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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. [1] [2] Although not unchallenged, [3] [4] common features include: [2]
The term social in regard to media suggests platforms enable communal activity. Social media can enhance and extend human networks. [8] Users access social media through web-based apps or custom apps on mobile devices. These interactive platforms alow individuals, communities, and organizations to share, co-create, discuss, participate in, and modify user-generated or self-curated content. [9] [7] [1] Social media are used to document memories, learn, and form friendships. [10] They may be used to promote people, companies, products, and ideas. [10] Social media can be used to consume, publish, or share news.
Popular social media platforms with more than 100 million registered users include X, Facebook, WeChat, ShareChat, Instagram, Pinterest, QZone, Weibo, VK, Tumblr, Baidu Tieba, and LinkedIn. Depending on interpretation, other popular platforms that are sometimes referred to as social media services include YouTube, Letterboxd, QQ, Quora, Telegram, WhatsApp, Signal, LINE, Snapchat, Pinterest, Viber, Reddit, Discord, TikTok, Microsoft Teams. Wikis are examples of collaborative content creation.
Social media outlets differ from old media (e.g. newspapers, TV, and radio broadcasting) in many ways, including quality, [11] reach, frequency, usability, relevancy, and permanence. [12] Social media outlets operate in a dialogic transmission system (many sources to many receivers) while traditional media operate under a monologic transmission model (one source to many receivers). For instance, a newspaper is delivered to many subscribers, and a radio station broadcasts the same programs to a city. [13]
Observers have noted a range of positive and negative impacts from social media. Social media can help to improve an individual's sense of connectedness with others and be an effective communication (or marketing) tool for corporations, entrepreneurs, non-profit organizations, advocacy groups, political parties, and governments. Social movements use social media for communicating and organizing. Social media has been criticized for a range of negative impacts on children and teenagers, including exposure to inappropriate content, exploitation by adults, sleep problems, attention problems, feelings of exclusion, and various mental health maladies. [14] [15]
The PLATO system was launched in 1960 at the University of Illinois and subsequently commercially marketed by Control Data Corporation. It offered early forms of social media features with 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 came online in 1967, had by the late 1970s enabled 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. [16] ARPANET evolved into the Internet in the 1990s. [17] Usenet, conceived by Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis in 1979 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University, was the first open social media app, established in 1980.
A precursor of the electronic bulletin board system (BBS), known as Community Memory, appeared by 1973. Mainstream BBSs arrived with the Computer Bulletin Board System in Chicago, which launched on February 16, 1978. Before long, most major US cities had more than one BBS, running on TRS-80, Apple II, Atari, IBM PC, Commodore 64, Sinclair, and similar personal computers. 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. [18] Message forums were the signature BBS phenomenon throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.
In 1991, Tim Berners-Lee integrated HTML hypertext software with the Internet, creating the World Wide Web. This breakthrough led to an explosion of blogs, list servers, and email services. Message forums migrated to the web, and evolved into Internet forums, supported by cheaper access as well as the ability to handle far more people simultaneously.
These early text-based systems expanded to include images and video in the 21st century, aided by digital cameras and camera phones. [19]
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. [8]
Social media started in the mid-1990s with the invention of platforms like GeoCities, Classmates.com, and SixDegrees.com. [20] While instant messaging and chat clients existed at the time, SixDegrees was unique as it was the first online service designed for people to connect using their actual names instead of anonymously. It boasted features like profiles, friends lists, and school affiliations, making it "the very first social networking site". [20] [21] 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. [22]
In the early 2000s, social media platforms gained widespread popularity with the likes of Friendster and Myspace, followed by Facebook, YouTube, and X. [23]
Research from 2015 reported that globally, users spent 22% of their online time on social networks, [24] likely fueled by the availability of smartphones. [25] As of 2023 as many as 4.76 billion people used social media [26] some 59% of the global population.
A 2015 review identified four features unique to social media services: [2]
In 2019, Merriam-Webster defined social media as "forms of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos)." [27]
Social media encompasses an expanding suite of services: [28]
Some services offer more than one type of service. [7]
Mobile social media refers to the use of social media on mobile devices such as phones and tablets. It is distinguished by its ubiquity, since users no longer have to be at desk in order to participate on a computer. Mobile services can further make use of the user's immediate location to offer information, connections, or services relevant to that location.
According to Andreas Kaplan, mobile social media activities fall among four types: [29]
Certain content has the potential to spread virally, an analogy for the way viral infections spread contagiously from individual to individual. One user spreads a post across their network, which leads those users to follow suit. A post from a relatively unknown user can reach vast numbers of people within hours. Virality is not guaranteed; few posts make the transition.
Viral marketing campaigns are particularly attractive to businesses because they can achieve widespread advertising coverage at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing campaigns. Nonprofit organizations and activists may also attempt to spread content virally.
Social media sites provide specific functionality to help users re-share content, such as X's and Facebook's "like" option. [30]
Bots are automated programs that operate on the internet. [31] They automate many communication tasks. This has led to the creation of an industry of bot providers. [32]
Chatbots and social bots are programmed to mimic human interactions such as liking, commenting, and following. [33] Bots have also been developed to facilitate social media marketing. [34] Bots have led the marketing industry into an analytical crisis, as bots make it difficult to differentiate between human interactions and bot interactions. [35] Some bots violate platforms' terms of use, which can result in bans and campaigns to eliminate bots categorically. [36] Bots may even pose as real people to avoid prohibitions. [37]
'Cyborgs'—either bot-assisted humans or human-assisted bots [37] —are used for both legitimate and illegitimate purposes, from spreading fake news to creating marketing buzz. [38] [39] [40] A common use claimed to be legitimate includes posting at a specific time. [41] A human writes a post content and the bot posts it a specific time. In other cases, cyborgs spread fake news. [37] Cyborgs may work as sock puppet s, where one human pretends to be someone else, or operates multiple accounts, each pretending to be a person.
A multitude of United States patents are related to social media, growing rapidly.[ citation needed ]As of 2020 [update] , over 5000 social media patent applications had been published in the United States. [42] Only slightly over 100 patents had been issued. [43]
As an instance of technological convergence, various social media platforms adapted functionality beyond their original scope, increasingly overlapping with each other.
Examples are the social hub site Facebook launching an integrated video platform in May 2007, [44] and Instagram, whose original scope was low-resolution photo sharing, introducing the ability to share quarter-minute 640×640 pixel videos [45] (late extended to a minute with increased resolution). Instagram later implemented stories (short videos self-destructing after 24 hours), a concept popularized by Snapchat, as well as IGTV , for seekable videos. [46] Stories were then adopted by YouTube. [47]
X, whose original scope was text-based microblogging, later adopted photo sharing, [48] then video sharing, [49] [50] then a media studio for business users, after YouTube's Creator Studio. [51]
The discussion platform Reddit added an integrated image hoster replacing the external image sharing platform Imgur, [52] and then an internal video hosting service, [53] followed by image galleries (multiple images in a single post), known from Imgur. [54] Imgur implemented video sharing. [55] [56]
YouTube rolled out a Community feature, for sharing text-only posts and polls. [57]
According to Statista, it is estimated that, in 2022, around 3.96 billion people were using social media globally. This number is up from 3.6 billion in 2020. [58]
The following is a list of the most popular social networking services based on the number of active users as of January 2024 [update] per Statista. [59]
# | Network | Number of users (millions) | Country of origin |
---|---|---|---|
1 | 3,049 | United States | |
2 | YouTube | 2,491 | United States |
3 | 2,000 | United States | |
3 | 2,000 | United States | |
5 | TikTok | 1,526 | China |
6 | 1,336 | China | |
7 | Facebook Messenger | 979 | United States |
8 | Telegram | 800 | Russia |
9 | Douyin | 752 | China |
10 | Snapchat | 750 | United States |
11 | Kuaishou | 685 | China |
12 | X | 619 | United States |
A 2009 study suggested that individual differences may help explain who uses social media: extraversion and openness have a positive relationship with social media, while emotional stability has a negative sloping relationship with social media. [61] A 2015 study reported that people with a higher social comparison orientation appear to use social media more heavily than people with low social comparison orientation. [62]
Common Sense Media reported that children under age 13 in the United States use social networking services despite the fact that many social media sites require users to be 13 or older. [63] In 2017, the firm conducted a survey of parents of children from birth to age 8 and reported that 4% of children at this age used social media sites such as Instagram, Snapchat, or (now-defunct) Musical.ly "often" or "sometimes". [64] Their 2019 survey surveyed Americans ages 8–16 and reported that about 31% of children ages 8–12 use social media. [65] In that survey, teens aged 16–18 were asked when they started using social media. the median age was 14, although 28% said they started to use it before reaching 13.
Social media played a role in communication during the COVID-19 pandemic. [66] In June 2020, a survey by Cartoon Network and the Cyberbullying Research Center surveyed Americans tweens (ages 9–12) and reported that the most popular application was YouTube (67%). [67] (as age increased, tweens were more likely to have used social media apps and games.) Similarly, Common Sense Media's 2020 survey of Americans ages 13–18 reported that YouTube was the most popular (used by 86% of 13- to 18-year-olds). [68] As children aged, they increasingly utilized social media services and often used YouTube to consume content.
Platform | Overall | Boys | Girls | 9-year-olds | 12-year-olds |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
YouTube | 67% | 68% | 66% | 53.6% | 74.6% |
Minecraft | 48% | 61% | 35% | 43.6% | 49.9% |
Roblox | 47% | 44% | 49% | 41.2% | 41.7% |
Google Classroom | 45% | 48% | 41% | 39.6% | 49.3% |
Fortnite | 31% | 43% | 20% | 22.2% | 38.9% |
TikTok | 30% | 23% | 30% | 16.8% | 37% |
YouTube Kids | 26% | 24% | 28% | 32.7% | 22.1% |
Snapchat | 16% | 11% | 21% | 5.6% | 22.3% |
Facebook Messenger Kids | 15% | 12% | 18% | 19.1% | 10.4% |
15% | 12% | 19% | 3% | 28.8% | |
Discord | 8% | 11% | 5% | 0.7% | 14.4% |
8% | 6% | 9% | 2.2% | 15% | |
Twitch | 5% | 7% | 2% | 1.0% | 9.9% |
None of the above | 5% | 6% | 5% | 9.6% | 3.3% |
Platform | 2020 | 2017 |
---|---|---|
YouTube | 86% | 70% |
69% | 60% | |
Snapchat | 68% | 59% |
TikTok | 47% | N/A |
43% | 63% | |
X | 28% | 36% |
14% | 6% | |
Another social networking service | 2% | 3% |
Do not use social networking service | 4% | 6% |
While adults were using social media before the COVID-19 pandemic, more started using it to stay socially connected and to get pandemic updates.
"Social media have become popularly use to seek for medical information and have fascinated the general public to collect information regarding corona virus pandemics in various perspectives. During these days, people are forced to stay at home and the social media have connected and supported awareness and pandemic updates." [69]
Healthcare workers and systems became more aware of social media as a place people were getting health information:
"During the COVID-19 pandemic, social media use has accelerated to the point of becoming a ubiquitous part of modern healthcare systems." [70]
This also led to the spread of disinformation. On December 11, 2020, the CDC put out a "Call to Action: Managing the Infodemic". [71] Some healthcare organizations used hashtags as interventions and published articles on their X data: [72]
"Promotion of the joint usage of #PedsICU and #COVID19 throughout the international pediatric critical care community in tweets relevant to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic and pediatric critical care." [72]
However others in the medical community were concerned about social media addiction, as it became an increasingly important context and therefore "source of social validation and reinforcement" and were unsure whether increased social media use was harmful. [73]
Year | Platform | Developer/Founder |
---|---|---|
1973 | Talkomatic | Dave Wooly, Douglas Brown |
1997 | SixDegrees.com | Andrew Weinreich |
1997 | AOL Instant Messenger | Barry Appelman, Eric Bosco, Jerry Harris |
1999 | Yahoo Messenger | Jerry Yang, David Filo |
1999 | MSN Messenger | Microsoft |
1999 | LiveJournal | Brad Fitzpatrick |
2002 | Friendster | Jonathan Abrams |
2003 | Reid Hoffman | |
2003 | Myspace | Thomas Anderson |
2003 | Skype | Niklas Zennström, Janus Friis |
2004 | Mark Zuckerberg | |
2004 | Orkut | Orkut Büyükkökten |
2005 | YouTube | Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim |
2005 | Aaron Swartz | |
2006 | X | Jack Dorsey |
2006 | VK | Pavel Durov |
2008 | Nextdoor | Nirav Tolia, Sarah Leary, Prakash Janakiraman, David Wiesen |
2009 | Brian Acton, Jan Koum | |
2010 | Ben Silbermann | |
2010 | Kevin Systrom | |
2011 | Snapchat | Evan Spiegel |
2011 | Google+ | Bradley Horowitz |
2011 | Twitch | Justin Kan |
2011 | Allen Zhang | |
2012 | Tinder | Sean Rad |
2013 | Vine | Dom Hofmann, Rus Yusupov, Colin Kroll |
2013 | Google Hangouts | Larry Page, Sergey Brin |
2014 | musical.ly | Alex Zhu, Luyu Yang |
2015 | Discord | Jason Citron, Stan Vishnevskiy |
2017 | TikTok | Zhang Yiming |
2020 | Clubhouse | Paul Davison, Rohan Seth |
2020 | BeReal | Alexis Barreyat, Kévin Perreau |
2023 | Threads | Meta Platforms |
Governments may use social media to (for example): [74]
Social media has been used extensively in civil and criminal investigations. [76] It has also been used to search for missing persons. [77] Police departments often make use of official social media accounts to engage with the public, publicize police activity, and burnish law enforcement's image; [78] [79] conversely, video footage of citizen-documented police brutality and other misconduct has sometimes been posted to social media. [79]
In the United States, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement identifies and track individuals via social media, and has apprehended some people via social media-based sting operations. [80] U.S. Customs and Border Protection (also known as CPB) and the United States Department of Homeland Security use social media data as influencing factors during the visa process, and monitor individuals after they have entered the country. [81] CPB officers have also been documented performing searches of electronics and social media behavior at the border, searching both citizens and non-citizens without first obtaining a warrant. [81]
As social media gained momentum among the younger generations, governments began using it to improve their image, especially among the youth. In January 2021, Egyptian authorities were reported to be using Instagram influencers as part of its media ambassadors program. The program was designed to revamp Egypt's image and to counter the bad press Egypt had received because of the country's human rights record. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates participated in similar programs. [82] Similarly, Dubai has extensively relied on social media and influencers to promote tourism. However, Dubai laws have kept these influencers within limits to not offend the authorities, or to criticize the city, politics or religion. The content of these foreign influencers is controlled to make sure that nothing portrays Dubai in a negative light. [83]
Business uses social media for marketing, branding, [84] advertising, communication, sales promotions, informal employee-learning/organizational development, competitive analysis, recruiting, relationship management/loyalty programs, [29] and e-Commerce. Companies use social-media monitoring tools to monitor, track, and analyze conversations to aid in their marketing, sales and other programs. Tools range from free, basic applications to subscription-based, tools. Social media offers information on industry trends. Within the finance industry, companies use social media as a tool for analyzing market sentiment. These range from marketing financial products, market trends, and as a tool to identify insider trading. [85] To exploit these opportunities, businesses need guidelines for use on each platform. [5]
Business use of social media is complicated by the fact that the business does not fully control its social media presence. Instead, it makes its case by participating in the "conversation". [86] Business uses social media [87] on a customer-organizational level; and an intra-organizational level.
Social media can encourage entrepreneurship and innovation, by highlighting successes, and by easing access to resources that might not otherwise be readily available/known. [88]
Social media marketing can help promote a product or service and establish connections with customers. Social media marketing can be divided into paid media, earned media, and owned media. [89] Using paid social media firms run advertising on a social media platform. Earned social media appears when firms do something that impresses stakeholders and they spontaneously post content about it. Owned social media is the platform markets itself by creating/promoting content to its users. [90]
Primary uses are to create brand awareness, engage customers by conversation (e.g., customers provide feedback on the firm) and providing access to customer service. [91] Social media's peer-to-peer communication shifts power from the organization to consumers, since consumer content is widely visible and not controlled by the company. [92]
Social media personalities, often referred to as "influencers", are internet celebrities who are sponsored by marketers to promote products and companies online. Research reports that these endorsements attract the attention of users who have not settled on which products/services to buy, [93] especially younger consumers. [94] The practice of harnessing influencers to market or promote a product or service to their following is commonly referred to as influencer marketing.
In 2013, the United Kingdom Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) began advising celebrities to make it clear whether they had been paid to recommend a product or service by using the hashtag #spon or #ad when endorsing. The US Federal Trade Commission issued similar guidelines. [95]
Social media platforms also enable targeting specific audiences with advertising. Users of social media can share, and comment on the advertisement, turning passive consumers into active promoters and even producers. [96] Targeting requires extra effort by advertisers to understand how to reach the right users. [5] Companies can use humor (such as shitposting) to poke fun at competitors. [97] Advertising can even inspire fanart which can engage new audiences. [98] Hashtags (such as #ejuice and #eliquid) are one way to target interested users. [99]
User content can trigger peer effects, increasing consumer interest even without influencer involvement. A 2012 study focused on this communication reported that communication among peers can affect purchase intentions: direct impact through encouraging conformity, and an indirect impact by increasing product engagement. This study claimed that peer communication about a product increased product engagement. [100]
Social media have a range of uses in politics. [101] Politicians use social media to spread their messages and influence voters. [102]
Dounoucos et al. reported that X use by candidates was unprecedented during the US' 2016 election. [103] [104] The public increased its reliance on social-media sites for political information. [103] In the European Union, social media amplified political messages. [105] Foreign-originated social-media campaigns attempt to influence political opinion in another country. [106] [107] [108]
Social media was influential in the Arab Spring in 2011. [109] [110] [111] [112] However, debate persists about the extent to which social media facilitated this. [113] Activists have used social media to report the abuse of human rights in Bahrain. They publicized the brutality of government authorities, who they claimed were detaining, torturing and threatening individuals. Conversely, Bahrain's government used social media to track and target activists. The government stripped citizenship from over 1,000 activists as punishment. [114]
Militant groups use social media as an organizing and recruiting tool. [115] Islamic State (also known as ISIS) used social media. In 2014, #AllEyesonISIS went viral on Arabic X. [116] [117]
Social media use in hiring refers to the examination by employers of job applicants' (public) social media profiles as part of the hiring assessment. For example, the vast majority of Fortune 500 companies use social media as a tool to screen prospective employees and as a tool for talent acquisition. [118]
This practice raises ethical questions. Employers and recruiters note that they have access only to information that applicants choose to make public. Many Western-European countries restrict employer's use of social media in the workplace. States including Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin protect applicants and employees from surrendering usernames and passwords for social media accounts.[ citation needed ] Use of social media as caused significant problems for some applicants who are active on social media. A 2013 survey of 17,000 young people in six countries found that one in ten people aged 16 to 34 claimed to have been rejected for a job because of social media activity. [119] [120]
Social media services have been reported to affect deception in resumes. While these services do not affect deception frequency, it does increase deception about interests and hobbies.[ citation needed ]Scientists use social media to share their scientific knowledge and research on platforms such as ResearchGate, LinkedIn, Facebook, X, and Academia.edu. [121] The most common platforms are X and blogs. The use of social media reportedly has improved the interaction between scientists, reporters, and the general public. [ citation needed ] Over 495,000 opinions were shared on X related to science between September 1, 2010, and August 31, 2011. [122] Science related blogs respond to and motivate public interest in learning, following, and discussing science. Posts can be written quickly and allow the reader to interact in real time with authors. [123] One study in the context of climate change reported that climate scientists and scientific institutions played a minimal role in online debate, exceeded by nongovernmental organizations. [124]
Academicians use social media activity to assess academic publications, [125] to measure public sentiment, [126] identify influencer accounts, [127] or crowdsource ideas or solutions. [128]
In some places, students have been forced to surrender their social media passwords to school administrators. [129] Few laws protect student's social media privacy. Organizations such as the ACLU call for more privacy protection. They urge students who are pressured to give up their account information to resist. [130]
Colleges and universities may access applicants' internet services including social media profiles as part of their admissions process. According to Kaplan, Inc, a corporation that provides higher education preparation, in 2012 27% of admissions officers used Google to learn more about an applicant, with 26% checking Facebook. [131] Students whose social media pages include questionable material may be disqualified from admission processes.
"One survey in July 2017, by the American Association of College Registrars and Admissions Officers, reported that 11 percent of respondents said they had refused to admit an applicant based on social media content. This includes 8 percent of public institutions, where the First Amendment applies. The survey reported that 30 percent of institutions acknowledged reviewing the personal social media accounts of applicants at least some of the time." [132]
Social media comments and images have been used in court cases including employment law, child custody/child support, and disability claims. After an Apple employee criticized his employer on Facebook, he was fired. When the former employee sued Apple for unfair dismissal, the court, after examining the employee's Facebook posts, reported in favor of Apple, stating that the posts breached Apple's policies. [133] After a couple broke up, the man posted song lyrics "that talked about fantasies of killing the rapper's ex-wife" and made threats. A court reported him guilty. [133] [ clarification needed ] In a disability claims case, a woman who fell at work claimed that she was permanently injured; the employer used her social media posts to counter her claims. [133]
Courts do not always admit social media evidence, in part, because screenshots can be faked or tampered with. [134] Judges may consider emojis into account to assess statements made on social media; in one Michigan case where a person alleged that another person had defamed them in an online comment, the judge disagreed, noting that an emoji after the comment that indicated that it was a joke. [134] In a 2014 case in Ontario against a police officer regarding alleged assault of a protester during the G20 summit, the court rejected the Crown's application to use a digital photo of the protest that was anonymously posted online, because it included no metadata verifying its provenance. [134]
Social media as a news source is the use of online social media platforms rather than moreover traditional media platforms to obtain news. Just as television turned a nation of people who listened to media content into watchers of media content in the 1950s to the 1980s, the emergence of social media has created a nation of media content creators. Almost half of Americans use social media as a news source, according to the Pew Research Center. [135]
As a participatory platform that allows for user-generated content [136] [137] and sharing content within one's own virtual network, [138] [136] using social media as a news source allows users to engage with news in a variety of ways, [139] including:
Using social media as a news source has become an increasingly more popular way for old and young adults alike to obtain information. There are ways that social media positively affects the world of news and journalism but it is important to acknowledge that there are also ways in which social media has a negative effect on the news that people consume such as false news, biased news, and disturbing content.
A 2019 Pew Research Center poll reported that Americans are wary about the ways that social media sites share news and certain content. [140] This wariness of accuracy grew as awareness that social media sites could be exploited by bad actors who concoct false narratives and fake news. [141]Social media are used to socialize with friends and family [4] pursue romance and flirt, [4] but not all social needs can be fulfilled by social media. [142] For example, a 2003 article reported that lonely individuals are more likely to use the Internet for emotional support than others. [143] A 2018 survey from Common Sense Media reported that 40% of American teens ages 13–17 thought that social media was "extremely" or "very" important for them to connect with their friends. [144] The same survey reported that 33% of teens said social media was extremely or very important to conduct meaningful conversations with close friends, and 23% of teens said social media was extremely or very important to document and share their lives. [144] A 2020 Gallup poll reported that 53% of adult social media users in the United States thought that social media was a very or moderately important way to keep in touch with people during the COVID-19 pandemic. [145]
In Alone Together Sherry Turkle considered how people confuse social media usage with authentic communication. [146] She claimed that people act differently online and are less concerned about hurting others' feelings. Some online encounters can cause stress and anxiety, due to the difficulty purging online posts, fear of getting hacked, or of universities and employers exploring social media pages. Turkle speculated that many people prefer texting to face-to-face communication, which can contribute to loneliness. [146] Surveys from 2019 reported evidence among teens in the United States [144] and Mexico. [147] Some researchers reported that exchanges that involved direct communication and reciprocal messages correlated with less loneliness. [148]
In social media "stalking" or "creeping" refers to looking at someone's "timeline, status updates, tweets, and online bios" to find information about them and their activities. [149] A sub-category of creeping is creeping ex-partners after a breakup. [150]
Catfishing (creating a false identity) allows bad actors to exploit the lonely. [151]
Self-presentation theory proposes that people consciously manage their self-image or identity related information in social contexts. [152] One aspect of social media is the time invested in customizing a personal profile. [153] Some users segment their audiences based on the image they want to present, pseudonymity and use of multiple accounts on the same platform offer that opportunity. [154]
A 2016 study reported that teenage girls manipulate their self-presentation on social media to appear beautiful as viewed by their peers. [155] Teenage girls attempt to earn regard and acceptance (likes, comments, and shares). When this does no go well, self-confidence and self-satisfaction can decline. [155] A 2018 survey of American teens ages 13–17 by Common Sense Media reported that 45% said likes are at least somewhat important, and 26% at least somewhat agreed that they feel bad about themselves if nobody responds to their photos. [144] Some evidence suggests that perceived rejection may lead to emotional pain, [156] and some may resort to online bullying. [157] according to a 2016 study, users' reward circuits in their brains are more active when their photos are liked by more peers. [158]
A 2016 review concluded that social media can trigger a negative feedback loop of viewing and uploading photos, self-comparison, disappointment, and disordered body perception when social success is not achieved. [159] One 2016 study reported that Pinterest is directly associated with disordered dieting behavior. [160]
People portray themselves on social media in the most appealing way. [155] However, upon seeing one person's curated persona, other people may question why their own lives are not as exciting or fulfilling. One 2017 study reported that problematic social media use (i.e., feeling addicted to social media) was related to lower life satisfaction and self-esteem. [161] Studies have reported that social media comparisons can have dire effects on physical and mental health. [162] [163] In one study, women reported that social media was the most influential source of their body image satisfaction; while men reported them as the second biggest factor. [164] While monitoring the lives of celebrities long predates social media, the ease and immediacy of direct comparisons of pictures and stories with one's own may increase their impact.
A 2021 study reported that 87% of women and 65% of men compared themselves to others on social media. [165]
Efforts to combat such negative effects focused promoting body positivity. In a related study, women aged 18–30 were reported posts that contained side-by-side images of women in the same clothes and setting, but one image was enhanced for Instagram, while the other was an unedited, "realistic" version. Women who participated in this experiment reported a decrease in body dissatisfaction. [166]
Social media can offer a support system for adolescent health, because it allows them to mobilize around health issues that they deem relevant. [167] For example, in a clinical study among adolescent patients undergoing obesity treatment, participants' claimed that social media allowed them to access personalized weight-loss content as well as social support among other adolescents with obesity. [168] [169]
While social media can provide health information, it typically has no mechanism for ensuring the quality of that information. [169] The National Eating Disorders Association reported a high correlation between weight loss content and disorderly eating among women who have been influenced by inaccurate content. [169] [170] Health literacy offers skills to allow users to spot/avoid such content. Efforts by governments and public health organizations to advance health literacy reportedly achieved limited success. [171]
Social media such as pro-anorexia sites reportedly increase risk of harm by reinforcing damaging health-related behaviors through social media, especially among adolescents. [172] [173] [174]
During the coronavirus pandemic, inaccurate information from all sides spread widely via social media. [175] Topics subject to distortion included treatments, avoiding infection, vaccination, and public policy. Simultaneously, governments and others influenced social media platforms to suppress both accurate and inaccurate information in support of public policy. [176] Heavier social media use was reportedly associated with more acceptance of conspiracy theories, leading to worse mental health [177] and less compliance with public health recommendations. [178]
Social media platforms can serve as a breeding ground for addiction-related behaviors, with studies report that excessive use can lead to addiction-like symptoms. These symptoms include compulsive checking, mood modification, and withdrawal when not using social media, which can result in decreased face-to-face social interactions and contribute to the deterioration of interpersonal relationships and a sense of loneliness. [179]
Journalistic influence has grown less important with the rise of social media, whereas social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube and X, provide an alternative supply of news sources. Further, many users offer their own narratives about events, complicating the process of unearthing the truth. [180] [181] An example of this is the response to the Trayvon Martin shooting. Media coverage of the incident was minimal until social media users elevated it. Only a month later, online coverage attracted national coverage from mainstream media. [182]
A 2017 study reported on a link between sleep disturbance and the use of social media. It concluded that blue light from computer/phone displays—and the frequency rather than the duration of time spent, predicted disturbed sleep, termed "obsessive 'checking'". [186] The association between social media use and sleep disturbance has clinical ramifications for young adults. [187] A recent study reported that people in the highest quartile for weekly social media use experienced the most sleep disturbance. The median number of minutes of social media use per day was 61. Females were more likely to experience high levels of sleep disturbance. [188] Many teenagers suffer from sleep deprivation from long hours at night on their phones, and this left them tired and unfocused in school. [189] A 2011 study reported that time spent on Facebook was negatively associated with GPA, but the association with sleep disturbance was not established. [190]
One studied effect of social media is 'Facebook depression', which affects adolescents who spend too much time on social media. [10] This may lead to reclusiveness, which can increase loneliness and low self-esteem. [10] Social media curates content to encourage users to keep scrolling. [187] Studies report children's self-esteem is positively affected by positive comments and negatively affected by negative or lack of comments. This affected self-perception. [191] A 2017 study of almost 6,000 adolescent students reported that those who self-reported addiction-like symptoms of social media use were more likely to report low self-esteem and high levels of depressive symptoms. [192]
A second emotional effect is social media burnout, defined as ambivalence, emotional exhaustion, and depersonalization. Ambivalence is confusion about the benefits from using social media. Emotional exhaustion is stress from using social media. Depersonalization is emotional detachment from social media. The three burnout factors negatively influence the likelihood of continuing on social media. [193]
A third emotional effect is "fear of missing out" (FOMO), which is the "pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent." [194] It is associated with increased scrutiny of friends on social media. [194]
Social media can also offer support as X has done for the medical community. [195] X facilitated academic discussion among health professionals and students, while providing a supportive community for these individuals by and allowing members to support each other through likes, comments, and posts. [196] Access to social media offered a way to keep older adults connected, after the deaths of partners and geographical distance between friends and loved ones. [197]
The digital divide is the unequal access to digital technology, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, and the internet. [198] [199] The digital divide worsens inequality around access to information and resources. In the Information Age, people without access to the Internet and other technology are at a disadvantage, for they are unable or less able to connect with others, find and apply for jobs, shop, and learn. [198] [200]
People who are homeless, living in poverty, elderly people, and those living in rural communities may have limited access to the Internet; in contrast, urban middle class and upper-class people have easy access to the Internet. Another divide is between producers and consumers of Internet content, [201] [202] which could be a result of educational disparities. [203] While social media use varies across age groups, a US 2010 study reported no racial divide. [204]According to the Pew Research Center and others, a majority of Americans at least occasionally receive news from social media. [205] [206] Because of recommendation algorithms that filter and display news content that matches users' political preferences, one potential impact is an increase in political polarization due to selective exposure. Political polarization is the divergence of political attitudes towards ideological extremes. Selective exposure occurs when an individual favors information that supports their beliefs and avoids information that conflicts with them. A 2016 study of U.S. elections revealed gender differences in the political use of X between candidates. [207] On social media women discuss policy issues at a higher rate than males. The study concluded that an increase in female candidates correlated to an increase in the amount of attention paid to policy issues, potentially heightening polarization. [208]
Efforts to combat selective exposure may increase political polarization. A study examining X activity paid Democrat and Republican participants to follow X users whose content was different from their political beliefs (Republicans received liberal content and Democrats received conservative content) over a six-week period. [209] At the end of the study, both Democrat and Republican participants were reported to have increased political polarization in favor of their own parties, though only Republican participants had an increase that was statistically significant. [209]
Though some research reported that social media increases political polarization, others reported that social media can persuade users to change their beliefs. [210] [211] A 2016 online survey of 1,024 U.S. users reported that individuals who use social media were more likely to have their political beliefs persuaded than those who did not. In particular, those using social media as a means to receive news were the most likely to change their beliefs. [210] The persuasion reported by participants was influenced by their exposure to diverse viewpoints, in content they saw as well as political discussions they participated in. [210] Another similar 2016 study conducted with 189 university students examined the persuasive effect of watching a political comedy video on Facebook, reporting that after watching comedian/political commentator John Oliver, participants were likely to be persuaded to change their viewpoint on the topic (either payday lending or the Ferguson protests) to one that was closer to Oliver. [211] The persuasive effect was reported to be reduced if they viewed comments by Facebook users that contradicted Oliver. [211]
Research has also reported that social media use may not affect polarization at all. [212] A U.S. national survey of 1,032 participants reported that participants who used social media were more likely to be exposed to diverse people and opinions than others, although using social media was not correlated with a change in political polarization for these participants. [212]
A 2017 study examining the potential polarizing effects of social media on the political views of its users suggested that a new way of engaging with social media must occur to avoid polarization. [213] The authors stated that media literacy (described as methods that people can use to critique and create media) are valuable, and state that such skills must develop in order to be the most effective. In order to decrease polarization and encourage cooperation among social media users, Relevant skills included connecting with others in a caring way, embracing differences, and understanding the impact of social media on political, social, and cultural issues. [213]
A 2018 study reported that social media increases the power of stereotypes. [214] Stereotypes can have both negative and positive connotations. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, youth were accused of responsibility for spreading the disease. [215] Elderly people get stereotyped as lacking knowledge of proper behavior on social media. [216]
Social media allows for mass cultural exchange and intercultural communication, despite different ways of communicating in various cultures. [217]
Social media has affected the way youth communicate, by introducing new forms of language. [218] Novel acronyms save time, as illustrated by "LOL", which is the ubiquitous shortcut for "laugh out loud".
The hashtag was created to simplify searching for information and to allow users to highlight topics of interest in the hope of attracting the attention of others. Hashtags can be used to advocate for a movement, mark content for future use, and allow other users to contribute to a discussion. [219]
For some young people, social media and texting have largely replaced in person communications, made worse by pandemic isolation, delaying the development of conversation and other social skills. [220]
What is socially acceptable is now heavily based on social media. [221] The American Academy of Pediatrics reported that bullying, the making of non-inclusive friend groups, and sexual experimentation have increased cyberbullying, privacy issues, and sending sexual images or messages. Sexting and revenge porn became rampant, particularly among minors, with legal implications and resulting trauma risk. [222] [223] [224] [225] However, adolescents can learn basic social and technical skills online. [226] Social media, can strengthen relationships just by keeping in touch, making more friends, and engaging in community activities. [10]
Historically, platforms were responsible for moderating the content that they presented. They set rules for what was allowable, decided which content to promote and which to ignore. The US enacted the Communications Decency Act in 1996. Section 230 of that act exempted internet platforms from legal liability for content authored by third parties.
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." (47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(1)).
— US Congress, Communications Decency Act Section 230
The European Union initially took a similar approach. [227] However, in 2020, the European Commission presented two legislative proposals: The Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Both proposals were enacted in July 2022. The DSA entered into force on 17 February 2024, the DMA in March 2024. [228] This legislation can be summarized in the following four objectives, articulated by MEPs:
Violators could face a complete ban in Europe or fines of up to 6% of global sales. Such content moderation requires extensive investment by platform providers. [231] Enforcement resources may not be sufficient to ensure compliance. [232]
Tthe DSA allows a country to require information to be deleted that is illegal only in that jurisdiction. [233] For example, Hungary could require a video to be deleted that is in part critical of its government, but the video would then be unavailable in other EU countries as well.
2018 Nobel Laureate Paul Romer [234] advocated taxing negative externalities of social media platforms. [231] Similar to a carbon tax – negative social effects could be compensated for by a financial levy on the platforms. [235] Assuming that the tax did not deter the actions that produced the externalities, the revenue raised could be used to address them. However, consensus has yet to emerge on how to measure or mitigate the harms, nor to craft a tax, .
Another proposal is to invoke competition law. [236] The idea is to restrict the platforms' market power by controlling mergers ex ante and tightening the law. This would be achieved through a supranational enforcement mechanism and the deterrent effect of high fines.
The business model of most social media platforms is based on selling slots to advertisers. Platforms provide access to data about each user, which allows them to deliver adds that are individually relevant to them. This strongly incents platforms to arrange their content so that users view as much content as possible, increasing the number of ads that they see. Platforms such as X add paid user subscriptions in part to reduce their dependence on advertising revenues. [237]
The enormous reach and impact of social media has naturally led to a stream of criticism, debate, and controversy. Criticisms include platform capabilities, content moderation and reliability, [238] impact on concentration, mental health, [239] content ownership, and the meaning of interactions, and poor cross-platform interoperability, [240] decrease in face-to-face interactions, cyberbullying, sexual predation, particularly of children, and child pornography. [241] [242]
In 2007 Andrew Keen wrote, "Out of this anarchy, it suddenly became clear that what was governing the infinite monkeys now inputting away on the Internet was the law of digital Darwinism, the survival of the loudest and most opinionated. Under these rules, the only way to intellectually prevail is by infinite filibustering." [243]
Social media has become a regular source of news and information. A 2021 Pew Research Center poll reported roughly 70% of users regularly get news from social media, [6] despite the presence of fake news and misinformation. Platforms typically do not take responsibility for content accuracy, and many do not vet content at all, although in some cases, content the platform finds problematic is deleted or access to it is reduced. [244] [245] [246] Content distribution algorithms otherwise typically ignore substance, responding instead to the contents' virality.
In 2018, researchers reported that fake news spread almost 70% faster than truthful news on X. [9] Social media bots on social media increase the reach of both true and false content and if wielded by bad actors misinformation can reach many more users. [12] Some platforms attempt to discover and block bots, with limited success. [13] Fake news seems to receive more user engagement, possibly because it is relatively novel, engaging users' curiosity and increasing spread. [25] Fake news often propagates in the immediate aftermath of an event, before conventional media are prepared to publish. [22] [18]
Social media mining is the process of obtaining data from user-generated content on social media in order to extract actionable patterns, form conclusions about users, and act upon the information. Mining supports targeting advertising to users or academic research. The term is an analogy to the process of mining for minerals. Mining companies sift through raw ore to find the valuable minerals; likewise, social media mining sifts through social media data in order to discern patterns and trends about matters such as social media usage, online behaviour, content sharing, connections between individuals, buying behaviour. These patterns and trends are of interest to companies, governments and not-for-profit organizations, as such organizations can use the analyses for tasks such as design strategies, introduce programs, products, processes or services.
Social media mining uses concepts from computer science, data mining, machine learning, and statistics. Mining is based on social network analysis, network science, sociology, ethnography, optimization and mathematics. It attempts to formally represent, measure and model patterns from social media data. [247] In the 2010s, major corporations, governments and not-for-profit organizations began mining to learn about customers, clients and others.
Platforms such as Google, Facebook (partnered with Datalogix and BlueKai) conduct mining to targe users with advertising. [248] Scientists and machine learning researchers extract insights and design product features. [249]
Users may not understand how platforms use their data. [250] Users tend to click through Terms of Use agreements without reading them, leading to ethical questions about whether platforms adequately protect users' privacy.
During the 2016 United States presidential election, Facebook allowed Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm linked to the Trump campaign, to analyze the data of an estimated 87 million Facebook users to profile voters, creating controversy when this was revealed. [251]Malcolm Gladwell considers the role of social media in revolutions and protests to be overstated. He concluded that while social media makes it easier for activists to express themselves, that expression likely has no impact beyond social media. What he called "high-risk activism" involves strong relationships, coordination, commitment, high risks, and sacrifice. [252] Gladwell claimed that social media are built around weak ties and argues that "social networks are effective at increasing participation—by lessening the level of motivation that participation requires." [252] According to him, "Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice, but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice." [252]
Disputing Gladwell's theory, a 2018 survey reported that people who are politically expressive on social media are more likely to participate in offline political activity. [253]
Social media content is generated by users. However, content ownership is defined by the Terms of Service to which users agree. Platforms control access to the content, and may make it available to third parties. [254]
Although platform's terms differ, generally they all give permission to utilize users' copyrighted works at the platform's discretion. [255]
After its acquisition by Facebook in 2012, Instagram revealed it intended to use content in ads without seeking permission from or paying its users. [256] [257] It then reversed these changes, with then-CEO Kevin Systrom promising to update the terms of service. [258] [259]
Privacy rights advocates warn users about the collection of their personal data. Information is captured without the user's knowing consent. Data may be applied to law enforcement or other governmental purposes. [260] [254] Information may be offered for third party use.
Young people are prone to sharing personal information that can attract predators. [261]
While social media users claim to want to keep their data private, their behavior does not reflect that concern, as many users expose significant personal data on their profiles.
In addition, platforms collect data on user behaviors that are not part of their personal profiles. This data is made available to third parties for purposes that include targeted advertising. [262]
Mills offers options for reform which include copyright and the application of the law of confidence; more radically, a change to the concept of privacy itself.
A 2014 Pew Research Center survey reported that 91% of Americans "agree" or "strongly agree" that people have lost control over how personal information is collected and used by all kinds of entities. Some 80% of social media users said they were concerned about advertisers and businesses accessing the data they share on social media platforms, and 64% said the government should do more to regulate advertisers. [263] The Wall Street Journal stated in 2019, that according to UK law, Facebook did not protect certain aspects of user data. [264]
The US government announced banning TikTok and WeChat from the States over national security concerns. The shutdown was announced for September 20, 2020. Access to TikTok was extended until 12 November 2020, [265] and a federal court ruling on October 30, 2020, has blocked further implementation of restrictions that would lead to TikTok's shutdown. [266]
Additionally, in 2019 the Pentagon issued guidance to the US Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and other government agencies that identified "the potential risk associated with using the TikTok app and directs appropriate action for employees to take in order to safeguard their personal information." [267] As a result, the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Transportation Security Administration, and Department of Homeland Security banned the installation and use of TikTok on government devices, including blacklisting it on intranet services. [268]
The commercial development of social media has been criticized as the actions of consumers in these settings have become increasingly value-creating, for example when consumers contribute to the marketing and branding of specific products by posting positive reviews. As such, value-creating activities also increase the value of a specific product, which could, according to marketing professors Bernad Cova and Daniele Dalli (2009), lead to what they refer to as "double exploitation". [269]
As social media usage has become increasingly widespread, social media has to a large extent come to be subjected to commercialization by marketing companies and advertising agencies. [270] In 2014 Christofer Laurell, a digital marketing researcher, suggested that the social media landscape currently consists of three types of places because of this development: consumer-dominated places, professionally dominated places and places undergoing commercialization. [271] As social media becomes commercialized, this process has been reported to create novel forms of value networks stretching between consumer and producer [272] in which a combination of personal, private and commercial contents are created. [273]
Social media addiction [274] has various social effects.
As one of the biggest preoccupations among adolescents is social media usage, in 2011 researchers began using the term "Facebook addiction disorder" (F.A.D.), a form of internet addiction disorder. [275] FAD is characterized by compulsive use of the social networking site Facebook, which generally results in physical or psychological complications. The disorder, although not classified in the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) or by the World Health Organization, has been the subject of several studies focusing on the negative effects of social media use on the psyche. One German study published in 2017 investigated a correlation between excessive use of the social networking site and narcissism; the results were published in the journal PLoS One . According to the findings: "FAD was significantly positively related to the personality trait narcissism and to negative mental health variables (depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms)". [276] [277]
In 2020, Netflix released The Social Dilemma , which raises concerns about the problematic effects of social media. In the documentary, mental health experts and former employees of social media companies explain how social media is designed to be addictive. One example that's reported is when an AI detects that someone has not visited Facebook for some time, it may choose different notifications that it predicts are most likely to cause them to re-visit the platform. This AI takes into account everything that each person has done on that platform.
The documentary also raises concerns about the correlation between child and teen suicides and suicide attempts and increasing social media usage in the United States, particularly usage on mobile. [278]
Turning off social media notifications temporarily or long-term may help reduce problematic social media use. [279] In certain cases and for some users, changes in their web browsing environments can be helpful in compensating for self-regulatory problems. For instance, a study involving 157 online learners on massive open online courses examined the impact of self-regulatory intervention on learners' web browsing behavior. The results reported that, on average, learners spend half of their time online on YouTube and social media, and less than 2% of visited websites account for nearly 80% of their time spent online. Further, the study reported that modifying the learners' web environment, specifically by providing support in self-regulation, was associated with changes in behavior, including a reduction in time spent online, particularly on websites related to entertainment. This suggests there is a potential for interventions to improve self-regulatory skills, which may effectively help learners reduce excessive social media usage and manage their signs of social media misuse more effectively. [280]
Having social media in the classroom was a controversial topic in the 2010s. Many parents and educators have been fearful of the repercussions of having social media in the classroom. [281] There are concerns that social media tools can be misused for cyberbullying or sharing inappropriate content. As result, cell phones have been banned from some classrooms, and some schools have blocked many popular social media websites. Many schools have realized that they need to loosen restrictions, teach digital citizenship skills, and even incorporate these tools into classrooms. Some schools permit students to use smartphones or tablet computers in class, as long as the students are using these devices for academic purposes, such as doing research. Using Facebook in class allows for the integration of multimodal content such as student-created photographs and video and URLs to other texts, in a platform that many students are already familiar with. X can be used to enhance communication building and critical thinking and it provides students with an informal "back channel", and extend discussion outside of class time.
Social media often features in political struggles to control public perception and online activity. In some countries, Internet police or secret police monitor or control citizens' use of social media. For example, in 2013 some social media was banned in Turkey after the Taksim Gezi Park protests. Both X and YouTube were temporarily suspended in the country by a court's decision. A new law, passed by Turkish Parliament, has granted immunity to Telecommunications Directorate (TİB) personnel. The TİB was also given the authority to block access to specific websites without the need for a court order. [282] Yet TİB's 2014 blocking of X was ruled by the constitutional court to violate free speech. [283] More recently, in the 2014 Thai coup d'état, the public was explicitly instructed not to 'share' or 'like' dissenting views on social media or face prison. In July of that same year, in response to WikiLeaks' release of a secret suppression order made by the Victorian Supreme Court, media lawyers were quoted in the Australian media to the effect that "anyone who tweets a link to the WikiLeaks report, posts it on Facebook, or shares it in any way online could also face charges". [284] On 27 July 2020, in Egypt, two women were sentenced to two years of imprisonment for posting TikTok videos, which the government claims are "violating family values". [285]
Mastodon, GNU social, Diaspora, Friendica and other compatible software packages operate as a loose federation of mostly volunteer-operated servers, called the Fediverse, which connect with each other through the open source protocol ActivityPub. In early 2019, Mastodon successfully blocked the spread of violent right-wing extremism when the X alternative Gab tried to associate with Mastodon, and their independent servers quickly contained its dissemination. [286]
In December 2019, X CEO Jack Dorsey made a similar suggestion, stating that efforts would be taken to achieve an "open and decentralized standard for social media". Rather than "deplatforming", such standards would allow a more scalable, and customizable approach to content moderation and censorship, and involve a number of companies, in the way that e-mail servers work.[ citation needed ]
Deplatforming is a form of Internet censorship in which controversial speakers or speech are suspended, banned, or otherwise shut down by social media platforms and other service providers that normally provide a venue for free expression. [287] These kinds of actions are similar to alternative dispute resolution. [288] : 4 As early as 2015, platforms such as Reddit began to enforce selective bans based, for example, on terms of service that prohibit "hate speech". [289] According to technology journalist Declan McCullagh, "Silicon Valley's efforts to pull the plug on dissenting opinions" have included, as of 2018 [update] , X, Facebook, and YouTube "devising excuses to suspend ideologically disfavored accounts". [290]
Most people see social media platforms as censoring objectionable political views. [291]
This section needs additional citations for verification .(December 2020) |
According to Danah Boyd (2011), the media plays a large role in shaping people's perceptions of specific social networking services. When looking at the site MySpace, after adults started to realize how popular the site was becoming with teens, news media became heavily concerned with teen participation and the potential dangers they faced using the site. As a result, teens avoided joining the site because of the associated risks (e.g. child predators and lack of control), and parents began to publicly denounce the site. Ultimately, the site was labeled as dangerous, and many were detracted from interacting with the site. [292]
As Boyd also describes, when Facebook initially launched in 2004, it solely targeted college students and access was intentionally limited. Facebook started as a Harvard-only social networking service before expanding to all other Ivy League schools. It then made its way to other top universities and ultimately to a wider range of schools. Because of its origins, some saw Facebook as an "elite" social networking service. While it was very open and accepting to some, it seemed to outlaw and shun most others who did not fit that "elite" categorization. These narratives propagated by the media influenced the large movement of teenage users from one social networking service to another. [292]
According to LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media, [293] the use of effective social media marketing techniques is not only limited to celebrities, corporations, and governments, but also extremist groups to carry out political objectives. [294] The use of social media by ISIS and Al-Qaeda has been used to influence in areas of operation and gain the attention of sympathizers. Social media platforms like YouTube, X, Facebook, and encrypted-messaging applications have been used to increase recruiting of members, both locally and internationally. [295] Larger platforms like YouTube, X, and others have received backlash for allowing this content (see Use of social media by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant). The use of social media to further extremist objectives is not only limited to Islamic terrorism, but also extreme nationalist groups, and more prominently, US right-wing extremist. As many traditional social media platforms banned hate speech, several platforms have become popular among right-wing extremists to carry out planning and communication including of events; these application became known as "Alt-tech". Platforms such as Telegram, Parler, and Gab were used during the January 6 United States Capitol attack, to coordinate attacks. [296] Members shared tips on how to avoid law enforcement and their plans on carrying out their objectives; users called for killings of law enforcement and politicians. [297]
Social media content, like most content on the web, will continue to persist unless the user deletes it. This brings up the inevitable question of what to do once a social media user dies, and no longer has access to their content. [298] As it is a topic that is often left undiscussed, it is important to note that each social media platform, e.g., X, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, has created its own guidelines for users who have died. [299] In most cases on social media, the platforms require a next-of-kin to prove that the user is deceased, and then give them the option of closing the account or maintaining it in a 'legacy' status.
Platform | Guideline |
---|---|
X [300] | If a user has died, the company will work with an immediate family member to deactivate the account. Additionally, X will not give the account to any person, regardless of the relationship. |
Facebook provides users the option of having their account permanently deleted when one dies. There is also an option for 'legacy contact' which means that the Facebook user can have a family member or friend take over the account once the person has died. The 'legacy contact' option is under the security tab at the bottom of the page. | |
Instagram [301] | There are two options for people who have died. Similar to Facebook, the user can have the account memorialized with proof of death. The other option is to have the account deleted. |
LinkedIn [302] | A family member can request that the account be shut down. The family member must provide the URL to the account, proof of relationship, the account user's email address, date of death, a link to the obituary, and the name of the last company the deceased worked for. |
To delete the account of someone who has died, one must email the company with the URL of the account. One must also provide a death certificate or provide a link to the obituary as well as proof of relationship to the deceased. | |
YouTube [303] | YouTube provides three capabilities for a deceased user's account: they can close the account, they can transfer payments from the account to an immediate family member and legal representative of the user's estate, and they can provide the data in the account to a family member. All three capabilities require the requestor's government-issued ID or driver's license, the decedent's death certificate, and additional supporting documentation. |
According to WeChat, the platform requires the heir to offer the user's death certificate, the authentication of their immediate family relationship, etc. After being verified by WeChat, the successor can obtain the assets. |
facilitates the building of relations
Online advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising that uses the Internet to promote products and services to audiences and platform users. Online advertising includes email marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing, many types of display advertising, and mobile advertising. Advertisements are increasingly being delivered via automated software systems operating across multiple websites, media services and platforms, known as programmatic advertising.
Mass communication is the process of imparting and exchanging information through mass media to large population segments. It utilizes various forms of media as technology has made the dissemination of information more efficient. Primary examples of platforms utilized and examined include journalism and advertising. Mass communication, unlike interpersonal communication and organizational communication, focuses on particular resources transmitting information to numerous receivers. The study of mass communication is chiefly concerned with how the content and information that is being mass communicated persuades or affects the behavior, attitude, opinion, or emotion of people receiving the information.
A social networking service or SNS is a type of online social media platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, activities, backgrounds or real-life connections.
Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses the Internet and online-based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones, and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services. Its development during the 1990s and 2000s changed the way brands and businesses use technology for marketing. As digital platforms became increasingly incorporated into marketing plans and everyday life, and as people increasingly used digital devices instead of visiting physical shops, digital marketing campaigns have become prevalent, employing combinations of search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), content marketing, influencer marketing, content automation, campaign marketing, data-driven marketing, e-commerce marketing, social media marketing, social media optimization, e-mail direct marketing, display advertising, e-books, and optical disks and games have become commonplace. Digital marketing extends to non-Internet channels that provide digital media, such as television, mobile phones, callbacks, and on-hold mobile ringtones. The extension to non-Internet channels differentiates digital marketing from online marketing.
In news media and social media, an echo chamber is an environment or ecosystem in which participants encounter beliefs that amplify or reinforce their preexisting beliefs by communication and repetition inside a closed system and insulated from rebuttal. An echo chamber circulates existing views without encountering opposing views, potentially resulting in confirmation bias. Echo chambers may increase social and political polarization and extremism. On social media, it is thought that echo chambers limit exposure to diverse perspectives, and favor and reinforce presupposed narratives and ideologies.
Digital footprint or digital shadow refers to one's unique set of traceable digital activities, actions, contributions, and communications manifested on the Internet or digital devices. Digital footprints can be classified as either passive or active. The former is composed of a user's web-browsing activity and information stored as cookies. The latter is often released deliberately by a user to share information on websites or social media. While the term usually applies to a person, a digital footprint can also refer to a business, organization or corporation.
Targeted advertising is a form of advertising, including online advertising, that is directed towards an audience with certain traits, based on the product or person the advertiser is promoting.
Social network advertising, also known as social media targeting, is a group of terms used to describe forms of online advertising and digital marketing that focus on social networking services. A significant aspect of this type of advertising is that advertisers can take advantage of users' demographic information, psychographics, and other data points to target their ads.
Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service. Although the terms e-marketing and digital marketing are still dominant in academia, social media marketing is becoming more popular for both practitioners and researchers.
A filter bubble or ideological frame is a state of intellectual isolation that can result from personalized searches, recommendation systems, and algorithmic curation. The search results are based on information about the user, such as their location, past click-behavior, and search history. Consequently, users become separated from information that disagrees with their viewpoints, effectively isolating them in their own cultural or ideological bubbles, resulting in a limited and customized view of the world. The choices made by these algorithms are only sometimes transparent. Prime examples include Google Personalized Search results and Facebook's personalized news-stream.
Experts from many different fields have conducted research and held debates about how using social media affects mental health. Research suggests that mental health issues arising from social media use affect women more than men and vary according to the particular social media platform used, although it does affect every age and gender demographic in different ways. Psychological or behavioural dependence on social media platforms can result in significant negative functions in individuals' daily lives. Studies show there are several negative effects that social media can have on individuals' mental health and overall well-being. While researchers have attempted to examine why and how social media is problematic, they still struggle to develop evidence-based recommendations on how they would go about offering potential solutions to this issue. Because social media is constantly evolving, researchers also struggle with whether the disorder of problematic social media use would be considered a separate clinical entity or a manifestation of underlying psychiatric disorders. These disorders can be diagnosed when an individual engages in online content/conversations rather than pursuing other interests.
Active users is a software performance metric that is commonly used to measure the level of engagement for a particular software product or object, by quantifying the number of active interactions from users or visitors within a relevant range of time.
Social media began in the form of generalized online communities. These online communities formed on websites like Geocities.com in 1994, Theglobe.com in 1995, and Tripod.com in 1995. Many of these early communities focused on social interaction by bringing people together through the use of chat rooms. The chat rooms encouraged users to share personal information, ideas, or even personal web pages. Later the social networking community Classmates took a different approach by simply having people link to each other by using their personal email addresses. By the late 1990s, social networking websites began to develop more advanced features to help users find and manage friends. These newer generation of social networking websites began to flourish with the emergence of SixDegrees.com in 1997, Makeoutclub in 2000, Hub Culture in 2002, and Friendster in 2002. However, the first profitable mass social networking website was the South Korean service, Cyworld. Cyworld initially launched as a blog-based website in 1999 and social networking features were added to the website in 2001. Other social networking websites emerged like Myspace in 2002, LinkedIn in 2003, and Bebo in 2005. In 2009, the social networking website Facebook became the largest social networking website in the world. Active users of Facebook increased from just a million in 2004 to over 750 million by the year 2011. Making internet-based social networking both a cultural and financial phenomenon.
Social media and television have a number of connections and interrelationships that have led to the phenomenon of Social Television, which is an emerging communication digital technology that centers around real-time interactivity involving digital media displayed on television. The main idea behind Social Television is to make television consumption a more active content experience for audiences. In the 2010s, social media platforms and websites allowed for television shows to be accessed online on a range of desktop and mobile computer devices, smartphones and smart TVs that are still evolving today in the 2020s. Alongside this, online users can use social media websites to share digital video clips or excerpts from TV shows with fellow fans or even share an entire show online. Many social media websites enable users to post online comments on the programs—both negative and positive—in a variety of ways. Viewers can actively participate while watching a TV program by posting comments online, and have their interactions viewed and responded to in real time by other viewers. Technologies such as smartphones, tablets, and laptop computers allow viewers to watch downloaded digital files of TV shows or "stream" digital files of TV shows on a range of devices, both in the home and while on the go. In the 2020s, many television producers and broadcasters encourage active social media participation by viewers by posting "hashtags" on the TV screen during shows. These hashtags enable viewers to post online comments about the show, which may either be read by other social media users, or even, in some cases, displayed on the screen during the show.
Internet manipulation is the co-optation of online digital technologies, including algorithms, social bots, and automated scripts, for commercial, social, military, or political purposes. Internet and social media manipulation are the prime vehicles for spreading disinformation due to the importance of digital platforms for media consumption and everyday communication. When employed for political purposes, internet manipulation may be used to steer public opinion, polarise citizens, circulate conspiracy theories, and silence political dissidents. Internet manipulation can also be done for profit, for instance, to harm corporate or political adversaries and improve brand reputation. Internet manipulation is sometimes also used to describe the selective enforcement of Internet censorship or selective violations of net neutrality.
Online youth radicalization is the action in which a young individual or a group of people come to adopt increasingly extreme political, social, or religious ideals and aspirations that reject, or undermine the status quo or undermine contemporary ideas and expressions of a state, which they may or may not reside in. Online youth radicalization can be both violent or non-violent.
Social media as a news source is the use of online social media platforms rather than moreover traditional media platforms to obtain news. Just as television turned a nation of people who listened to media content into watchers of media content in the 1950s to the 1980s, the emergence of social media has created a nation of media content creators. Almost half of Americans use social media as a news source, according to the Pew Research Center.
Social media use in politics refers to the use of online social media platforms in political processes and activities. Political processes and activities include all activities that pertain to the governance of a country or area. This includes political organization, global politics, political corruption, political parties, and political values. The media's primary duty is to present us with information and alert us when events occur. This information may affect what we think and the actions we take. The media can also place pressure on the government to act by signaling a need for intervention or showing that citizens want change
Social media became an active place to interact during the COVID-19 pandemic, following the onset of social distancing. Overall messaging rates had risen by above 50%, according to a study by Facebook's analytics department. Individuals at home used social media to maintain their relationships and access entertainment to pass time faster.
The advent of social networking services has led to many issues spanning from misinformation and disinformation to privacy concerns related to public and private personal data.
Social Media is a very active and fast-moving domain. What may be up-to-date today could have disappeared from the virtual landscape tomorrow. It is therefore crucial for firms to have a set of guidelines that can be applied to any form of Social Media [...].
One of the tenets of social media is that you can't control your message, you can only participate in the conversation.
[...] Witt soon became an active content creator with no intermediary needed. He started blogging in 2003 [...].
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