adweek.com/digital/short-history-of-social-media/