Social Media has impacted our culture for forever. People now use websites like Facebook and Twitter to connect with family, friends, and even celebrities. People share their locations, what they are doing that day, hot new trends, and can talk to people that they might not see every day. Talking to someone through a computer screen and not seeing them in person has become the new norm. Yes, while the connections that these social networks brings us to old friends or people we never would have met in real life are positive and are beneficial, people use these new connections in replacement of real face to face conversation. IT is now a norm to go out to eat with just your computer, but in fact you could be out lunch with a hundred of your closet internet friends.
Social media has also effected business. Now many business advertise using Facebook, Twitter accounts, LinkedIn, and Kickstart to show off what their company’s ideas or products are. Even on Google searches, if you look up shoes you will be overwhelmed with advertisements about shoes. 98% of Google’s profits are advertisements, but for majority of Facebook and twitter accounts they are free to create and make a small social capital of consumers that have a direct connection to the company. Before social media, people would see advertisements on television, billboards, and newspapers but now we see advertisements about shoes in between posts from a cousin and a friend from high school.
Lastly, Social Media has changed our culture by our sense of community. Twenty years ago the main communities that we worried about were family, friends, school or work. Now, we worry about our Facebook or Twitter communities are also now a big deal to us. These communities created new words and phrases such as retweet or to like a post. Now to be a big person in the community you need a lot of retweets or likes to be considered a leader or a role model even. Social Media has created communities for people who like gardening, for example, and now everyone who likes to garden can talk together about their passions without having to meet up. People can make friends in these online communities and relate on a new level.
In conclusion, Social Media has changed our culture. For the most part it has made many positive changes. For example, it has become easier to see what people are doing and you can connect with people you know, or do not know. However these interactions are impairing our face to face social skills. Next, Social Media has made adverting for businesses easier, and makes business easier for new people, however the ads are taking over the social media themselves. Lastly, social media has changed our communities by creating new ones, creating new words, and creating new social capital that make their leaders the people with the most likes and followers.
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