In this blog post, we will take a closer look at social media, from its concept and characteristics to examples of its use and issues that are easy to overlook.
How much do we know about social media?
“I added them as a friend.” “I left a message on their wall.” You can easily hear phrases like these when walking down the street. Just a few years ago, such conversations were unheard of, but at some point, we became accustomed to them. We also see news stories about celebrities and politicians causing controversy or becoming hot topics by posting their thoughts on Twitter. Terms such as “friend,” “wall,” and “Twitter” were coined by social media. Most people living in the modern world have heard the term “social media” at least once or have experience with it, so they have a general understanding of it, but not many people know its exact meaning. Since it is a new type of system that appeared only a few years ago, it is difficult to understand the exact concept of social media unless you are interested in it. Therefore, in this article, we will look at what social media is, its characteristics, its range of uses, and its problems.
What is social media?
SNS is short for Social Network Service, and it is a community-based website created for the purpose of building online relationships. Representative SNS sites include Cyworld in South Korea, Twitter and Facebook in the United States, and MySpace. Simply put, these sites allow users to communicate with others through their own accounts and media via the Internet. People gain satisfaction by interacting with others and building relationships with them through their own personal media. SNS allows users to connect with many people online under their own names, make friends, form groups, and share information and opinions with each other. Unlike traditional websites, SNS makes it easy to share and view information and accounts not only of one’s friends but also of people who are distant from oneself.
Characteristics and examples of SNS
According to Gene Smith, SNS has seven characteristics.
First, SNS has the characteristic of presence. Through SNS, you can let others know of your existence. Posting text and photos on SNS can be seen as expressing yourself to others and appealing to them to take an interest in your existence. The Harvard Crimson, the Harvard University newspaper, expressed this as follows. “Facebook is based on a fundamental human instinct. Everyone has a need to belong, a little vanity, and a certain amount of voyeurism.” SNS such as Facebook can be said to satisfy the desire to expose oneself to others and make one’s presence known.
Second, social media has the characteristic of sharing. On social media, anyone can easily share and use content they have created. Even if you don’t create specific content, you can share information and opinions with people you know. Furthermore, you can share and discuss what people think about important events.
Third, SNS has the attribute of conversation. Since the birth of SNS was motivated by the desire to create connections and communities between people, communication is a core feature of SNS. Sharing opinions between people can also be seen as communication, and contacting and interacting with each other can be considered communication within SNS.
Fourth, SNS makes it easy to form and create groups. Examples include Cyworld’s club system and Facebook groups. Forming groups creates a sense of belonging among group members, which makes them feel satisfied in an online environment where they might otherwise feel alienated. One of the factors that makes people enthusiastic about SNS is that it gives them a sense of belonging, just like in real life.
Fifth, social media has the attributes of publicity and reputation. Similar to the characteristics of existence, people can make an impression on others by revealing their information and abilities through social media or by promoting themselves.
Sixth, the relationship attribute of social media plays a role in solving the relationship deficiency that modern people crave by forming relationships with others. Through constant relationship building and communication with others, it allows users to feel the same connections they would feel in real life.
Finally, SNS has the attribute of identity. Using a personal account gives users a sense of self-representation, and their words and actions on SNS are their own responsibility, allowing them to maintain their identity online.
The Impact and Examples of SNS
With such diverse characteristics, social media is currently being used in a variety of ways, whether or not that was the intention of its developers. Basically, social media is used by the majority of individual users. Among social media sites, Facebook is currently the most popular, with approximately 3 billion monthly active users. Of these, approximately 2.1 billion use Facebook every day. This means that one-third of the world’s population uses Facebook every day. Even though SNS is used in various fields, the most important use is by individual users. Most individual users use SNS to build relationships and communicate. Individual users consider keeping in touch with acquaintances to be the most important purpose of using SNS. In addition to keeping in touch with acquaintances, individuals also use SNS to communicate with an unspecified number of people. They post their opinions and situations on SNS to gain sympathy and conduct surveys.
On the other hand, celebrities use social media to express their thoughts and communicate with the public. Many politicians and political parties use social media to express their thoughts and ideologies, attracting supporters and gaining sympathy. There are countless online articles and news stories about politicians expressing their thoughts and positions on social media. There is no better tool than social media for politicians to express their thoughts. It allows them to convey their positions very easily and quickly, gather supporters, sway public opinion in their favor, and receive criticism and evaluation of themselves. Similarly, social media is a place for celebrities to communicate with their fans and a medium for them to narrow the distance between themselves and the general public. Fans can comment on celebrities’ posts, and celebrities can respond to them, which narrows the distance between them and their fans and gives them an opportunity to become more approachable.
Business use of social media
SNS is also very important and widely used in business. It is particularly popular in the field of marketing. SNS is a medium that allows communication with a large number of people. Therefore, some companies advertise directly through SNS (e.g., through banners on SNS sites) or generate positive reviews of their products to spread word of mouth. In addition, companies create their own pages on SNS to share news with many people through event-based promotions such as free coupons. For example, when using social media, you can often see coffee companies giving out free coffee coupons. Or, you may see a promotion for a certain company on your account, and if you like it, you can follow them. In fact, this marketing strategy is very effective. Dell in the US generated $6.5 million in sales in just two years after creating a Twitter account, solely through Twitter.
In addition to marketing, social media has had a significant impact on other aspects of business. One example is a new type of company called social commerce, which is based on social media. Social commerce companies are intermediaries that allow a large number of products to be sold at a low price for a limited time when a certain number of customers request to purchase them. Coupang and Ticket Monster are examples of social commerce companies. The driving force behind these social commerce companies is the increase in customers through social media. The goal of social commerce companies is to attract many customers through word of mouth on social media when good and inexpensive products are posted. In other words, social media has given rise to a new business called social commerce, and that business is sustained through social media.
Problems with social media
Although social media has various features and is used in many ways, it also has a dark side. First, social media makes it easy to invade people’s privacy. Social media is your online identity. Through social media, people can easily view other people’s information and accounts. It is not uncommon for people to learn information about others even if they do not want to. It has the disadvantage of easily exposing the information of many people, as if they were naked. One example is when celebrities accidentally post photos of their private lives on social media or conversations with friends are posted and spread in an instant, causing them to face public embarrassment. The ease with which information can be shared and provided can be both an advantage and a disadvantage.
In addition, it is easy for false or distorted facts to spread rapidly through social media. For example, it is common for interesting topics that are not true, such as celebrity scandals and gossip, to be shared and spread rapidly, resulting in misinformation. Not only is misinformation spread, but sometimes witch hunts can easily occur. Typical examples include the “soup lady” incident, in which a child accidentally burned his face with hot soup, but his mother claimed on social media that it was someone else’s fault, leading to a witch hunt, and the incident in which a pregnant woman falsely claimed that she was assaulted by an employee at a restaurant, leading to a witch hunt against the restaurant. Information can be transmitted very quickly and easily through social media, but if the information is false, the damage can be serious.
Recently, viruses spread through social media have become a serious problem. Just as information is easily and quickly transmitted through social media, viruses are also easily and quickly spread through social media. When someone spreads a virus through social media, many social media users come into contact with the virus just as they come into contact with other information through social media. Unaware that what is being spread is a virus, people view the information and become infected with the virus. Not only that, but those infected with the virus become hosts, spreading the virus to those around them like zombies.
The addictiveness and social impact of social media
In addition to physical problems, social media also causes mental health issues. Social media addiction is a prime example. In fact, social media addiction has reached serious levels. According to the American business magazine Forbes, a team of researchers led by Professor Hoffman at the University of Chicago surveyed 205 adults in Würzburg, Germany, about their various desires and addictive behaviors. The results showed that social media addiction ranked third after sleep and sex. It is common to see people who feel anxious when they cannot check social media for even a moment and who constantly hold their mobile phones in their hands to check social media. People who are addicted to social media are preoccupied with the anxiety that someone might contact them or that they might miss new information. The addictive nature of social media makes people obsessed with it, wastes their time, and prevents them from concentrating on their work.
Conclusion
We have learned about the definition and characteristics of social media, as well as its various uses and negative effects. Although social media has not been around for very long, its impact has been tremendous. Social media is easy and quick to use, and is used by the majority of the world’s population. It has many features and uses. However, unfortunately, it has both positive and negative effects. In reality, its negative effects often have a significant impact on society. Fortunately, however, many efforts are being made to prevent damage from these negative effects. SNS companies are modifying their sites to reduce security breaches and invasions of privacy, and efforts to protect personal information are continuing at the national level. In addition, through several witch hunts, conscious citizens have become aware of the seriousness of the spread of false information on SNS and are working to prevent it.
As such, social media is an important part of our lives. Efforts to minimize negative effects while making good use of the positive aspects are necessary. We should enjoy the richer human relationships and communication opportunities that social media offers, while taking care to protect the reliability of information and personal privacy. By doing so, we will be able to reap the maximum benefits of social media.
