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Samuel Johnson
Grant
UWRT 1103
11/06/14
How Social Media Effects Culture
Social medias initial appearance shook the world, most say for the better, some say for
the worst. Now there is an easier way of communicating ideas and the ability for two people
from across a large body of water can now interact instantaneously. At first there wasnt even
knowledge of two halves of the world, then the new worlds were discovered and eventually
very slow mail was able to be brought there by ship. This mail had to have a mail carrier to get it
across the ocean, then came the plane, and this cut the amount of time it took to traverse the
ocean by a lot. After the plane there was email, a wonderful invention still utilized by schools,
businesses, and practically everyone that needs to get ideas across in a professional manner, but
youre not very connected to email unless you need to be. A new idea evolved from emails,
social media. With social media people are connected to it all the time, they have it on their
computers, phones, and now watches. Social media, even if you are not on it, is becoming a part
of everyday life, whether we want to acknowledge that or not. The addicting sites such as
Twitter, FaceBook, and Instagram, along with many others, have easily taken over the common
man. Businesses try to stay with email and more formal methods of sharing ideas, but even they
are falling victim to the social fads of social media. The common person uses social media to
share anything and everything that has happened, from eating pizza to actual practical ideas.
These instantly shared ideas are followed or liked and sometimes shared or reposted,

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thus showing us that others either like the idea a lot or are wanting to use the idea themselves.
This emerges questions that we will inevitably need to think about, how will social media effect
cultural differences. Will society eventually become homogeneous as a result of social media?
Culture can be defined as having some traits or more traits, however, focus will be put on
language, religion, and traditions/ customs, and how social media may or may not impact or
influence these areas of culture.
An easy identifier of a culture is their language, not their trade language, but the official
languages. For example, depending on what part of China you are in the trade language can
change between Mandarin, Cantonese or even English, there are many other languages also
spoken in China, however, the official Chinese language is Mandarin. The official language is
what will be focused on. Social media is by far no maker of new languages, or is it? Languages
such as Tolkien Dwarvish, which is spoken in Lord of the Rings, can be all over the social
networking sites, just check it out yourself at https://www.facebook.com/pages/TolkienDwarvish/116353641878798. This is not the only movie language or made up language that is
being liked online, there are others such as Klingon, Navi, and many more. These may seem
irrelevant, however, this is a very big deal, before social media this was only a thing to do with a
select group of a few friends, or at a convention of some sort. Now, the entire group of speakers
can just get on their phones and have a conversation with each other at any time, in any place.
What does this have to do with culture you may ask? There is no way that the entire population
will adopt Klingon, or Navi, the majority of readers will have to look up what some of those
languages are. No, the movie languages or story languages will not overpower an entire cultures
language, its merely an example. If these groups are more easily able to communicate with other
people that speak these very secluded languages how easy would it be to find so many others that

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use English? As of December 2013 the top language on Twitter is English at 34% of Tweets
(Fox). English may be the most used language, but its a new form of English. This new style of
English includes varied acronyms, shortened ways to say things, called textspeak, hashtags,
and using an asterisk in order to do an action to another (Reed). This is not conventional
English, as a result of social media the entire language is being evolved. This is only a true
statement because the ones adopting this new way of using English is the kids, the younger
generations. Its true, the younger generations still learn proper English in school, but how many
of them go home and use it in everyday life? Besides reading a book assigned to them in English
class, the emerging leaders of tomorrow are only reading passages that consist of 140 characters
and half of them are emoticons. It only takes two generations to lose an entire language, this is
the same with altering a language. If two generations speak only the evolved form of this
language then English will be forever changed. English isnt the language people would be afraid
to lose, however, there are much more endangered languages. The United Nations Atlas of
Endangered Languages has made a list of approximately 199 languages with only ten or less
speakers. Of these languages 18 only have one speaker left in the entire world, a few examples
are Apiaka, Biyka, and Chana (Montgomery and Ryan). Social media may have groups
dedicated to languages, however, if there is only one person who even knows the language, how
will a group be started? Social media is a place to communicate, the only person who speaks the
language is the one last standing member, this means if he or she were to use that language on
social media the entire point of communicating would be completely ineffective. The main
languages being spoken in the world are English, but when in a home country that is what
language will be spoken. This is different on social media, social media is a place in and of itself,
where a single community can be made up of someone from every continent. A common

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language has to be put in place, English is usually this language. Everywhere on Earth English is
being taught because it is currently the worldwide trade language, so when on a massive social
networking site, such as FaceBook, and want to talk to anyone most people just assume that
English will be used.
Some networking sites have a counter to this argument, sites like FaceBook now have a
translation button. This allows anyone to use any major language. FaceBook offers a variety of
languages now, but they are all major languages, such as Spanish, French, and German (Little).
For some this seems like a good idea, and it is certainly a brighter side to the saddening loss of a
language, but all FaceBook is doing is slowing the process. Al though FaceBook, and other
social media sites, have included this new feature there is still a problem of losing languages.
Major languages are being supported, these are other trade languages, or world dominators
already. Germans have the car industry, France has the fashion industry, and Spanish, well
Spanish is just everywhere. Yes, the networking sites added more languages which is a large step
in the right direction, but those languages were not the ones being threatened. Languages like
Hebrew, which died out, but was revived due to the Jewish religion, are not being supported, this
language already died out once, and now social media sites, the rulers of tomorrows
communication world, dont support it.
Religion is a major player when talking about culture of any kind. Regions each have
their own major, dominating culture. In India this is Hindu, Chinese religion is usually
Buddhism, and England is primarily Catholic, Israel is Jewish, and the Middle East is Islamic.
These religions were set in their respective places because of years of wars, conquering,
expanding, and gaining followers. The areas they are now found can be traced back thousands of
years, but there are also smaller religions that have been around for centuries and have stayed in

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the same place as a result of not getting involved with conflicts, such as Shintoism in Japan.
Emerging religions also are smaller, but generally in the same region, for example the majority
of Scientology is based in California. These religions have their own spot on a map, its not a
rule that a person has to be that religion if they want to live in that specific area, but the regions
are just made up primarily of those religions. On social media, as stated before, a small
community of friends or followers can be made up of one person from every continent. This
is a drastic change to how religions interact. Some religions have been at war with each other
since they were created, others live peacefully, but on social media everyone is brought to one
place. There are groups, started by denominations, on social media and that trend is continuously
growing. Everyday more and more churches, or synagogues, or mosques, or what have you, put a
page up or post onto their personalized wall. This is multiple groups that have fought in
wars against each other, but yet are all on the same site trying to spread their individual
teachings. The teachings on each page may be different, but the way the teachings are taught is
the same, through tweets, posts, or through the use of #. On FaceBook you can put, in
your profile, things such as gender, birthday, hometown, and religion. FaceBook has a feature,
the like which allows you to show something you support or, well like. This tool was a great
idea developed by Zuckerberg, but its now gone in a different direction. It was developed to
connect you with people of similar interests, but has now drastically escalated. Advertisers can
buy their way into your interests, for a small price the advertisers of todays market can see what
interests the majority of the population has (Dijck Ch.3). The most populated religion in the
world is Christianity, this is no little known fact. Christianity is also a religion that actively seeks
out followers, unlike Judaism which allows people to join but does not actively seek to convert
others. People on FaceBook all get the same variety of ads, based on the popular trends.

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Christianity, because it actively seeks out people to convert, has ads for churches, depending on
how large the church is. This constant barrage of one culture may convert others, after all it is the
purpose of an ad, to buy into an idea. As of April of 2014 there were 1.35 billion active
FaceBook users alone (Smith). This means that a little over 14% of the world is on FaceBook
alone. Christianity could influence a large amount of the worlds population just by going onto
FaceBook and advertising. Social media is a site for trends and trend setters, this also means
that it is a tool for followers, people who want to be in with the crowd (Dijck Ch.3). These trends
turn into the worlds obsession usually, just take the ice bucket challenge for example. This
trend spread through social media sites like a wildfire. Yes, it was for a good cause, but some
people doing the challenge didnt even know that it was for a cause, they did it simply because
they wanted to join their friends, or they were called out by their friends. Religion may come to a
point where it spreads just as rapidly because of the sphere of influence it has on the social media
population. This could result in the complete and total loss of religion, or like language it could
completely evolve into a new religion that everyone has put ideas into and religion just becomes
a worldwide trait. One that may bring to life new traditions associated with it.
Each culture has its own set of traditions or customs that has been passed down for
centuries, or longer. Take for example the medieval knight. Within the code of chivalry there are
many customs and practices that they must follow. In their military customs they were required
to lift their visors and greet one another so that they could actually figure out who it was they
were going to battle with, since both sides looked the same (Schlager 136). On the battlefields of
today, that is not the case. During the Revolutionary War the term guerilla warfare was coined,
and the formal fighting customs of greeting your opponent were completely abandoned. The
practicality of formal fighting was not necessary anymore. People were easily identifiable who

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was on whose side, and the tactics were more productive. Customs or traditions were developed
because that culture needed a way of getting a task done, one that actually worked. Japan is a
very art centralized country, from Japanese painting, to their martial arts. Painting was used
originally as a tradition practiced by the upper class, because literacy was associated with upper
class, so the royals had to have a very beautiful style of writing. Martial arts were a way of
connecting emotions and focusing energy on every move you make when fighting, this allowed
for better hand to hand combat and better results when facing opponents. A very small amount of
people actual paint the Japanese language like what they used to, this custom was expelled
because of the invention of tools that allowed easier, quicker writing. Computers, typewriters,
technology has almost wiped out a custom because it is more productive, more efficient. Martial
arts has also declined because of more modern weapons and ideas of warfare, that are more
efficient than training for hours on how to kick in just the right spot. All of these ideas may have
taken a while to get to the knights or to the artistic Japanese culture, but now with social media
the ideas are just a click away. Dijck states that Twitter is used as a tool to embrace the
connectivity of individuals and communities (Ch.3). Social media has the ability to share ideas
with people from all over the world, in seconds, this is outstanding. The Chinese were the first to
develop gun powder, they also had it long before anyone else because China was quite the ship
ride away from any other trading country. Were social media developed, someone would have
posted or tweeted about the discovery and the world would have known instantly. Trends are
set on social media, just like the ice bucket challenge referenced previously. This was a relatively
small movement that escalated very quickly into a trend that everyone did, news casters,
celebrities, even politicians. How did it start up? Yep, you guessed it, social media. The
movement quickly and rapidly spread across the globe, with millions participating. Social media

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has the ability to create a multiplier effect. One person does the trend, it spreads to another, and
eventually all their friends are doing it and it just keeps going on. As Dijck said, "A significant
expansion of Twitters architecture was the implementation, in late 2008, of trending topics"
(Ch.3), this shows it supports the idea of popular ideas/trends and this is what cultures seek out,
the popular, more useful, idea. Twitter has a whole section dedicated to trending topics these
are very major topics, such as sports, politics, technology and ideas. This is similar to Pinterest, a
site that exposes ways of doing things, or general ideas of things to do. These topics could be
things like cute things to do for your significant other, or business practices. On these business
sites there could be ingredients for recipes they use or ways they run their companies. Lets focus
in on China for a moment. The Chinese came up with a method of printing with wooden blocks
that were carved by hand (Pietzcker), similar to an old fashioned newspaper press. This trend
was quickly overtaken when the typewriter came out. Now there are very few people who use
the wooden block prints, this is because the typewriter is more effective and more efficient.
People, no matter what their traditions, are going to abandon them as long as the new idea is
more effective, or quicker. Social media is simply playing the role of the messenger in this case,
through people sharing the experiences they have had, literally every experience they have ever
had, and through their use of images, or memes. Dijck later goes on to tell how 90% of the
tweets on Twitter are made up by a mere tenth of the people on Twitter (Ch.3). This staggeringly
low amount of people posting this large number of Tweets shows that a lot of the ideas on
Twitter are the same style, or coming from the same person. This homogeneous idea trend could
potentially, if the ideas are better than already existing traditions, and or customs, dominate the
way everyone does things. If these major players on social media were to come up with effective

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ways of doing tasks they could theoretically determine the traditions or customs of a worldwide
culture.
Cultures around the world have vast amounts of differences as of right now. These
differences are evident in their language, religion, and customs or traditions. All of the categories
stated above are obvious, what isnt so obvious is how social media may impact these topics.
Social media is helping the world connect, through certain dominant languages that may or may
not destroy other languages. Already prominent languages are also being altered or evolved as a
result of people communicating differently as before. Emoticons, and abbreviations are
becoming more and more common in the social media world, thus in the everyday life of
millions. Then again the social networking sites also allow people who speak very rare languages
connect with other people who also try to speak or do speak those languages. Religions can be
practiced, changed, and followers for the religions can be actively sought out through the use of
social media. These religious ideas can be changed depending on what is being taught through
the social media sites, or the ideas can become more widespread as a result of people actively
converting others through social media use. The dominant religions have a larger ability to
convert more people because they are currently the more populated religion and advertisers will
try to advertise more towards their specific tastes. Traditions and customs were originally created
for a purpose, to accomplish a task, and if they worked then they stuck, creating the start of the
tradition. If the few people who dominate were to throw out good, effective ideas then other
cultures would adopt them. The sphere of influence when considering a social media site is very
little, a few people have a very large amount of influence on the participants of the site. This
means the majority of the ideas are very centralized to meet that groups desires. If their ideas
were adopted widespread there would be a very small deviation worldwide as to how things are

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done. The traditions of different cultures would become the same and then the culture would lose
its traditional/customary identity. These things may only happen when a lot of ifs are met. The
chances of each of these possibilities happening is very little, at any given time there will most
likely be a specific trait, whether it be language, religion, customs, or some other characteristic
not discussed, that will identify a culture as its own culture. Cultures may be influenced or even
changed drastically by social media, but the chances of cultural identity being lost due to social
media is slim to none.

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Works Cited
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Fox, Zoe. "Top 10 Most Popular Languages on Twitter [CHART]." Mashable. 17 Dec. 2013.
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Montgomery, Leigh, and Elizabeth Ryan. "World's 18 Most Endangered Spoken Languages."
The Christian Science Monitor. The Christian Science Monitor, 27 Apr. 2010. Web. 4
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Dijck, Jose. "Chapter 3: FaceBook and the Imperative of Sharing." The Culture of Connectivity:
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Smith, Craig. How Many People Use 700 of the Top Social Media, Apps and Digital Services
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"Knights and the Traditions of Chivalry." The Crusades Reference Library. Ed. Neil Schlager, et
al. Vol. 1: Almanac. Detroit: UXL, 2005. 134-156. World History in Context. Web. 4
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Pietzcker, Eva. "Edutainment Chinese Woodblock Prints." Chinese Woodblock Prints. 1 July
2004. Web. 4 Nov. 2014. <http://www.artelino.com/articles/chinese-woodblockprints.asp>.