Social Negative Consequences Of Society's Addiction To Social Media

INTRODUCTION

Social media refers to applications and websites that enable users to create and share content in the form of text, photos, audio and videos. Examples of social media platforms include Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

As technology has drastically improved over the years, so has the usage of social media. The rise of social media has also affected aspects of life from politics to news consumption and “even people’s level of stress” (Perrin).

Social media features many benefits from convenience to better networking. However, some scholars warn of the possibility of addiction to social media. They believe that it may lead to “socially negative consequences such as social isolation, erosion of social cohesion” (Baek, Young and

The percentage of American adults who use at least one social networking site has increased exponentially from 7% in 2005 to 65% in 2015 (Perrin). According to Pew Research Centre in 2015, 59% of Instagram users use the platform daily, including 35% who use it several times a day. This marks a 10% increase from September 2014.

To put things in a global perspective, there are 2.307 billion active social media users as of January 2016 (Chaffey). This makes up 31% of the world’s population. The annual growth in the number of active social media users is 10% since January 2015, or 219 million people (Chaffey). Facebook, YouTube and Twitter were the top three most popular social network platforms in 2015 according to the Global Web Index (Chaffey). As for the fastest growing social networks, Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram come up as the top three.

This means that at this point in time, there are more people active on social media platforms than ever before. This dramatic increase in social media usage brings up the question of the impacts of social media. There is also the social issue of possible addiction to social media. This literature review will discuss potential demographic differences in social media usage and its impact on society and its people.

DEMOGRAPHIC

Those who are less educated and have a lower income family focus more on their current job, rather than finding a new job, as they have to work hard to make sufficient money for their family.

IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA

POSITIVE

Social media has helped many companies to boost their marketing and reach out to a wider audience. In 2014, 92% of companies indicated that social media is important for their business, which is a significant increase from 86% in 2013, 80% also agreed that it had help drive traffic to their business (Kusinitz). Besides helping to drive business, social media has also helped to increase brand loyalty. 74% of companies gain loyal fans through their social media platforms (Kusinitz).

Social media marketing is what appeals most to the biggest demographic, the Millennials, who are people between the ages of 18-34. Youth are now all online nowadays so online marketing, such as social media marketing, will be most accessible to them.

Besides that, social media has also helped to better facilitate communication. According to Masket and Weller, social media has allowed instant communication to replace traditional forms such as mobile phones and