Is social media bad for our society? Free Essay Example

Social media sites have taken over our lives. We cannot imagine that 10 years ago there was no Twitter or Facebook. 15 years ago people were actually waiting to hear from each other by sending letters. Even sending an email was not that common. Social media has not just been a platform for simple online marketing but it has become the revolution of our century. Whether you like it or not, social media can no longer be ignored. But are social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube a good thing or a bad thing?
Social media gives us the opportunity to communicate with our friends and family.

You can stay in touch wherever you are at. Friends who you haven??t seen since school, and who have moved away, will be able to know about your latest happenings just as quickly as your neighbours. We can contact anyone around the world, at any time, with just a few keystrokes. Unlike calling your family across the ocean, social media is free.

Skyping with your grandmother in America doesn??t cost a thing, however calling her can cost up to 1,78 euro??s per minute. We can share the best elements of our life, through posting photos of ourselves and our friends. Social media makes us more interwoven in each other’s lives, we feel closer to relatives and friends overseas, even though we are still kept apart by a long, long distance.
Businesses have noticed the value of social networks in our lives, and they are using different techniques to promote their products.

Many companies use social media for their awareness campaigns. They can use it to spread their ideas, knowledge and information about their products. Right now Facebook is the world’s biggest social network. It is therefore very interesting as a company to interact with Facebook-users via a Facebook page. YouTube is also very popular when it comes to advertising. How often has it happened to you that you wanted to watch a video on YouTube but you first had to watch a 2 minute commercial? It is practically impossible to go online and not see any advertisements. Without even noticing it we come across tons of advertisements every day. And through these advertisements we can find out everything about the latest products such as new books and CD??s, games and mobile phones. Nevertheless we can also found out which companies are looking for people to hire. If you click on an advertisement on a social media website it will send you to the official website where you can find a vacancy for a job. So it is also a simple way to be engaged.
Social media is a big source of information. Nowadays we can find everything, literally everything, on the internet and social media. This is because people want to share their knowledge and findings via social media. For example on Wikipedia, everything you need to know can be found on this international social media website. For students this is very convenient. They can use the information on the internet for their own schoolwork, or just for inspiration. For enterprises this source of information is also quite useful. They can gain more knowledge on how to improve their business, and compare themselves with other companies. In this way there will always be competition between companies and they will keep growing if they manage to keep improving their products.
Unfortunately, not all consequences of this technology are good ones. For example the way it allows us to hide ourselves behind a screen and limit or even avoid social interaction face to face. Because of social media we don’t have to put any work in building an actual relationship. The only thing we have to do is click on a button and you can be friends with anybody. Just think of the people on your friend list on Facebook. How many of them do you actually speak to on a regular basis?
To have considered some advantages and disadvantages of social media, I think it is a good thing for society. There are many good things about social media such as the way it allows us to communicate with everyone around the world, the way it can be used for marketing and also all the information we can find on it is a great advantage. However there are also some bad things about it such as the fact that it limits our level of human interaction. For the business world social media is definitely a good thing, but whether it is a good or bad thing for yourself, that depends completely on your own behaviour. If you can keep your real life separated from your internet life and use social networking as a small part of it everything will just be fine.

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