Social media in today’s society.

Social media is one of the most important things in today’s society. From the dictionary one explains the social media as forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as videos) (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/social%20media) We know what the definition of social media is, but how is social media a part of our everyday, how do we use it, and what sides are the of our usage of the social media?

There are countless social medias one can use. The ten most used Social Medias are, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google Plus+, Tumblr, Instagram, VK , Flickr and Vine. Facebook is the nr. 1 most used social media in the world, and it is also a media that covers more or less anything, and everything one can do while on social media. You have the opportunity to chat with one or more people, there is a “skype” function to the chat, one can share anything one wants to share (photos, links, videos etc.). There is also a possibility to comment, “like”, and/or share anything you may see while on Facebook. The different social medias work in different ways, in spite of that, all social medias have one thing in common, you need to create your own account to use it. By doing that there is a variation of required personal information that’s needed.

The social media has a huge impact in our life’s and the world as it works today, it has caused to great commination possibilities and a more open and global world, but it's not without any disadvantages or downsides. Like most things, there are always pros and cons. In the modern world we depend on a global world were Internet is up 24/7 in every corner of the world. We expect friends, colleagues, teachers and so on to be online at any time, as well as you are expected to be online at any time. There is no doubt that this does something to us as people, and affects your health. The social media can easily become an easier way to talk to friends, than actually meeting them. It is easy to end up sitting for two hours looking at a screen rather than doing something proper.  The use of Facebook is said to be more wasted time than watching TV. So we lose some of the real face to face time with family and friends by too much use of social media, but there is also a big chance of making new friendships and connections, as well as getting back in contact with old friends or distant family members. In fact as much as 70% of older grown-ups have used social media sites to connect with old relatives in other countries and similar, also over 50% of teenagers have stated they have got new friendships via different sites.

Social media is an open place for discussing and sharing thoughts. Studies show that students that use social media for discussing about school related subjects often get good grades. Despite this there is also quite a big amount of pupils who end up using Internet and social media too much, this percentage of students score in average almost a whole grade worse than those students that don’t.  Like mentioned social media gives the opportunity to share thoughts and discuss openly, this gives regular citizens an easier way to get in personal contact with politics. In this way the social media facilitates the political change of citizens. It is very easy to put out anything one wants on the social media, consequences of that are that information can be false and unreliable. The social media is used a lot to impart news, in fact the figure estimate is just under 30%, this is almost 10% more the usage of radio for news, and at the same line of printed newspaper. This is a big issue as the news is so unreliable. The positive aspect regarding news and the social media is that information is spread quickly through social media, in that case if there was important and reliable news it would spread quickly. Another important part of the social media is all the information that is put out on the sites. It is very easy to write down a mail and full name and agree to the thousand terms that one on most occasions haven’t read, but do we really know what we agree to? This is not something relating only some users of the media, but everyone. Any membership requires personal information and anything put online is there forever, even the personal chat you have with your friends on for example Facebook is saved. There are two sides of this aspect. The information shared on social media can help the government and other law related institutes, where one can find profiles to felons and track them down. The downside is all the power that lies with the people with the information. Anything you share on a social media site is in the power of the owner, this threatens ones own private life. Also hacking and making of fake profiles is a big problem related to this.

It is difficult to set a line of which is the better and the worse related to the social media and todays use of it. It is clear that the media can be used wrongly and that it is used very differently from person to person. One can conclude that social media is good and has many positive sides to it, if it is used in proportion.  Like everything, there is a fine line of what is a right and wrong amount of it. The possibilities and options of what one can do on the social media are great, but it is a dilemma regarding the information that exists on the social media. For a global world like we live in, it is necessary to use and have the chance to connect through social media, but one should step cautiously as there are many traps relating ones own privacy, health and future.