Photo: Forge light Creative
According to WhatIs.com, social media is the collective of online communications channels dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration.
But why is it so important to us?
In this generation, social media is used every single day worldwide. It is used to stay connected with people, to share experiences with your friends online, document everyday activity, and much more. These platforms are easily accessible, they’re available as applications on our mobile phones and most have internet addresses to access on our laptops and computers.
Small Business Trends claims that the following 20 social media platforms are the most popular being used right now.
- Google+
- YouTube
- Tumblr
- Flickr
- Snapchat
- Quora
- Vine
- Periscope
- BizSugar
- StumbleUpon
- Delicious
- Digg
- Viber
For more information on what each social media site is and what they achieve, visit smallbiztrends.com.
Now I want you to ask yourself, how many of these sites do you use and how often are you using them?
I personally use 5 out of the 20 listed, however, I know I use each one of these sites quite a lot during the day. According to my mobile phone battery setting, from the 24th of September to the 30th of September, I spent 15.7 hours on Instagram. Crazy right!? That’s roughly 2.5 hours daily on this one application.
You would like to think that there is other things much more important in life than the use of social media. I honestly think that deep down, we know there is more important things in life. But if that is the case, why do we use these applications and sites so much?
Important things slip our minds because of the use of social media. It grasps our attention and enables us a lack of focus due to having our heads buried in to a mobile phone or any other form of technology. Opportunities are taken for granted because our minds are somewhere else, focused on a screen with messages from friends, photos posted on Instagram from famous people that we look up to.
It’s as though we are expected to own a mobile phone, a laptop, a tablet, all because most of our population has all of the above. Children at the ages of 9 or 10 are wanting mobile phones to sign up to all the current popular social sites mostly because their friends have them and so does everyone else.
For an intriguing source of information, I decided to ask some people within my friends and family why they think social media is so important to us.
It helps us keep in contact, share photos & message with family & friends that may live out of town or overseas. It’s also a great way to reconnect with old school friends or people from your childhood. – Brooke, 38
Social media is crucial to me in today’s society for many reasons. Social media is a platform that allows users to help communicate with others. This can be beneficial in all sorts of areas which can range from employment (which has been a massive benefit for me by allowing me to apply for jobs online and message employers) to just social needs. These are all important to me, especially while living out of home in a different city so I can keep in contact with my family and friends. – Isaiah, 17
Social media gives us a chance to keep in touch with family and friends and from a business side of things it makes advertising and marketing so much easier. – Jordan, 31
Personally, social media allows me to remain in contact with all friends and family. It is the fastest way to communicate with a person other than speaking to them. This makes it easier to plan any events or discuss things as a group. Social media can also be a great platform for various things such as businesses, sporting groups, certain clubs and even news stations. It is a way to share memories, photos, thoughts and news to whatever people you wish to do so. With the fast growing popularity and need for smart phones and technology, social media has become one of the most important ways of communication for the modern world. – Oliver, 19
Social media is gradually starting to lose its importance to me. Over the years my usage has started to decrease as I become older and more aware of my privacy. However, in saying that I believe that social media is about wanting to connect with people. It enables you to find like-minded people and engage with them. That engagement can be on your terms, whether it just be reading what others have written or engaging in conversation with them. It also connects you to a wide range of people, I/you can actively chat to someone on the other-side of the world if that is what you want, opening you up to being able to learn and experience things from a wide range of people. – Skye, 36
Kiah x
Tech-No Project 