article on the merits and demrits of social media
Answers
It took 38 years for radio to reach 50 million people, 13 years for television to reach the same number, and 4 years for the internet to do so. However, in just one recent year, the popular social media site Facebook signed on over 200 million users! What makes social media so appealing?
First of all, what is a social media or networking site? It is a website that allows those who have an account to communicate with a selected group of friends. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp and 2Go are just some of these social media sites.
In recent times, we have experienced an overwhelming upsurge in the number of new users, especially youths. This in turn has been a force for good. It has improved relationships, improved learning, created awareness, improved crime detection, helped students make good grades, created thousands of jobs, connected friends and family, and improved the spread useful information and much more. However, it has done the opposite as well. How so? Consider the following merits and demerits of social media and ways in which it has affected the youths today.
To begin, when properly used, social media has been a powerful tool in connecting with loved ones and interacting with friends. In fact, humans are hardwired to interact with humans and that is why social media is so appealing because it does just that. Also, many youths have friends and family members living far away. I do also. In the past, it took weeks or even months for letters or telegrams to get to their destinations. Sometimes, they never get there. With the advent of mobile phones, it became easy to keep in touch with loved ones. But sometimes, we just cannot call these ones because we don’t have airtime. It might be difficult to communicate with friend and family living abroad because of the exorbitant airtime needed. Worse yet, it consumes time especially since you have to call one person at a time, and some may not be at home or available to talk when you are.
In recent times, we have experienced an overwhelming upsurge in the number of new users, especially youths. This in turn has been a force for good. It has improved relationships, improved learning, created awareness, improved crime detection, helped students make good grades, created thousands of jobs, connected friends and family, and improved the spread useful information and much more. However, it has done the opposite as well. How so? Consider the following merits and demerits of social media and ways in which it has affected the youths today.
To begin, when properly used, social media has been a powerful tool in connecting with loved ones and interacting with friends. In fact, humans are hardwired to interact with humans and that is why social media is so appealing because it does just that. Also, many youths have friends and family members living far away. I do also. In the past, it took weeks or even months for letters or telegrams to get to their destinations. Sometimes, they never get there. With the advent of mobile phones, it became easy to keep in touch with loved ones. But sometimes, we just cannot call these ones because we don’t have airtime. It might be difficult to communicate with friend and family living abroad because of the exorbitant airtime needed. Worse yet, it consumes time especially since you have to call one person at a time, and some may not be at home or available to talk when you are.
However, the social media has made things even easier. With as low as 10 Megabyte of data, one can connect with friends and family members anywhere in the world and for a longer period of time. In fact, some network service providers have made social media free of charge! This has made communication easier.
What’s more, the social media has been very useful when disaster strikes – such as the earthquake that and tsunami that caused untold disaster in parts of Japan on March 11, 2012. During and after such a disaster, phone lines are usually down and no one cares to check emails. So it becomes impossible to communicate with our loved one and inquire about their safety. But with the social media, one can just pick up his cell phone, access the internet and go the page of his or her loved one and read the information posted or even chat briefly. It’s that easy.