Social media is becoming really popular among people. Social media platforms like Youtube, Instagram, Twitter and etc. are connecting people from all over the world. Back in the days the modes of communication were limited, people were communicating by using birds, fire, smoke signals and even horns to capture the attention of the others. It was pretty much a big deal. Now times have changed. We can chat, talk with anyone whereever they are by just a click away. Here are some examples of Social Media platforms;
Youtube gives users a platform to upload and share videos. Youtube is a great platform for musicians and film producers as their fans can easily access their video.
Social networks like Twitter and Facebook lets people build a personal network of friends that connects to an open worldwide community. Apart from connecting to a network of friends, a subscriber can join community groups with a specific interest. An average Facebook user is connected to around 80 community groups. Most of these groups encourage the subscribers to give suggestions on how they could run and engage in debates.
By Skype and Whatsapp people now can have ‘’phone conversations’’ over their computer or phones. People that are connected here can communicate by word of mouth, unlike Twitter and Facebook.
Those platforms are really popular these days,. It is extremely rare to come across anyone in today’s society who does not have an account on one of these platforms.
But like everything else Social Media also has it’s disadvantages. Cyber bullying is one of the problems of Social Media. There have been instances where young folks have commited suicide as the result of negative things about them on Social Media. The ability to access social platforms via computers, phones and tablets allows you to access anytime of the day. That’s the reason it causes addiction. Anyone who has Facebook, Twitter etc. accounts has seen a user who is logged everytime.
There are even some users who post everything they are doing during the day, which is dangerous. Privacy has been become a rising issue in social media with the addition of locations and pgs tracking. The best way to protect your privacy is to be aware and mindful of what you post and who can access and view what you are posting.
Well, who created the first social media site? The first social media site was Six Degrees, made by Andrew Weinreich in 1997. Six degrees was pretty popular with users until 2003. That’s when Tom Anderson made MySpace. Six Degrees combined popular features such as profiles, friends list and etc. the site had millions of registered users unfortunately due to the lack of people connected to the Internet, networks were limited. The site was sold in December 2000 to YouthStream Media Networks.
Myspace was founded by several employees from the Internet marketing firm eUniverse in August 2003. The team inclueded Tom Anderson, Chris DeWolfe, Josh Berman and Brad Greenspan. It was known for band’s pages and customizable profiles. It was the number one website in 2006 and costed around 12 billion dollars in 2007. In 2005 it was sold to News Corp.
By April of 2008 Facebook was the number one on the web. They re-tried everything to be back on the number one, but it was useless. So they sold the site for 35 million dollars to Specific Media.
Well internet is such a great creation and helps billions of people to know anything. Let’s say you live in Japan you can easily learn what is happening in America or join debates in America due to internet. Yes it has its disadvantages but it doesn’t mean that we can not fix that. Everything can change with what we do. If we be more careful, try to avoid the unknown sites, secure our privacy then internet would be a great place for us for sure.
MELİSA DİNÇER
