Course Title:

Culture Health and Society

Topic:

Social Media and its Impacts on Society

Submitted By: Qurat-ul-Ain (PRN-20S-0294)

Submitted To: Mam Mumtaz Jahan

Submission Date: December 5, 2020.

“Social Media and its Impacts on Society” 1

Table of Contents

Abstract 2
Introduction 2
What is social media? 3
Impacts of social media on society 4
Economic Impact 4
Social Impact 4
Educational Impact 4
Psychological Impact 5
Criminal Impact5
Conclusion 5
Recommendations 5
References 6
“Social Media and its Impacts on Society” 2

‘Social Media and its Impacts on Society’

Abstract:
As technology developed rapidly in last few decades, communication has been
made easy. Most important platform that is being used for communication is social
media. None can imagine his life without the existence of social media. But nothing can
be based on all good in this world, so does the social media. The core objective of article
is to define social media and to show it’s impacts on society, whether positive or
negative, with strong arguments and evidences. Firstly, social media would be defined.
Secondly the positive aspects would be discussed. Thirdly the consequences would be
elaborated.
Keywords: Social media, society, impacts, communication, technology
development, youth.

Introduction:
This article will define social media and then discuss how it’s changing the trends
and values of our society slowly and gradually. The modern era is based on technological
developments and all the developments are based on information technology (IT). In last
few years, social media has emerged as the most influential platform to share ideas and
communicate. The term social media does not have a clear definition(Moran, Seaman and
Tinti-Kane, 2011). It’s a parallel world of virtuality. Social media or social networking
has become a part of every individual’s daily life. Social Networking is “the act of
engagement,” while social media is the tool used to communicate with mass audience
(Hartshorn, 2010). Before slamming social media and being judgmental, the pros and
cons of social media and also its impacts on society would be discussed in detail.
Social media is basically set of applications that have hundreds of thousands of
users around the globe. The major applications include Facebook, twitter, Instagram,
snapchat, and LinkedIn. It varies from web blogging to, life streaming. to social
networks, to many more (AntonSon and Christopher, 2014). All these platforms have
become an essential part of every individual’s life.
Social media users are of 2 types; digital immigrants and digital natives. Digital
immigrants are those who born before the evolution of social media, normally considered
before 1980. And digital natives consist on those who born after the evolution of social
“Social Media and its Impacts on Society” 3

media, i.e. after 1980. Most of the users’ age is 13-17, according to surveys, comprises
the 90% of total users. 51% of them use any social media platform on daily basis. This
can be an alarming indicator if the content being shared on social media is not good and
constructive for youth. Egypt is known as one of the largest social media users’ country.
According to Richard, 46% Egyptian consider social media can play a vital role in
development of their country (Richards, 2012).

What is Social Media?

According to Hartshorn, social networking is basically act of engagement and
social media is a platform to engage the mass audiences from all parts of world
(Hartshorn, 2010). It creates opportunity for people-to-people interactions. As stated in
introduction, social media is a set of applications and varies from web blogging, to social
networking, to life streaming. Few major social media platforms are discussed below:

Facebook:
Facebook is, no doubt, king of social media platforms. Previously known as
Facemash, Mark Zuckerberg designed it in 2003. Latterly name changed to The
Facebook in 2004. Facebook has 2.7 billion monthly active users according to latest
study. It allows users to share images, videos, and now also calling feature (audio, video)
is introduced.
Primary Users:
Primary users’ age is in between 18-27, that contribute 87% to total users. Most of
them are females. Teenagers use this platform the most.

Twitter:
Americans developed this platform in 2006 to share, send and receive the short
messages including images and videos. Twitter has 321 million monthly active users
according to a study done in 2020.
Primary Users:
Primary users of twitter are in between the age of 18 to 29, that is 37% of its total
users. Ratio of both genders is almost same on this platform.

Instagram:
“Social Media and its Impacts on Society” 4

Instagram is aninteresting platform for image and video sharing, developed by

Americans in 2010, and now owned by Facebook. Currently active users on Instagram
are 1 billion per month.
Primary Users:
90% of total Instagram users are under 35 years old. Teenagers are the primary
users on this platform. However, few celebrities use this platform as well to interact with
their fans.

Impacts of Social Media on Society:

Every picture has 2 sides. It depends on the user for what purpose he/she is using
the social media. The brighter side of the picture is a bit long and discussed below.

Economic Impact:
Social media has become the most important tool in spreading business now a
days. The Economic Development committee (EDC) accepted its important in business
development and joined Facebook platform for promotions in 2012. During lockdown,
due to Covid-19, online shopping platform Amazon earned $5 billion only as a profit and
made sales of $89 billion in only 3 months. These huge figures show the trends and
approaches of human being towards online shopping.

Social Impact:
Social media is one of the most important platforms to convert the world into a
global village. Communication to any part of the world at any time is only a click away.
News and information can be shared worldwide in seconds with millions of audiences.
Facebook, twitter, Instagram, whats app and skype has connected the people to each other
around the world. Social networking development made everything in access even
staying at home. From shopping to booking tickets for movie or travel, all can be done
through online platforms. Social media is fundamental way for billions of people to get
information and connect with others, that increases the stakes enormously (Kevin
Werbach).

Educational Impact:
Social media always played important role in educating the people and building
the sense of being educated. However, due to covid-19, the importance and role of social
media as a tool of student learning has increased. Online classes and lectures through
Zoom, Google Meet and WhatsApp were delivered. Virtual classrooms formed using
social media platforms. Youth is sharing a strong bond since birth with technology, that
“Social Media and its Impacts on Society” 5

enables them multi-tasking. 46% of the youth who use internet, access it to take help in
their school or college assignments (Krischner and Karpinski, 2010).New studies found
that youth is spending a considerable portion of their daily life interacting and studying
through social media(Ahn, 2011b, p. 1435).
There is a dark side also of social media developments that can’t be neglected. Few of the
negative impacts on society are mentioned below.

Psychological Impact:
Individuals make the society. Although social media has connected the globe but it
has also built the distances among the people even living in the same place. It has robbed
the physical and emotional support of people from each other, as no one has time to listen
the others. Jonathan Safran Foer in his article, “How Not to Be Alone”, stated that Every
step forwardin social media is making it easier, just a little, to prevent the emotional work
of being present, toconvey information instead of humanity (Jonathan Safran Foer, How
Not to Be Alone).

Criminal Impacts:
Social media is also being used as a tool of criminal activities. Terrorists use social
media platforms to interact with other terrorists and to operate the terrorist activities.
Similarly, young minds are captured through social media and brain washing is done in
order to promote terrorism.Weimann stated, terrorists are using the internet and social
media platforms from 16 years. Monitorization of the Internet and online platforms used
by terrorist groups has skyrocketed from 12 to over 9,800 terrorist websites (Weimann,
Haifa University Israel).
Cybercrimes and hacking social media accounts has also affected the individuals’
life as well as institutions’ life. Personal information and record are stolen from accounts
for defaming and blackmailing purposes. Another criminal activity, that is common now
a days is known as cyber bullying, i.e., bullying through social media accounts. Its having
a negative impact on teenagers specially. Although laws are passed to counter cyber
bullying but more work is still required.

Conclusion:
Despite the negative or harmful impacts, there exist a lot of positive impacts too,
which are usually ignored. Everything has its pros and cons. Need of the hour is to
promote the brighter side more affectively.

Recommendations:
“Social Media and its Impacts on Society” 6

Awareness must be spread to take the full advantage of social media platforms.
People must know about the constructive use of social media platforms. There must be
fully functionated institutions on government level to control the cybercrimes. Effective
policies should be developed to protect the users’ data. FIA is working in this regard but
it also requires a lot of reforms. All activities must be monitored to counter the terrorism
too.

References:
AntonSon, M., & Christopher, W. (2008). Corporate Social Media Facilitating Better and
Faster Change Management. Goteborgs Universitet Handelshogskolan.
Hartshorn, S. (2010). 5 Differences Between Social Media and Social Networking. Social
Media Today.
hn, J. (2011b). The Effect of Social Network Sites on Adolescents' Social and Academic
Development: Current Theories and Controversies. Journal of the American Society for
Information Science and Technology, 62(8), 1435-445.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/asi.21540
Moran, M., Seaman, J., & Tinti-Kane, H. (2011). Teaching, Learning, and Sharing: How
Today’s Higher Education Faculty Use Social Media, p. 1-32.
Weimann, Gabriel (2008).The Psychology of Mass-Mediated Terrorism; American
Behavioral Scientist.Vol. 52 Issue 1, p69-86.
18phttp://eds.a.ebscohost.com.libproxy.scu.edu/ehost/detail/

June Ahn stated, “emerging studies

find that youth spend a considerable
portion of their daily life interacting
through
social media.” (Ahn, 2011b, p. 1435
the ounger generation shares an
unclear bond with technology since
“Social Media and its Impacts on Society” 7

their birth, leading them to multi-task.

They
note that 46% of the younger
generation who access the internet use
it to help them with their school
assignments
(Kirschner and Karpinski, 2010
the younger generation shares an
unclear bond with technology since
their birth, leading them to multi-task.
They
note that 46% of the younger
generation who access the internet use
it to help them with their school
assignments
(Kirschner and Karpinski, 2010Th