Social Media: A Focus On Its Role And Impact On Individual Life
Social media otherwise known as “Social Technology” by some scholars (e.g.: Li and Bernoff), has come into the scene with a ground breaking force. By ‘scene’, I mean individual life, corporations/organisations (both medium-sized and large corporations, even small corporations), but particularly corporations. In other instances, I refer to ‘scene’ as areas including but not limited to politics, media (i.e.: TV/News), and even general social discourse (i.e.: gay rights equal opportunities and so on). I mean a lot of us out there will agree that social media and everything ‘tech’ feeds into almost every single aspect of contemporary society. It is very evident in the introduction of apps and platforms including UBER (an app which allows individuals to book and get a taxi wherever they are), Instagram, WatsApp, Pinterest and the like. Even recently there has been new introductions to popular platform in form of Facebook in that individuals, can now make electronic calls as they would in other areas such as WatsApp (this is a new introduction and every active Facebook user is aware of this). In essence it is clear that the introduction of social media platforms and the technology behind it, is disrupting old ways (and creating new ways simultaneously) of social interactions. More so social media is paving new ways of how marketing is done in contemporary society. Scholars Field and Grande make us aware that since its launch in 2004: Facebook has added its billionth user, and arguably this figure may well have increased since the documentation of the article by the scholars above (See more here: https://www.warc.com/freecontent/Social_Media_sample_trial.pdf?M=SMSTrial).
Many (I mean millions of people) join several social media platforms usually because of the interest of connecting and joining a community of people with like-minded interest, sharing fun materials (i.e.: articles, videos etc.) and also because it comes with little or no cost. A lot of people join online communities for participation and engagement with several contents available online, but only a few wonder which category of the online community they fall under (some however aren’t even aware that there exist a category for various participants).
Scholars Li and Bernoff define users of social media into six categories with their social technographics profile, it include:
Creators: These individuals are said to be on top of the social technographics ladder. This is said to be because of their active participation through writing and posting articles and stories online etc.
Critics: Individuals under this category are said to only respond to available online content by making comments on blogs and online forums (e.g.: chat rooms, YouTube), giving ratings or reviews, and or providing edits on wikis.
Collectors: This category of people are individuals who save URLs and tags on social-bookmarking sites, vote on sites like Digg, or use RSS feeds.
Joiners: Individuals considered as “joiners” regularly participate in or maintain profiles on social networking sites including Facebook and Twitter amongst others.
Spectators: So, it’s argued that being a spectator takes considerably little effort-individuals under this category “consume what others produce” including blogs, online videos and reviews.
Inactives: These individuals are literally as they sound, they’re “nonparticipants” within the groundswell (otherwise known as the online communities).
(For more info on social profiles and the scholars: Li & Bernoff, please refer to their book titled: Groundswell: winning in a world transformed by social technologies.)
Some of us are probably wondering which category we fall under, well that’s a decision for each individual to make.
On a rather sombre note, although social media presents unlimited opportunities both for individuals and organisations (one been a new positive way of social interaction), however there still exists a limitation in form of privacy which we all know of (many scholars have presented numerous arguments on this) – or heard about on the news or elsewhere or even still been a victim of (need to say that this however isn’t the focus of this article). Yet, it is important to pay attention to this downside of the online environment, and use it as a guide for caution.
Wishing everyone well as they share the fun of online communities.