Impact of Social Media on Culture Change

Impact of Social Media on Culture Change
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Impact of Social Media on Culture Change
Social media has become a major component of society due to increased digital transformation. Despite different cultures having unique norms, beliefs, and traditions, social media plays a critical role in uniting these elements. Social media is a new technology-based communication that allows individuals, regardless of their cultures, to share common platforms, information, and conversation (Sheldon et al., 2020). On the other hand, culture combines different groups' activities, capabilities, habits, beliefs, customs, and arts. Therefore, there is a critical connection between social media's influence on culture change. Besides, the compressed space caused by media convergence is shrinking the world into a smaller circle of social interaction. Individuals use the platforms to communicate without restrictions and barriers, making learning and adjusting to new cultures easy. People are now embracing the global village, which does not consider cultural boundaries and differences. For instance, people focus on intercultural adaptation to learn different skills in foreign countries without significant barriers. Therefore, examining social media's impacts on cultural change is significant. The paper's focus is to address the adverse impacts of social media on cultural change and embraces different examples from African culture. However, to understand the connection between the two concepts, the paper independently addresses the use of social media and cultural change and unifies them.
Social Media
Social media is part of culture today since it promotes interdependence and interconnectedness. It allows individuals to engage and communicate with each other due to their ease in accessing the internet. People have heavily embraced the use of social media, thus making it part and parcel of society. Besides, social media creates a reliable platform for dialogues and understanding of unique agendas of people (Fuchs, 2015). Social media also creates an opportunity for expressing opinions regardless of the culture, thus promoting a culturally diverse community. Individuals use social media for different purposes; however, the major reason is interaction and connection. For instance, according to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, interaction and connection are necessary for every individual after meeting other primary and secondary needs. For instance, after an individual safety and physiological needs, people advocate for a sense of belonging, which forces them to actively participate in social communication and interaction. Social media allow individuals to communicate and achieve belonging regardless of cultural differences and practices. Besides, people use social media to learn different opinions from others. Therefore, social media is the basis of cultural change since it creates room for social interaction regardless of the cultural barriers.
Additionally, cultural differences influence values, behavior, and communication. For instance, Fuchs (2015) pointed out that people's communication behaviors and interaction patterns rely on their cultural patterns. The influence of social media on cultural change can also be explained by focusing on Hofstede's cultural dimensions, such as collectivism and individualism. For instance, people from individualistic and collectivistic cultures interact through social media, thus sharing behavioral and communication styles. The main objective of those from individualistic cultures is to meet new people and make from social media. However, those from the collectivist culture purposely maintain their relationship since they can easily share their ideologies (Gündüz, 2017). They focus on developing new relationships between close relatives and others beyond the family cycle. The major social media that heavily impacts culture to constant engagement interaction is Facebook which has created a global village allowing individuals to interact regardless of the geographical barriers. It is one of the largest interaction platforms since anyone can sign up so long as they have the required credentials, which are not strict as any other platforms. For instance, it has above 801 users globally, which is a larger population globally (Sheldon et al., 2020). Therefore, for every 11 individuals globally, one person is with Facebook. The data shows that Facebook covers all parts of the world and brings people with unique cultural beliefs and activities. Consequently, major social media platforms such as Facebook play a significant role in cultural change, adaptation, and growth since it breaks common restrictions and geographical barriers.
Cultural Change
After understanding the concept of social media, it is necessary to focus on cultural change. Cultural change resembles intercultural adaptation, allowing individuals to acquire new lifestyles and behaviors. Social media creates better platforms for individuals to share unique lifestyles and communication patterns. Social media creates a multicultural world where people share their experiences without restraint (Lovink, 2017). People can easily adapt to new cultural backgrounds whenever there is any stimulating factor. Social media is a stimulating factor that eliminates cultural differences and barriers. It creates a dynamic process that allows individuals, including immigrants and natives, to share a common communication platform. Besides, social media relies on communication, and communication is one of the factors which promotes cultural change. It allows individuals to obtain cultural shock since they have already learned about them through online interaction. For instance, individuals can use the social platform to interact with a specific culture they opt to adopt. Therefore, addressing any shocks or problems during actual interactions is easy.
Additionally, communication is a critical element that defines cultural change since it influences the intercultural process. Social media allow individuals to share work behaviors, social characteristics, and emotions. Sharing common social media platforms allow individuals to learn new interaction behaviors and adjust to new emotions. Besides, for an individual to comfortably interact with others in society, they must show global communication competence. Controlling emotions is one area that most people learn during the communication process. According to Week et al. (2017), social media allow individuals to obtain global competence, which allows them to easily learn and embrace new cultures regardless of their ethnic background. Social media allows individuals to have a global mindset and alters the ethnic and national mindset. A global mindset is an essential factor that broadens how people conduct themselves and embrace cultural differences. People embrace a global mindset by considering new ways of life and interaction patterns that promote cultural change and adaptation. Social media is a tool that most immigrants utilize to understand new cultures and their global purposes. They can easily interact with the native cultures, families, and close friends, thus promoting cultural adaptation. Therefore, cultural change relies on the new adaptation most individuals learn from social media.
Social and Cultural Change
The main principle of the natural law is to embrace society as a uniting factor regardless of the opinions. For instance, in Africa, morality was one of the maj...