Social Media Today

Today’s social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram are common household names. They provide a fast communication between one another using chat, instant messaging, videos, or photos. Over the years, social networking sites have gradually expanded causing them to transform from basic sites to complex and popular ones. In 1997, the internet slowly became more popular. It soon attracted more users giving people a desire to connect with friends and family members more often at a new rate. After the first social media website launched, sixdegrees.com, users admired it, but complained that there was little to do aside from “friending” people. That criticism inspired more advanced creators to build different networking sites. Eventually, this caused more complex sites to be created including business and dating sites. Various web pages became extremely popular. As society has gained a natural addiction to social networking websites, we have failed to realize certain effects that have surfaced. Negative effects that social sites portray include a false sense of communication between parties, cyber-bullying, decreased productivity, and privacy issues. Facebook, for example, can make communication more difficult for users to distinguish between the meaningful relationships that occur in reality. Using social media sites make it more likely for one to come across cyber-bullying. Kids and teens especially are vulnerable to the scary activity in which some cases, a predator might anonymously pose as people their victims trust. Cyber-bullying has led to suicide of victims in most cases. Another effect of social media sites is decreased productivity. Businesses come across more competition online with various sites being forced to cope with constant loss of consumers. Most importantly, social media sites open doors to inside information of others, defeating the privacy one may desire. Instagram, for example, gives users a chance to expose their