SociaI Media: Infeclious or

Nulrilious`
Nancy Carroll
ENG 1102
13 March 2014
Inlroduclion lo SociaI
Media
How has social media affected society, you ask? Throughout
the 21
st
century, social media has completely revolutionized
the way people communicate across the globe. In past
decades, you were limited to face-to-face communication
with people you knew personally. Today, via networking sites
such as Facebook, it is possible to connect with people you
have never even met in person.
Moreover, younger generations that have grown up with
social media tend to be more incapable of face-to-face
interaction with one another due to the fact that they are
used to communicating through text, either online or on a cell
phone.
Social networking sites have changed the course for
communication and friendships entirely by allowing one to
develop and maintain these relationships from behind the
screen of their laptop.
SociaI Media Slals (2013)
25% of Facebook users do not bother with any kind of privacy
control
74% of marketers believe Facebook is essential for their lead
generation strategy
63% of Facebook users log on daily; 40% long on multiple times in
one day
Over 5 million Facebook users are under the age of 10
About 20 million Twitter user accounts are fake
60% of social media time is spent on a mobile device rather than
a computer
Facebook has about 7 times more users than Twitter, however,
Facebook tends to attract older generations rather than young
adults.
The new race in social media is not in audience per se, but for
multi-device engagement, recording how much time is spent on
social media using a smartphone compared to using a desktop
computer.

Tviuer Slals lo Reach
More IoIIovers
For avid social media users, the main goal is
gaining more friends and followers. Belle Beth
Cooper, an author from the Huffington Posts
tech page, discussed 10 Surprising New Twitter
Stats to Help You Reach More Followers, an
important topic in the age of social media.
According to her research, Cooper concluded
that Tweets with image links receive 2 times the
engagement rate of those without. Photos
tend to catch the users eye on any social
networking site rather than a constant stream
of words. New trends on Twitter involve the use
of memes: pictures that include text in order
to be funny or relate the photo to the emotions
of their followers.
Tweets written in 100 characters or less get
more interaction as well; 17 times more
interaction, that is, being that shorter tweets
are easier and faster to read.
Also, Tweets with no more than two hashtags
receive 21% more interaction than tweets with
three or four hashtags. Hashtags connect
tweets to trending topics, allowing others who
do not follow you to see your tweet and
engage in some kind of interaction if you are
interested in the same topic. Or often times,
argue a difference in opinion.
The Hunglon Iosl
The Huffington Post is an international online news source that posts
articles on every day news and topics from entertainment to politics.
The author, Belle Beth Cooper, is a content crafter for Buffer, a
different way to share on Twitter and Facebook.
Cooper discusses this growing Twitter trend in extremely organized
detail, allowing her readers to understand the information and
potentially use it. She incorporates graphs and pictures to further
explain the information for those who are more visual learners.
As the age of social media continues to grow, trends such as gaining
more followers, as Cooper relates, are top priority in the eyes of social
networkers. I decided to incorporate this article into my topic
research as it shines a different light on the argument of whether or
not social media is a positive or negative societal change. This article
does not argue the pros and cons of social media, but proves the
point that social media is dominating society in a way that no one
has ever seen before. It still continues to grow as we find different
strategies for surviving in the online world, such as gaining more
followers on Twitter.
Of Cigs and SeIhes
NPRs Patti Neighmond brings up a side of
social media that causes much dilemma
with teens and their parents. Neighmond
points out a side of social media that we
tend to overlook: teens hanging out with
the wrong crowd via Snapchat, Instagram,
and Twitter.
After interviewing Thomas Valente, professor
of preventive medicine at the University of
Southern California, Neighmond discovered
that teens who see their online friends
posting pictures of themselves smoking,
drinking, and partying are 20% more likely
to go out and do the same things.
However, teens like to make it their own
by increasing the already risky behavior.
Peer pressure can be enforced in many
different ways. It does not necessarily take
someone shoving a drink in your face to
make you take a drink. As teens see other
teens actions online, they feel a need to
imitate those actions in order to feel
accepted. However, posting pictures of
dangerous behavior online often leads to
more trouble.
NIR Nevs
National Public Radio is an awesome source (suggested by my professor)
for any kind of news and analysis related to the world, the US, music, arts,
you name it. The author of this article and NPRs health policy
correspondent, award-winning journalist Patti Neighmond, has more than
enough credentials to be used as a source. She is also a producer for
NPRs science unit specializing in science and environmental issues.
Patti utilizes exceptional reporter skills to write this article, referencing
other sources such as Thomas Valente of USC and clinical psychologist
Susan Lipkins of Port Washington, NY. Her article is easy to read and gets
right to the point.
Although Neighmond is a science specialist, this article incorporates a
health and psychological aspect to my topic of the social media
epidemic. A downfall of social media is often in the way we use it, such
as posting inappropriate pictures. As discussed in this article, pictures of
kids smoking and drinking makes other kids want to do the same, just as
when women see models in magazines, they want to look like those
women and dress like those women. Social media has the same affect,
which in this case is extremely negative. However, the effect is not always
negative. Pictures posted of intelligent behavior will also push teens to do
the same.
CouIes & SociaI Media
Younger couples are much more
likely to have used dating
services or the internet to meet
their partner and to use
technology to help
communicate with their partner.
They also tend to report that the
internet has impacted their
relationship in some way.
Furthermore, Lenhart and
Duggan found that, overall,
younger generations allow social
media and the internet to affect
their relationships more than
older generations would. Being
that people between the ages of
18-29 generally grew up using
cell phones and the internet, this
information is undeniably true.
According to a study done by Amanda
Lenhart and Maeve Duggan through
the Pew Research Internet Project, social
media and cell phones are important
aspects in many exclusive relationships.
Throughout their research they
concluded that:
25% of married adults have texted their
while in the same home together.
23% of 18-29 year olds in relationships
have resolved an argument using a cell
phone or the internet because they had
difficulty solving the problem in person.
41% of 18-29 year olds in serious
relationships have felt closer to their
partner due to online or text message
conversations.
42% of young adults say their partner has
been easily distracted by their mobile
phone while they were together and
25% of all couples say this.
45% of internet users ages 18-29 say the
internet has had an impact on their
relationship, while just one in ten online
adults 65 and older say the same.
Iev Research Inlernel
Iro|ecl
The Pew Research Internet Project is an extremely reliable source that I
found through UNCCs library database. They have information on
thousands of different subjects in which they have surveyed and
collected themselves.
Amanda Lenhart is the senior researcher, director of youth and
technology at the Pew Research Centers Internet and American Life
Project. She is the lead researcher on many projects through Pew and
has her masters in Culture, Communication, and Technology from
Georgetown University.
This article was beyond useful for my topic. I wish I had found it while
writing my first draft. The statistics are laid out for the reader in a very
organized manor making it easy to understand and put two and two
together. The article took another angle from my original inquiry question
and gave solid facts on how technology and social media affect
personal relationships. The article was not necessarily biased toward a
certain direction on the subject, but put the facts out there for the reader
to make their own conclusions about whether or not social media has
had a negative effect.
Iurlher Queslions of
Inquiry
Is social media an
addiction?
How is social media
affecting our futures?
Is it just social media sites
affecting our society, or is
it the internet as a whole?
Should we do anything to
stop social media from
affecting the way we
communicate with one
another?
Works Ciled
"10 Surprising New Twitter Stats
to Help You Reach More
Followers ." Huffington Post.
N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2014.
<http://
www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/
social-media-statistics>.
Adler, Emily. "Social Media
Engagement: The Surprising
Facts About How Much Time
People Spend On The Major
Social Networks." Business
Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 5
Jan. 2014. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.
<http://
www.businessinsider.com/
social-media-engagement-
statistics-2013-12>.
"Couples, the Internet, and Social
Media." Pew Research Centers
Internet American Life Project RSS.
N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.
<http://www.pewinternet.org/
2014/02/11/couples-the-internet-
and-social-media/>.
Neighmond, Patti. "Of Cigs And
Selfies: Teens Imitate Risky Behavior
Shared Online." NPR. NPR, n.d.
Web. 13 Mar. 2014. <http://
www.npr.org/blogs/health/
2014/03/10/258690319/of-cigs-and-
selfies-teens-imitate-risky-behavior-
shared-online>.
"Social Media in 2013: By the
Numbers." RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 11
Mar. 2014. <http://
socialmediatoday.com/jonathan-
bernstein/1894441/social-media-
stats-facts-2013>.