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Running Head: Social Networking

Is Social Networking Beneficial to our Society?


Darnell Vandivort
University of Texas at El Paso

Social Networking

Abstract
In my findings social media is a way for people to connect with one another no matter
where they are located and makes people aware of things they might not have been before. It
brings people together by world news, business purposes, and even for simply entertainment
purposes. Social Networking doesnt always mean Twitter or Facebook, its use in education is so
students can evolve their ideas with one another and form vital communities with each other. The
number of people using social media is increasing every day not only in the United States but
worldwide. Social media can be used for many great things, but does the good outweigh the bad?

Introduction
In the society we live in today we are surrounded and dependent on technology. Is this a
good or bad thing? Within this technology is social media/networking, which many Americans
today are familiar with. Social media is defined as websites and applications that enable users to
create and share content or to participate in social networking. Social media is not something that
is just apart of peoples lives, but is something that is heavily depended on. It can be used for
many things, like connecting people from across the globe, to benefiting people with their
education, to even stopping crimes and raising awareness for a crime. The purpose of this paper
is not to list the benefits of social media/networking, but to evaluate whether the benefits
outweigh the non-benefits. When it comes down to it having social media around and the heavy
dependency on it is more beneficial than not.

Social Networking

What is social media primarily used for?

What percentage of people are using social media?

What are the main apps people are using today?

Does social media help education in a positive way?

What Is Social Media primarily used for?


The question is asked all the time, what is the main purpose for using social media?
Answers can vary upon different opinions, but social media/networking is primarily used for two
things. Business/Marketing purposes and to connect with people globally. According to Love to
Know Social Networking businesses use social media for 5 key purposes. Inexpensive
Marketing, Banner and Text Ad Advertising, Customer Relation Management Tool, Global
Exposure, and Online Meeting Places. Social media is used by businesses mainly because of the
small costs, the same TV ad can be used to gain exposure of your business but for millions of
dollars. In putting a simple ad or tweet you can gain much more exposure for more than half the
cost of a TV ad because social networking cites are being visited by millions daily. This is a win
win situation for the business by paying little to no cost and receiving twice as much exposure.
These ads are a positive way for your customers to keep up to date with your business by a
simple click of a button. Social media is also primarily used for simply entertainment purposes.
People like to feel connected with one another, know the latest drama, news and what everyone
is talking about. It makes people feel as if they fit in because its the norm.

Social Networking

What percentage of people are using Social Media?


According to Computerworld.com one in seven people use social networks. Nearly 30%
of the world populations uses sites like Facebook, Instagram and many more every month. In this
study about 1.61 billion people will use social media which include Twitter, Google+, Facebook
and Instagram this is according to eMarketer which is a market research company. These
calculations are from 2013, so the numbers now have increased tremendously. According to
eMarketer in 2013 the worlds population came in at 7.046 billion people which totals 22.8% of
the worlds population uses social networks
per month. Estimates show that by year 2017
the

Population will increase to 7.44 billion people


and 31.3% of the world will be using social
networks. Now the number of users these
social networks are gaining is increasing, but
the growth rate is actually slowing down.
What website has the most users you may ask? Facebook
still is on top with 1.026 billion monthly users. This can change with the amount of people
staying away from Facebook and using other sites like Instagram or Twitter. As it may seem
obvious the highest growth rates are in the less-developed countries such as India, Indonesia, and
Mexico, according to eMarket.com. The numbers show that social media isnt just used by
Americans, it is something that is being used worldwide at a very high scale.

Social Networking

What are the main apps people are using today?


In todays world many people are encouraged to have the most Facebook friends, or
Twitter followers. According to CNN.com Facebook has more than 1.2 billion active users while
Twitter has 240 million users. These numbers still prove that these two sites are at the top of the
market, but the growth rate of these sites has started to decrease. This is due to the fact that
young teens/adults are starting to stay away from these sites and join smaller circles. These
sites may include Kik, Snapchat, Vine, and WeChat. What all these sites have in common is their
broadcast isnt as large as a Facebook or Twitter. These sites enable users to send personal
messages or broadcast content to smaller groups of people. Now according to a GlobalWebIndex
survey the two fastest growing apps used by teens were Vine, which is an app where you can
share brief video clips, and WeChat a Chinese mobile text and voice messaging app. The teens
and young adults have resorted to these smaller circles because after a while it gets hard to
please everyone with what youre posting whether it be your relatives, or old high school friends.
Joining these smaller broadcasted apps gives them a sense of acceptance. Now just because these
other applications are being used doesnt mean the teens are ghosts on the bigger social media
sites. Among the teens being surveyed 56% said they were active on Facebook today compared
to the 76% the year before. Thiel Stern puts it in a good perspective that young people are always
looking for the newest and coolest things, so when they see that their parents and grandparents
are on Facebook they dont see it as being cool anymore. The Pew Research Internet Project
conducted focus groups with teens stating that their lack of presence on Facebook has been to the
disliking of increasing adult presence, people sharing excessively, and the stressful drama.
Although these dislikes were brought up few of these teens stopped using Facebook completely.

Social Networking

Does Social Media help education in a positive way?


Social networking has transformed how we go about our everyday lives, its used to bring
people together and can even be used to help elect presidents. In a 2010 Pew Study it shows that
social networking has become an integral part of the world beyond K12 schools. Of the students
surveyed 96% agreed using social networks and half of them use it for school related purposes.
This is quite a big number of students using these websites to do work, but why hasnt it been
adopted into the schools? There are several reasons which include the students safety, what are
the educational benefits and the policy issues that need to be considered. There is so simple
answer to any of these questions, this being the reason education has fallen behind the publics
usage of social networking. The interest of bringing this to schools is high, as a national survey
of 1,200 principles, teachers, and librarians found that most agreed that social networking can
help educators by sharing information and resources, creating professional learning communities
and improve communication with the students and staff. Christine Greenhow took a study in
2008 of high school students in the Midwest and discovered that social networking expanded the
students abilities to perform work by actually practicing the kinds of 21st-century skills we
want them to develop to be successful today. In the United Kingdom social networking sites
have been adopted and students are gaining the benefits that are believed to come with social
networking. The British Council recommends to do three things, determine which social
networking sites students like to use, make students aware of free learning opportunities
available via social networking sites and show students how to set up their own blogs. This is a
difficult situation to be addressed with as the students and staff believe that social networking
can only benefit the educators, but questions still cannot be answered as to how they can create

Social Networking

policies and protect the students. The U.S. Department of Educations National Education
Technology Plan of 2010 is encouraging all states and districts to experiment with social
networks to expand the learning opportunities for students and create communities. This was in
2010 and schools have still not adopted social networking sites in schools. So the question that
can be asked now is will social networking sites ever be adopted into schools?

Disadvantages of Social Media


With many things in this world there are often advantages and disadvantages this can
correlate with social media as well. According to theresearchpedia.com these disadvantages
include the potential risk of hacking, creating something that does not exist or may not be good
as it is presented, it can be used to make false claims, posting videos and pictures can be used for
defamation, it can hide someones true identity. All of these disadvantages can question if social
media is even worth using. Starting off with the first disadvantage of hacking, which can be very
serious as your identity can be stolen. Just knowing your date of birth, location, and name can
lead someone to make fake ID cards, and drivers licenses. Almost 15 million Americans get
their identity stolen but these numbers still only lead to 40% of people managing their profiles
with privacy settings, according to PCWorld. When people make false claims about something it
can hurt either a business or even a person. If someone were to tweet that they received a finger
in their chili at Wendys it can cause a loss of funds to the business, especially since people
believe everything they see on the internet. Users need to be careful who they are talking to on
the internet. These social sites can show other people what they want to see and not who they
truly are. The hit series Catfish is a whole show about this, helping people meet that have never
met before but only have spoken through these websites. All of these disadvantages show that

Social Networking

when using social networks you must be careful protecting your information and privacy, and
who you choose to speak too.

Primary Source
Wanting to get a better understanding and taking research into my own hands Ive created
a survey. Giving the benefits and disadvantages of social media I wanted to see what my
colleagues thought about the subject. Taking a survey of 50 of my colleagues asking if they
thought social media was overall beneficial to our society. My guess was that there would be a
quite abundance of people choosing yes to my question and this was right. In the survey 41 of
the 50 people believed that social media was beneficial. Asking some the students why they said
yes and most of them replied with it brings us together and what would we be without it?
Also taking a survey of 50 other people that werent in college changed the outcome of the
research. These people were above 30 years of age and asked them the same question. The
results changed quite a bit. Of the 50 only 28 believed social media was more beneficial then not.
They said that kids spend to much time on them or it makes face to face contact with others
less meaningful Of the two surveys taken both believed that social media was more beneficial
but the results changed when asking older people. So might we say that social media is more
beneficial to younger adults because they are more active on these sites therefore have a bias
towards them?

Conclusion

Social Networking

As reviewed in the paper social media/networking has its benefits and disadvantages. The
benefits do outweigh the disadvantages because social media and networking can be used for
many things beneficial to our society. The use of it to help educate our students and help them
join learning communities together, the use of marketing a business and help broadcast their
company or product, and it helps people come together and feel a sense of acceptance between
one another.

References

Social Networking

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Gross, D. (2014, March 25). Social Media Users migrating to smaller circles. Retrieved October
5, 2014.

Gaudin, S. (2013, November 21). One out of seven people use social networks, study shows.
Retrieved October 5, 2014.

Bumgardner, S., & Knestis, K. (2011, May 1). Social Networking as a Tool for Student and
Teacher Learning. Retrieved October 5, 2014.

Baker, S. (n.d.). What Are Social Networks Used For? Retrieved October 5, 2014, from
http://socialnetworking.lovetoknow.com/What_are_Social_Networks_Used_For

Disadvantages of Social Media. (n.d.). Retrieved October 5, 2014, from


http://www.theresearchpedia.com/research-articles/disadvantages-of-social-media

Social Networking Reaches Nearly One in Four Around the World - eMarketer. (2013, June 18).
Retrieved October 5, 2014, from http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Social-NetworkingReaches-Nearly-One-Four-Around-World/1009976

Primary Source: Survey

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