Social Media Network Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Social Media Network - Essay Example cial media are both an opportunity and a threat. Not going away. Very important, probably will become even more so. [153 Words] Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of social media and evaluate its importance in today’s society. The twenty first century is characterised by a very fast pace of life, and the proliferation of information technology. The age of industrialisation and manufacturing has given way to a postmodern age of globalisation where in Western developed countries there is an emphasis on service industries. The whole of society has now become networked in multiple different ways. (Castells, 1999). Computers are the tools of this new trade, and while some people in the world are reaping great benefits from this technological revolution, there are millions who through poverty and exclusion cannot participate in the new wave of social media which is taking over the world. This paper examines how social media, such as facebook, flickr, youtube, and twitter are a ffecting human relations in many ways, looking first and the advantages they offer and secondly the inherent disadvantages. There are four main advantages in social media, namely maintaining relationships with friends and family; forging new relationships, which can include buying and selling things, playing games, meeting people through dating sites etc; facilitating work and education tasks, by using social media to gather information, make connections with experts, or collaborate on tasks; and above all there is a huge potential for the formation of common interest groups including those which promote particular leisure pursuits, hobbies, political parties, religion or any other subject. All of these possibilities enrich the range of connections that an individual makes, and have the potential bring concrete benefits to daily life, especially for people who are lonely, disabled, housebound, or just in need of friendship. Similarly, there are a number of disadvantages associated w ith social media including the possibility of deception, since people on social media sites are unknown and may provide false information or act with malicious intent; social media can be very distracting, and even addictive, especially when conveyed over mobile devices like the iphone; they entail a loss of privacy, and in some situations a loss of self-respect, since items placed on social media sites can often not be removed, leaving a lasting legacy for others to see, and finally they offer a kind of substitute for real human relationships and this can be a huge disappointment to people who invest too much hope in social media. Some of the disadvantages of social media are quite subtle, as for example was predicted back in the 1960s by theorists who pointed out that â€Å"the medium is the message† (McLuhan, 1964, pp. 7-20) , which means that the way we relate to technology causes us to take in hidden messages which in turn change the way we see the world, and indeed ours elves. When using social media, people can adopt any identity they wish, and can experiment so widely that they lose touch with their own