The Impact of Social Media in our Life
Overview
The role of Internet in personal and professional lives of people has increased dramatically during
the last decade and today people use Internet for many different purposes including education,
shopping, communication, working, entertainment etc.Justify?
Social media have become increasingly popular components of our everyday lives in todays
globalizing society.Justify? Social Media have emerged as a platform for displaying individual
profiles, sharing information, photos, videos, experiences among Internet users as well as forming
friendships and sending messages to each-other.Justify?
Social media is the collective of online communications channels dedicated to community-based
input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration. Websites and applications dedicated to forums,
micro-blogging, social networking , social bookmarking, social curation are among the different
types of social media.
Social Media have mushroomed during the last few years and today there are many global Social
Networking Sites as well as sites targeting specific countries, members of specific groups and
people of specific professions. Social Networks: The term social network refers to the articulation
of a social relationship, as-cribed or achieved, among individuals, families, households, villages,
com- munities, regions, and so on. Each of them can play dual roles, acting both as a unit or node of
a social network as well as a social actor (cf. Laumann & Pappi, 1976).
Problem statement
First of all, respondents Justify? characteristics are considered as an important domain of research
within social networking sites literature. Profiling their age, gender, religion, marital status and
academic level, would help us to identify and evaluate their time spent online. Todays all
communities (which consist of Generation Y or also named Millennial) are exposed to all types of
technologies in many aspects of their lives (Browning, Gerlich, &Westermann, 2011). On a daily
basis they use desktop computers, laptops, E-readers, tablets, and cell phones to actively engage in
social networking, text messaging, blogging, content sharing, online learning, and much more
(Cassidy, Griffin, Manolovitz, Shen, & Turney, 2011).
Social Media can involves in our life with both positive and negative aspect. According to Nick
(2010) Online social networking has helped solved problems within seconds. As many people see
this as a positive thing, an argument can be made that social media is ruining this generation by
identity and privacy fraud, negative health consequences, addiction, the risk of sexual harassment/
cyber bullying impact in a real life.
Purpose Of Research
The purpose of this study is to identify the negative and positive effects of social network sites such
as Facebook , Twitter, Myspace, Hi5, Bebo ,Google+ (G plus) etc. Firstly the study will be
concentrate on positive effect of Social media. One Positive reason for depending on social site is
the exchange of information, share ideas and communication among people no matter where they
belong from. Moreover, Social media remove the Global distance. We use social media networks
such as Facebook and Myspace in order to keep ourselves updated on our family and friends lives
no matter where they are in the world (Aline and Sasha L, 2010). Social media are technologies
now encompass the socializing features of virtual spaces that have emerged as zones for
information sharing, collaboration, and community formation and extension (Suter, Alexander, &
Kaplan, 2005). Beside this Study will concern on negative effect of social media that how much it
dangerous for our life and how much it plays a very negative role in our life.
Electronic communication is emotionally gratifying but how do such technological distraction
impact on community? Moreover, the impact of social network site on our life also raised another
major concern which is health. Today social network sites are running this generation by identity
and privacy fraud, the risk of sexual harassment/ cyber bullying impact in a real life. Social network
sites were only an electronic connection between users, but unfortunately it has become an
addiction for people. This study examines the relationship between social network sites and health
threat. Lastly, the study provides a comprehensive analysis of the law and privacy of social sites. It
shows how social sites users socialize on the site, while they are not aware or misunderstand the
risk involved and how their privacy suffers in a result.
Research Questions
RQ1: Why people overly depend on social sites?
RQ2: How social sites play a negative role in developing a distance between a real friends and
family members?
Research Objectives
RO1: what are the positive effects of social sites among student?
Easily communications around the global.
Build a new relationship with other country people.
Join different community or groups.
To know about other countries culture.
To get basic skill.
RO2: whats the negative effect of social sites among student?
Wasting a time.
Health problems.
Addiction.
Joining a bad friend companies.
Sexual harassment.
Identity and data privacy fraud.
Definitions
The term 'social media' is used here to describe dynamic and socially-interactive, networked
information and communication technologies, for example Web 2.0 sites, SMS text
messaging and social networking sites (Social Networking University of Essex, 2008).
According to Heidi Cohen.com, Social media is not about what each one of us does or says,
but about what we do and say together, worldwide, to communicate in all directions at any
time, by any possible (digital) means.
According to Chrisg.com , Social media is the tools, services, and communication
facilitating connection between peers with common interests.
According to webopedia.com, social networking site is the phrase used to describe any Web
site that enables users to create public profiles within that Web site and form relationships
with other users of the same Web site who access their profile. Social networking sites can
be used to describe community-based Web sites, online discussions forums, chartrooms and
other social spaces online.
According to socialmediadefined.com, Social Media is the future of communication, a
countless array of internet based tools and platforms that increase and enhance the sharing of
information.
Literature review
Studies on social media impact on community are fast becoming a trend. The study of social
networks is a new but quickly widening multidisciplinary area involving social, mathematical,
statistical, and computer sciences. Social media technologies can be classified into many forms
including magazines, Internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, micro blogging, wikis, social
networks, podcasts, photographs or pictures, video, rating and social bookmarking. Most of the
books and articles reviewed discussed the positive and negative effect of social media (Rantai,
Muhammad and Sawera, 2014). However, when we talk about influence of social networking i
think we need to conduct in depth study of the social media impact. According to ( Kaitlin C ,
2010 ) , Social networking websites like facebook, Twitter , Google+, provide tools by which
people
can communicate and create new relationships. Nick (2010) also states online social
networking has helped solved problems within seconds. Furthermore, online social sites are a quick
way of sending and receiving a message and also 24 hours availability to the users, According to
(Suter, Alexander, & Kaplan, 2005) , Social media are technologies now encompass the socializing
features of virtual spaces that have emerged as zones for information sharing, collaboration, and
community formation and extension .Beside that chatting online is a quick way of sending a
message to someone as compared to send the message by post which take a lot of times . Moreover,
using of social sites we can stay touch with old classmate and friends through virtual
communication and update ourselves from current situation happening around friends and family,
we use social media networks such as Facebook and Myspace in order to keep ourselves updated on
our family and friends lives no matter where they are in the world ( Aline and Sasha L , 2010). In
addition social media can also change the youth life, todays college students (which consist of
Baby Boomers, Generation Xers, and Millennials) are exposed to all types of technologies in many
aspects of their lives (Browning, Gerlich, & Westermann, 2011).
On a daily basis youth are using different types of technologies to engage themselves with a various
activities in these technologies one is the social media that leave a great impact on youth life .
Social media provides a good platform to youth to learn and achieve something related to the
knowledge. It also build a confidential relationships between student and teacher. As educators look
for ways to engage and motivate students, social media technologies are becoming a viable
supplement to the traditional learning environment (Ebner, Lienhardt, Rohs, & Meyer, 2010). These
are the positive points of using social sites, while other group of people argue that social media is
ruining this generation by addiction, health issues, identity and privacy fraud in a real life.
According to (Subrahmanyam et al, 2008), a primary danger associated with an uncontrolled or
overly liberal media usage is when someone start to communicate with unknown persons which can
trigger serious problems in the future. Beside that it is also so common in social media to make a
fake account like makeup and also easy to change yourself from He to She and from She to He.
Justify?
Data privacy is a fundamental problem in today's information technology. If someone illegal get
user data they are misusing the data for their own purpose. According to (Abdulah ,Samadi and
Gharleghi , 2014) , Enormous amounts of data are collected by government agencies, search
engines, social networking systems, hospitals, financial institutions, and other organizations, and are
stored in databases , those stored information is very crucial for individuals, people might misuse
this information . Divine and Ezra (2010 ), also states the data used for a target as today could
become a detailed personal profile sold to large cooperation or government agency tomorrow .
Majority website they don't offer the legal privacy promise but if they do so the other main problem
that normally user are facing which is the fine print which can hardly be seen or noticed and the too
long details about privacy that people don't want to waste a time on reading it so they can simply
ignore it . According to (Divine and Ezra , 2010 ) , Most social network sites dont offer any legal
privacy promises and if they do, it is in extreme fine print which can hardly be seen or noticed.
Social sites also negative impact on a people daily life such as Individual might face behavioral
problem due to over usage of Internet where they are reacting differently than the normal behavior
(Kubey, Lavin & Barrows, 2001). Moreover, some other physical problem might occur due to long
use of the Internet. Some physical problems are migraine or headache, sleep pattern disrupt etc
(Jeon, 2005; Young, 2007; and Yang & Tung, 2004).
Some other problems include psychological problems where an individual are unable to control
their emotions and the way of thinking due to long hour use of the Internet. They tend to increase
the net serving time and eliminate the set schedule. Moreover, the impact of Internet addiction does
not limit to affect an individual only but might also affect the work performance of an individual
(K.S. Young, 2008). The condition is getting worried when the work problem has brought some
impacts to the people working together and to the company that the individual is working with.
According to Li and Chung (2006), those who use the Internet for long time for social function
purposes might be having some problems such as the compulsive use of Internet, withdrawal from
social activities, decrease the tolerance, facing time management problem, interpersonal and health
problems. The researcher also argued that excessive Internet users exhibit more severe Internet
addictive behaviors. The extent of social sites use increases depression and decreases self- esteem
(Jeon, 2005; Young, 2006; Yang & Tung, 2004). Wellman and Gulia (1999) reported that online
relationships can be strong and could strengthen real world relationships but later it could be faded
it. As such, 75.5% of respondents prefer to use the Internet when they feel isolated; 50% of
respondents reported complaints from family members for being online for longer hours; less than
50% of respondents think that they were more effective online than offline (Shuhail & Bergees,
2006).
The relationships between excessive social sites usage and interpersonal problem are increasing
rapidly. Li and Chung (2006) stated that it is very important to know how Internet users formed
their relationship with their friends through online or normal social life. According to them it is also
necessary to check whether the people are missing their social engagement, whether they more
comfortable with online friend and reduce the contact with the people in reality or not. In addition,
the interpersonal problems are also identifiable based on the family members complaints toward
excessive social sites users. Furthermore, isolated feeling that leads to excessive social sites usage
can also be used to determine interpersonal problems (Wellman & Gulia, 1999; Shuhail & Bergees,
2006).
Heavy Internet and social users were much less likely to engage in the following health promoting
behaviours than the rest; attempting to eat a healthier diet, taking nutritional supplements, trying to
increase physical activity levels, and were shown to be significantly more likely to be overweight
Body Mass Index (BMI >25), have hypersomnia (>10 h of sleep/day) and have adverse effects on
their studies (Jean, Lau, Cheuk, Kan, Hui & Griffiths, 2010). The adverse effect would be; migraine
or headache, less sleep, and backaches because of prolong hours of online sites usage (Shuhail &
Bergees, 2006). Sleep patterns are disrupted due to late night logins which resulted to excessive
fatigue, impairing academic or decreasing occupational performance, and may decrease the immune
system, leaving the addict prone to disease. Furthermore, sitting at the computer for longer hours
also means that addicts are at higher risk in developing carpal tunnel syndrome (K.S. Young, 2004).
Methodology and Analysis
In order to discover the impact of social media on our life, I conducted interviews and questionnaire
the goal of my research was to further explore both the positive and negative effects.Justify?
Questionnaires
A questionnaire is simply a tool for collecting and recording information about a particular issue
of interest. It is mainly made up of a list of questions, but should also include clear instructions and
space for answers or administrative details.Justify? Questionnaires should always have a definite
purpose that is related to the objectives of the research, and it needs to be clear from the outset how
the findings will be used. Respondents also need to be made aware of the purpose of the research
wherever possible, and should be told how and when they will receive feedback on the findings.
According to businessdictionary.com, A questionnaire is a list of a research or survey questions
asked to respondents, and designed to extract specific information. It serves four basic purposes: to
(1) collect the appropriate data, (2) make data comparable and amenable to analysis, (3) minimize
bias in formulating and asking question, and (4) to make questions engaging and varied.
Questionnaires are commonly used:
To collect factual information in order to classify people and their circumstances.
To gather straightforward information relating to peoples behavior.
To look at the basic attitudes/opinions of a group of people relating to a particular issue.
To measure the satisfaction of customers with a product or service.
Interview
According to (Richard, 2006), interview is a conversation in which one person (the interviewer)
elicits information from another person (the subject or interviewee). A transcript or account of such
a conversation is also called an interview. In other side Pamela(2006) states that interview is a
method of data collection, information or opinion gathering that specifically involves asking a series
of questions. Typically, an interview represents a meeting or dialogue between people where
personal and social interaction occur. However, developments in computer and information
technology have resulted in other formats, for example, Internet interviews. Interviews are typically
associated with both quantitative and qualitative social research and are often used alongside other
methods.
According to managementhelp.org, Interviews are particularly useful for getting the story behind a
participant's experiences. The interviewer can pursue in-depth information around a topic.
Moreover, Interviews can be used to collect facts, e.g. information about people's place of work,
age, etc. Interviews are also in common use as a means of selection for entry to school or college,
getting a job or obtaining promotion. They are widely used because they are a powerful means of
both obtaining information and gaining insights (Andrew, 2007).
Interviewing has a variety of forms including: individual, face-to-face interviews and face-to-face
group interviewing. The asking and answering of questions can be mediated by the telephone or
other electronic devices (e.g. computers). Interviews can be structured, semi-structure or
unstructured.
Informal, conversational interview - no predetermined questions are asked, in order to remain as
open and adaptable as possible to the interviewee's nature and priorities; during the interview, the
interviewer "goes with the flow".
General interview guide approach - the guide approach is intended to ensure that the same
general areas of information are collected from each interviewee; this provides more focus than the
conversational approach, but still allows a degree of freedom and adaptability in getting information
from the interviewee.
Standardized, open-ended interview - here, the same open-ended questions are asked to all
interviewees (an open-ended question is where respondents are free to choose how to answer the
question, i.e., they don't select "yes" or "no" or provide a numeric rating, etc.); this approach
facilitates faster interviews that can be more easily analyzed and compared.
Closed, fixed-response interview - where all interviewees are asked the same questions and asked
to choose answers from among the same set of alternatives. This format is useful for those not
practiced in interviewing (managementhelp.org).
Why should use interviews
Interviewing is a key methodology for qualitative research. Interviewing are good at:
Giving informants the chance to challenge the agenda set by the researcher, raising new
issues, asking questions back;
Collecting qualitative data, i.e. allowing the researcher to probe the meanings interviewees
give to their behavior, ascertaining their motives and intentions;
Giving informants the opportunity to check what is meant by a question;
Allowing for long and complex responses;
Flexibility making possible changes in the order of questioning, the questions asked and the
topics discussed;
Probing follow-up questioning seeking clarification or further explanation; in-depth inquiry.
STRUCTURE OF RESEARCH DATA COLLECTION METHOD
Justify?
