SOCIAL MEDIA -AN IMPORTANT PART OF OUR LIVES

 INTRODUCTION

Most of us in today's world wake up and the very first thing we usually do is to check our mobile and observe things going around us like checking different messages and updates; checking out our and others post likes, views, tags and comments, checking new stories and birthday wishes if possible, then seeing latest news, tweets, videos, mails etc. And if these all things go well our day will be beautiful and pleasant. Social media has become a very important thing in our day to day lives. Instagram, Facebook, Snap-chat, Whats-App, Tinder, YouTube, Twitter and many more have become a very important part in our life for sharing pictures, interacting with old friends and new friends, building new contacts and interpersonal relationship, getting news, sharing photos, memes, videos and recipes, video calling friends and family, sharing intellectual material, watching new series and movies and many more. It has become a way to connect with people we know and share our opinions on news and events occurring around the world and so with extension of pictures and videos media it has become a great way of passing time.

Due to innovations of new variety of platforms it has open a wide range of users and also have attracted different users like dancers, singers, actors, foodies etc. Different social media provide different things to their users like Facebook is popular because users can friend and follow others, they know or like and keep up with the events going on in their lives, Whats-App is famous for creating old friends and family groups and sharing wonderful old and new memories, video calling friend and family, Twitter on other hand is the home of the #hashtag and a great place to follow people and read about events in a short and sweet way since tweets are limited to 140 characters. Instagram is platform where all post include a picture or video followed by a caption and now is famous for its story and reels feature. Snap-chat allows users to communicate with each through pictures and videos that are seen once or twice and then go away forever. Each platform has its own unique interface but they are all similar in being a public online space for users to connect and stay in touch.

Social Media first just began with variety of online platform for users to share their interest and connect with others who shared similar interest. But then it evolved into an online public space to connect with people around. According to Boyd (2014), “social media refers to the sites and services that emerged during the early 2000s, including social networking sites, video sharing sites, blogging and micro blogging platforms, and related tools that allow participants to create and share their own content”.  

Additionally, Social media apps offer users some valuable features. 

·        They provide a platform to meet new people and make friends across international borders.

·        Provides large platform for showcasing your hidden talents like dancing, acting, singing, cooking etc to others

·        It bridges the gap between not being able to physically be around people and wanting to connect with them.

·        They allow users to join groups of others who share their passions and interests.

·        They are free to use (but as we all know "if there is no product to buy you are the product").

·        Specialized forums or platforms provide a large network to potentially find a new job.

·        Networks like Twitter have become a valuable way to get real-time (occasionally true) news. Often this information can be seen 'raw,' without any traditional media bias or opinion mixed in.

THE RISE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

The history of social media can, technically, be traced back to 1971 when the first e-mail was sent between two side-by-side computers.The first recognizable social media site, Six Degrees, was created in 1997. It enabled users to upload a profile and make friends with other users.  The site was based on the “six degrees of separation” theory, and only last from 1997-2001.  During this time, ICQ (I Seek You,) an open source instant messaging program went live, as well as America Online (AOL,) a web-browser and it’s instant messaging service, AIM.In 1999, the first blogging sites became popular, creating a social media sensation that’s still popular today.

By 2003 over 100 million people were online and used browsers for more than just looking up information; online chatroom were prevalent, where friends and relationships – platonic and romantic – were made. 

At this time, MySpace was launched and it was just the first wave of social media platforms that would encourage people to do more than just chat online. It was a site that aspiring musicians posted to, in hopes that not just the general public heard and liked their music, but will also get land musical contracts from record producers. LinkedIn is another platform that went live in that same year which was and still is aimed at professionals looking to network, socialize and find jobs using one service to do it all.

     MySpace inspired sites such as Facebook, which was initially launched in 2004 solely to Harvard students as TheFacebook.com. But it didn’t take long for Zuckerberg to realize that Facebook could be bigger and better and so it was released to everyone online, as facebook.com and so Facebook is currently the number one social platform world-wide.  Two years later Twitter was launched, unique and distinct from Facebook by imposing a limit of 140 characters per tweet which now have more than 500 million users engage on it.

     By 2008 Facebook had basically made MySpace obsolete and was well on the way to dominating other social media platforms, though the genre is ever-changing.  Flickr and Photobucket were both put out as photo sharing sites, with users given the capability to comment on uploaded images. 

 Instagram was another service launched for sharing photography, with more emphasis on commenting on users uploads and also added messaging features, the ability to include multiple images or videos in a single post, and a Stories feature and has became the 4th most downloaded mobile app of the 2010s.

     Between 2007 and 2010, multiple social media platforms went live, some with more success than others: Tumblr is less popular than Facebook appeals to a younger demographic of users, with people in their late teens to early/mid-twenties for the most part.  Foursquare was popular for a while on smartphones, with the ability to “check-in” to locations and businesses, and sometimes receive coupons or free items for doing so.  Google Buzz, Loopt, and Blippy were popular in their time, as well as Pinterest, and Spotify showing an ability to maintain their popularity with both new and old users.

     By the late 2000’s, businesses had begun to realize that these different social media platforms were also prime spaces for advertisement; how odd is it, now in 2016, to come across a business that doesn’t have official Facebook and Twitter pages?  There are hundreds, if not thousands of social media platforms and all cater to different demographics and core services.

     More recently, and at a time when everyone and their mother had Facebook accounts, teenagers were looking for something other than that service to communicate with their friends and Snap-chat arrived in 2011, just in time for the teen exodus from Facebook.  Snap-chat provided the ability for users to take pictures and videos known as “snaps,” use a number of different filters and effects, then send them to friends, and after being viewed would become inaccessible.  Later updates included “stories” and “memories” where stories are viewed chronologically and memories allow users to save snaps to a private file for later viewing.

     One year after Snap-chat’s release, Vine, which was acquired by Twitter right before it was released to the public, launched and allows for six-second video clips to be taken or spliced together from different scenes, and is shareable via Facebook and Twitter, and can also be embedded on websites, such as Tumblr.  Both Vine and Snap- chat are massively popular with the younger demographic though like other social media platforms, businesses have begun using them for advertisements and promotions.

     As this brief history shows, social media has only continued to gain steam since 1997 and MySpace with many platforms arriving, though some are more successful and see better longevity.  Teenagers and young adults are one of the driving forces behind the creation of these multiple platforms and as long as this demographic continues to both be targeted and consume social media in such large numbers, new creators will continue to create platforms that reach such a broad audience.

SOCIAL MEDIA STATISTICS

• For context, as of Dec 2019, total worldwide population is 7.8 billion 
• More than half of the world uses social media.
• 4,57 billion people around the world now use the internet,of those users,346 million new users have come online within the last 12 months
• There are 3.725 billion active social media users
• On average, people have 7.6 social media accounts
• The average daily time spent on social is 142 minutes a day
• 1% of retail brands use 2 or more social media channels
•  81% of all small and medium business  use some kind of social platform
• Social media users grew by 328 million between October 2018 and October 2019.
• That works out at 10 new social media users per second.
• Facebook Messenger and Whats-App handle 60 billion messages a day 
• When asked 81% of teenagers felt social media has a positive effect on their lives
• Another study found the effect of social media on teenagers was ' trivial' 

USER NUMBERS    

·          Facebook: 2.449 billion users

·          YouTube: 1.9 billion users

·          Whats-App: 1.6 billion users

·          Instagram: 1 billion users

·          We-chat: 1 billion users

·          LinkedIn: 660 million users

·          Weibo: 600 million users

·          Tik-Tok: 500 million users

·          Pinterest: 265 million users

·          Snap-Chat: 210 million daily users

·          Twitter: 145 million daily users

·          Reddit: 430 million monthly users

·          Google+: 111 million users

·          MySpace:15 million users

·          Flickr: 60 million users

·          Airbnb: 150 million users

·          4chan: 27.7 million users

·          Periscope: 10 million users

 

CONCLUSION

Social media changed our life so much. Our life became more convenient because social media is a very useful tool for us in 21st century, it could help us to improve our life. However, we have to aware of how we use them. If we could use the social media smartly, having social media will become a good change for us and will definitely make our future bright. 

And lastly remember:" You are responsible for everything you post and everything you post will be  reflection to you" and "So always think before you act".

BLOG BY:- DEVANSHI PATEL & MEGHA BHATNAGAR

DEPARTMENT:- AIB

UNIVERSITY:- AMITY UNIVERSITY RAJASTHAN