The Necessity of Social Media

As time goes by, social media becomes an essential way to connect each

other. In the old days, people were used to contacting with people through

writing letters. However, nowadays, with the progress of society, the

development of social media is unavoidable. The rise of social media is a growing

trend in the Internet in recent years. Whether it's foreign Facebook or Twitter, or

micro-blog, it has dramatically changed people's lives and brought us into the era

of social networking. Among younger users, the use of these tools is nearing

universal, such as 86% of 1829 year olds using social media everyday (Madden,

2010)7. Social media is a tool and platform for people to share ideas and

experiences with each other. Every single day, millions of individuals interact

through social media. (Van Dijck, Jos, 2013)10. Thus it can be seen how

important the social media is in our daily life. Therefore, the advantage of social

media shows in these three reasons.

The first advantage of social media is its connectivity and convenience

for people. No matter wherever or whenever, people can contact with anyone

they want. So, people dont need to write letters to each other like old days. It is

much faster and directly way to communicate. In addition, when people share

some feelings or pictures on social media, their friends can give responses

instantly. Even they may far away from their friends, they can also share things

with each other. As noted by Reid Hoffman, co-founder and chairman of LinkedIn,

the ability to leverage relationships embodied in social networks will become

one of the most transformative uses of the Internet (Ricadela, 2007)9. Moreover,

Social media can help people make more friends, because social media is an open

platform. People around the world will use social media, and they can know each

other through social media. As a research says that Social media makes people

feel the sense of belonging. Nowadays, although, teenagers have fewer friends,

they always feel less lonely because of the using of social media. While many

adults find value in socializing with strangers, teenagers are more focused on

socializing with people they knew personally and celebrities that they adore

(Boyd, Danah, 2007)2. While making friends, teenagers have the awareness of

protecting themselves as well.

The second advantage is that social media can play a significant role in

education. Social media can do a lot of contribution on education. For example,

Students can use social media to ask for questions more directly. No matter what

is the time or where they are, they can use social media to contact their teachers

to solve their problems. Furthermore, Teachers can create a study group to

publish some important information, and students can ask for questions

instantly if they dont understand them. It makes a large amount of benefits for

students and teachers. Recently, online class is also a way to make teaching

becomes more efficient. Students can search more classes from different experts

and professors to study on social media. Many universities are now striving to

develop ways of using social media to support these new forms of learning

(Conole, G and Alevizou, 2010)4. Besides, People can get more information from
government through social media. In other words, Social media can help people

come into contact with more important issues around the world. They can

actually be part of their own country because of taking part in the discussion of

the world issues. People have the right to voice their opinions whether it is useful

or not. Also, they can gain information from the government and give feedback to

the government. The advent of social media has opened up unprecedented new

possibilities of engaging the public in government work and has changed the

public's expectations about how government work should be done (Chun et al.,

2010)3.

Social media can allow companies to function better. A social media program

can provide organizations with detailed, virtually instant feedback from

customers and valuable market intelligence (Blanchard, Olivier, 2011)1. It can

increase companies transparency so that customers can protect their own rights

better. Companies can also use social media to publish more ads for free. It can be

much cheaper than traditional advertising. Moreover, they can deliver improved

customer service and respond effectively to couple back. Social media utilization

in enterprises is a current and popular research topic (Krkkinen, Hannu, Jari

Jussila, and Jaani Visnen, 2010)6. It means people admit that social media

makes a big difference in companies. In the meantime, Social media is an

excellent customer service channels for companies. For instance, if customers

have any questions, companies can fix the problem immediately. Hence, social

media can assist companies to create the real necessary products for customers.
The more aggressive the big companies are, the more they can promote this

model by using social media. Then, large companies can provide interesting

information on social media. If some brands want to use social media to publish

video, consumers can get information from it.

The opponents of social media probably say that people rely too much on

social media will lose some opportunities to communicate with people around us.

Human beings are social beings, and we have a fundamental need to

communicate, to form, maintain and enhance social relationship (IJsselsteijn,

Wijnand, Joy van Baren, and Froukje van Lanen, 2003)5. For example, when a

group of people sits together, they always use social media instead of talking to

each other. It seems like people obey the fundamental need. However, on the

contrary, there are a lot of people who are too shy to speak. Social media

becomes a better way for them to communicate with others. People cannot speak

to others continually, so they need private space as well. Social media becomes a

better way for them to around the awkwardness when not speaking.

In conclusion, the advantages of social media far outweigh the disadvantages.

Social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace offer multiple daily

opportunities for connecting with friends, classmates, and people with shared

interests (O'Keeffe, Gwenn Schurgin, and Kathleen Clarke-Pearson, 2011)8. As

the development of social media, people will depend more on it. However, before

using social media, people have to think about both good and bad effects and
then use it rationally. Social media makes life easier, and it has brought us huge

benefits. At the same time, it makes the world more bright and colorful.

References:

1. Blanchard, Olivier. Social media ROI: Managing and measuring social media
efforts in your organization. Pearson Education, 2011.

2. Boyd, Danah. "Why youth (heart) social network sites: The role of networked
publics in teenage social life." MacArthur foundation series on digital learning
Youth, identity, and digital media volume (2007): 119-142.

3. Chun et al, 2010, S.A. Chun, S. Shulman, R. Sandoval, E. Hovy Government 2.0:
Making connections between citizens, data and government Information Polity,
15 (1/2) (2010), pp. 19

4. Conole, G. and Alevizou, P. A literature review of the use of web 2.0 tools in
higher education. Higher Education Academy, 2010.

5. IJsselsteijn, Wijnand, Joy van Baren, and Froukje van Lanen. "Staying in touch:
Social presence and connectedness through synchronous and asynchronous
communication media." Human-Computer Interaction: Theory and Practice (Part
II) 2.924 (2003): e928.

6. Krkkinen, Hannu, Jari Jussila, and Jaani Visnen. "Social media use and
potential in business-to-business companies' innovation." Proceedings of the 14th
international academic mindtrek conference: Envisioning future media
environments. ACM, 2010.

7. Madden, 2010, M. Madden, Older adults and social media, Pew Internet and
American Life Project, Washington, DC (2010)
Available: http://www.pewinternet.org

8. O'Keeffe, Gwenn Schurgin, and Kathleen Clarke-Pearson. "The impact of social

media on children, adolescents, and families." Pediatrics 127.4 (2011): 800-804.

9. Ricadela, A. (2007, October 31). Google girds for Facebook fight. Retrieved
September 29, 2010,
from http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2007/tc20071031
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10. Van Dijck, Jos. The culture of connectivity: A critical history of social media.
Oxford University, Press 2013.