American Social Media Influence

American Social Media Influence Name Institution Affiliation Table of Contents TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u 1.0 Introduction PAGEREF _Toc15545823 \h 32.0 Literature Review PAGEREF _Toc15545824 \h 42.1 Social Media and Online Addiction PAGEREF _Toc15545825 \h 42.2 Social Media Influences PAGEREF _Toc15545826 \h 62.3 Using Social Media to Make Money PAGEREF _Toc15545827 \h 72.4 Social Media Users PAGEREF _Toc15545828 \h 92.5 Social Media for Learning and Other Opportunities PAGEREF _Toc15545829 \h 102.6 Overrated Social Media PAGEREF _Toc15545830 \h 113.0 Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc15545831 \h 12References PAGEREF _Toc15545832 \h 14 American Social Media Influence 1.0 Introduction In the age of technology, it is not a wonder for information and communication capabilities to change drastically; social media is a good example. Currently, more people are embracing the newest ways of sharing connections in society. Social media sites and applications are continually changing the way people interact. For instance, Facebook facilitates social connections, Twitter allows people to share their thoughts, and Instagram uses pictures to bring people with common interests together (Sutherland et al., 2017). Even with the current capabilities of social media sites, the trend is quickly changing. Since the development of mobile technology has shaped the impact of social media in society, the effects are exacerbating with the continuous improvement of smartphones and smart devices. As such, more people can connect at any time whenever a smart device is accessible. Since numerous people are considering the use of social media as essential to their way of life, most people are addicted to their smartphones. Smartphones with increased processing capabilities allow people to visit social media sites more seamlessly (Baruah, 2012). Another problem associated with the increased use of social media is the growing capabilities of government agencies and corporations to collect information without the knowledge of the users for intelligence and commercial purposes, respectively. Far from the controversies, people use social media for various reasons, which includes sharing memories, following celebrities, spectating, looking for information, learning, and work (Sutherland et al., 2017). Social media has become a social issue because most users are under the age of 30, albeit its effects in society are numerous. It is essential to consider the influence which the social media has in society. It is a complicated issue since this communication technology is often seen as having a negative impact, although it has positively changed the lives of many people. This paper critically analyzes the influence of social media in American society and it positive impacts on people’s lives. 2.0 Literature Review 2.1 Social Media and Online Addiction For most people across the world, social media is synonymous with the Internet since most people use the Internet to gain access to social media sites. Guede (2016) notes that the reason is that most resources on the web take the form of social media, including magazines, social bookmarking, rating, video, images or photographs, podcasts, wikis, microblogging, social blogs, weblogs, and Internet forums (Baruah, 2012). Internet users visit frequently such applications and websites that provide such services for communication. Compared to games and using other apps on smartphones and smart devices, Baruah (2012) posits that more people feel connected with other people virtually. Therefore, most people feel that they cannot live without the Internet. Since people feel the need to stay connected, social media has contributed to the growing online addition. Social media has played a major role in connecting people across the world, irrespective of geographical distance and time. Studies have shown that the youth and young people spend a major percentage to their free time on social media. Social networking sites are considered as the main platforms that bring people together. Communication and different forms of interactions that take place on social networking sites have enabled people to share a wide range of information (Baruah, 2012). Furthermore, easy accessibility as well as increased efficiency when sharing information on social networking sites has played a major role in enhancing their popularity. Information can be shared in real-time, and this implies that an incident that occurs in one part of the world can be shared immediately and accessed in another part of the world. Therefore, the ability to access immediate information irrespective of time and space has increased the popularity of social media. Checking social networks before sleeping and after waking up has become a widely known social behavior due to the proliferation of social media. Part of the reason why using social media is becoming widespread is due to the availability of information. As a result, more studies are focused on examining aspects of the increased use of social media, such as Facebook with it’s over $1.4 billion users (Guedes, 2016). Furthermore, Guedes (2016) notes that increased use of social media is its convenience of looking for old friends, maintaining contacts, and networking with people with similar interests. The rewards of using social media are many, and people are easily addicted due to the continuous improvement of services and technology. Whereas numerous individuals spend most of their free time visiting their social networking sites, very few people agree that they have been addicted to these online platforms. Sadwski et al. (2017) say that a huge percentage of youth and young adults use social media as the main platform for connecting with their friends and colleagues. This is because sites such as Facebook and Twitter have proved to be convenient mediums of communicating and connecting with others. This implies that rarely does a day pass before young people log into their social media accounts. Apart from being used as avenues of communications and interactions, evidence indicates that social networking sites are also used to store personal data. For instance, most people use their social networking sites as a backup for their contact number as well as other confidential information. Guedes (2016) says that it is very easy to access an individual’s confidential information such as where he went to school, where he works, and his current residence since this information is often stored in personal timelines of people’s accounts. 2.2 Social Media Influences Almost everyone in society who understands how social media works is mostly focused on how they can be appealing to other users. For instance, some users will consider a social media platform as an opportunity to share their memories with the world, speculate, or becoming influencers. The leading social media influencers are mostly celebrities, but the tide has changed since the President of the United States started using twitter to his view on world matters. According to Ho et al. (2016), new social media environment provides users, especially adolescents, with idealized bodies in the form of edited pictures from friends or celebrities’ trending pictures. Celebrity news are increasingly circulated on social networking sites, thus improving the efficiency in which people can gather information concerning their role models (Ho et al. 2016). Furthermore, social media has become a major platform that is used by politicians to sell their manifestoes and seek votes. Social media is currently considered as having a major influence on people's voting patterns, and this is the main reason why politicians use these platform during campaigns. Celebrities and politicians use social media as an avenue for enhancing their popularity and connecting with their fans. While celebrities use social media to inform their fans about their daily activities, politicians utilize social networking sites as a means of expanding their popularity. The same view is shared by Juntiwasarakij (2018), who points out that most people crave celebrity status since interacting and making contact with celebrities is occasionally rare. Social media users are always looking for ways to imitate celebrity fashion and behaviors to stay relevant in their social circles. Celebrities also use the same social networks to connect with their fans. Celebrities create a sense of intimacy with their fans when they share their daily activities (Ho et al., 2016). As a result, more people continue to use social media to establish their connection with their fans. Social networking sites have become the greatest sources of influence on American society. For instance, most people tend to emulate the lifestyles and personal lives of celebrities, based on the kind of content that celebrities post on their platforms. It is common to witness a huge proportion of the youth wear certain clothes or follow a certain fashion that has been promoted by a particular celebrity (Juntiwasarakij, 2018). This implies that celebrities have a significant influence on the kind of lifestyle which the young people emulate. Furthermore, politicians have been customizing their social networking sites to attract the highest following. Since it not possible to meet every individual during the campaign period, politicians use social media as a means of accessing the largest number of people. The popularity of social media has influenced people to establish customized networking sites depending on the nature of the content they want to promote. 2.3 Using Social Media to Make Money It is impossible to ignore human ingenuity in creating value when there was none. According to Kim et al. (2016), some social media sites such as Facebook charge people money to play some of their online games. Considering that the social media giant creates games in a way that they could be played socially, sometimes it connects people at a fee. At the same time, the proliferation of social media has also created jobs. People who can make others react to posts and adverts are sought after because they help spread brand awareness and spearhead marketing campaigns. As such, likes and views have been monetized to offer people with social media skills to help companies and business stay relevant in society (Kin et al., 2016). In almost the same way, Postigo (2016) notes that YouTube is the leading social media site that promotes the value of likes and views for creative social media users. Hence, the importance of likes and views has outgrown its relevance in bolstering personal relationships to making money. Social networking sites have diversified, and apart from being used for communication and interactio...