Social media Pros and cons

Social media  tools  allow individuals, communities ,companies and other organizations to create, share, or exchange information and data, career interests, suggestions,  ideas, and media(text, Images, videos and audios) in other communities and networks. The word “Social” implies a conversation. Social media is definitely not about one-way communication to a large audience from big organisations.

The difference between social media and the TV is that with the latter, viewers seldom engage with the programme-makers of the show that they are watching. Only in very recent times have programme makers expanded into the world of social media. Social media is different to traditional forms of communication such as through newspapers, television, and film.

Advantages of social media

1.     Cheap

Anyone with access to the internet (for example through public libraries) can interact with different people, communities and whole world through social media. With the passage of time popularity and usage of social media is increasing and keeping this thing many service provide across the world are launching and giving different offers which are cheap and accessible to everyone.

2.     Accessible

The tools are easy to use. Everyone can become familiar to gadgets and tools provided for using social media.

3.     Enabling

It allows almost anyone to do things that previously were only the preserve of well-resourced organisations.

Increasing popularity and usage of social media tools

•   Gazillions of user accounts are registered e.g. Hotmail has 370M registered account, Facebook has 600M, and Twitter 200M.
•  Flickr has 5 billion pictures, facebook had 50+ billion, as of july 2010.
• Twitter users generate 65M tweets a day
• Huge userbase

The Role of Profiles

Making profiles on social media is now everywhere. Profiles link users to other members. People share their personal goals and achievements. It helps to explains reliability of identity.

Linkedin

Linkedin is a social networking service which allows people to build their profile. Also:

•        Build network

•        Stay in touch with current and former peers

•        Create community, expand contact lists and introduce connections

•        Showcasing skill set

•        publishing own resume or establishing expertise for potential clients or employers to view

•        Join groups, gather relevant information, participate in discussions, receive industry updates as they occur

•        Find targeted people with a specific skill sets

•        For hiring or informational/networking purposes

•        JOB SEARCH: Utilized to find jobs, people and business opportunities recommended by someone in one's contact network

•        TALENT SEARCH: Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates

•        NETWORKING RESOUCE:  Members can review circle profiles of to determine which of their existing contacts can introduce them to people they want to know

•        PERSONAL-PROFESSIONAL BRANDING: Users can post their own photos and view photos of others to aid in identification

•        INDUSTRY UPDATE RESOURCE:  Register to follow companies to get notifications and relevant information

•        INFORMATION PORTAL: Users can bookmark (profiles, jobs, etc.) to  return to for future reference

•        Strive for 100% completeness on profile and keep updated (new skill sets, new company)

•        Continue to reach out, make connections, or reply to conversations –this pops up on your connection’s activity feed

•        Post events or new products/information

•        Follow companies, join and create group

•        Helpful for industry info, adding contacts to network and all groups have a job posting capability

•        Include a LinkedIn link on your signature

•        Ask for recommendations after completing business

•        Integrate business tweets

•        Optimize your profile

•        Focus on developing a quality network

You Tube

Youtube is a videos sharing website, allows user to share any kind of video with everyone. It allows:

• —        Showcase products
•    —  Launch new marketing campaigns for companies, act as a commercial for company
• —         Demos for new products and services
• —          Build personal-professional brand

Twitter

Twitter is social media website which enable users to share a short message called “Tweet”. It is a Micro blogging site. It is used for:

•        Sharing of industry information and updates, usually through sharing links

•        following new companies and their technology

•        Receive up to date info through following active users

•        Conversation starter

•        Forum to create company buzz

Facebook

It is most popular social media website. It is becoming an important marketing strategy to increase brand awareness and customer loyalty i.e. “LIKE” button. Facebook has wider reach but more casual than LinkedIn. It is used for:

•          Blogs and Discussion Forums

•        Receive real time industry updates

•        Search for new product releases

•        Expand marketing tools for customer base

•        Reach new clients

•        Follow and engage in industry discussions

•        Serves as a ‘classifieds’ page or open source link

Advantages of social media

• —        Marketing
• —        Building Social Networks
• —        Educational Discussion & Help
• —       Accessing Information
    
  

Social Networks as a Business

Today everything is about marketing. No matter whether your product or service is best in quality or not, people will get attract to that product or service whose marketing is good. By marketing public will get attracted and will know about products.

•         It’s all about advertising

•         Brand recognition

•         Monetization of information: The users are the product, they willingly provide information which can be used to target ads

Using Social Media for Marketing

Now there are new ways for to reach consumers . Companies can create accounts on social media websites and:

•         Can create fan pages on Facebook or MySpace
•         Twitter allows companies to spread information to followers
•          Rewards for "like"ing a page

Viral Marketing

•         Social media networks allow companies to access younger markets and particular demographic groups.

•         Companies can reach consumers who uses mobile devices for product or company research.

Other Consequences

•        Are corporate social media pages more or less personable than a standard website?

•        I choose to "like" something

•        "You have 5 friends who like this” 

Disadvantages of social media

Besides huge advantages of social media, there are also disadvantages like:

1.     Cyber Bulling

2.     Cyber Frauds

3.     Fake Profiles

4.     Privacy

5.     Security

Privacy Concerns

•        Burglary is increasingly plausible

•        Facebook is increasingly being used in divorce cases: Personal information is available and is hackable.

•        Personal opinion groups impact relationships

Cyber Bullying

•         Defined as, “the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by an individual or group, that is intended to harm others.”

•         Most common among teenagers in school and colleges.

•         Extreme cases in recent memory have resulted in suicide.

How are Teens Cyber-bullied?

Bullies might exhibit the following:

•         Pretend they are other people online to trick others

•         Spread lies and rumors about victims

•         Trick people into revealing personal information

•         Send or forward mean messages

Effects of Bullying

•         Strong links between bullying, depression and suicidal thoughts and attempts

•         Cyber bullying victims are nearly twice as likely to have attempted suicide as were non-victims

•         Recent suicide at Rutgers University

                        Conclusion

Advancement in technology is increasing day by day. The usage and popularity of social media is increasing with technology. Technology and social media has revolutionized every field of this world. It has reduced human effort. It has bring ease to our life and new ways to find solution to our problem. Social media has played a great role in marketing and business field. Beside this, especially younger generation is getting spoiled and fully dependent on technology and social media. To reduce these negative aspects, we all have to play our roles.  Parents should monitor internet usage and activities of children.  Educational institutes must also play role. Most Cyber Bullying takes place away from campus. Administrators struggle with the limits of school authority in dealing with off-campus cyber bullying. Bullying results in suicide so, harassing someone over the Internet should be a punishable crime. So, every individual and community must have to play their role in removing all these negative aspects, as these are spreading like disease in our society.

Technology Making us dishonest and cheating easy

Technology has revolutionized the whole universe. Technology show people a more efficient way to do things, and these processes get results. Education has been greatly advanced by the technological advances of computers. Students are able to learn on a global scale without even leaving their classrooms. 

 Technology making us dishonest and cheating easy

People actually cheated as a consequence of this motivation rather than just conveniently excusing something that they, along with a large number of other people were doing.

Asking students to agree to act honestly before an online quiz is likely to be effective, whereas getting them to sign a statement after they have written an essay and attach it to their submitted work, is not. In the case of the self-service checkout systems, a simple introductory screen that asked shoppers to agree that they will be honest would likely be effective in reducing cheating at the checkout. Another way would be to have a staff member who greets every shopper as they come to the checkout and reminds them that they will be there to help if needed.

Technology makes cheating easier

 The time has passed when students were trying to cheat on exams by writing answer on hands or hide cheating materials on the bottom of shoes. Technology is getting advance, so ways of cheating are also getting advanced and examiners look for it.

It is obvious that technology has taken the educational system and academia to higher and new levels, but with the passage of time and advancement, the ways and opportunities for academic dishonesty are also increasing.

Plagiarism in research papers and essays became very easy with newer and advanced technology. Professor in the College of Liberal Arts, John Larson mentioned “In the past, people used little crib sheets; you’d write it on your thumbnail or on the bottom of your shoe,” Larson said. “We police test rooms, primarily now, for phones. That’s the most effective way to cheat on a test, to use your phone.” He also said:  “In the last 10 years, the Internet has become an amazing source of plagiarized material, You can type in a string of words that amount to the topic of the questions and it’s not too hard to get 50 to 100 hits that you can then go through and start copying paragraph after paragraph of material.”

Technology has made it easier for students to cheat, it’s also made it easier for examiners or teachers to catch. Many software systems were created to catch cases of plagiarism and cheating e.g. Blackboard’s Safe Assign, but these may not be enough anymore.

With the advancement in technology, students are much dependent on others work instead of doing work themselves. Due to this learning has become very less, students don’t use their mind to solve their academic problems. All the work, research and assignments are mostly plagiarized and due to this students don’t focus on creativity.

Dishonesty by Technology

Technology makes it easier to cheat. Nowadays, there is competitive environment in all fields especially in education and that’s why it makes people pleasure to do. Cheating exposure has increased in all aspects and fields like news, reports, research and personal knowledge.

Gradually, fear of cheating and achieve success through unethical ways is decreasing because once people use unethical way then they will do it again and again and socially people will accept this way.

Reform with the help of Technology

Beside these problems created by advanced Technology, we can help to fight cheating with the help of this technology. These are pros and cons of everything. Just like that many examiners, teachers and administrators complain about cheating and unethical ways due to technology, on the other hand, many use this technology to detect and minimize cheating. There should be strict procedure to check every work of students. Advanced Technology includes software like Turnitin can be used to check plagiarism.

Conclusion

No doubt technology has revolutionized every field of this world. It helps to solve problems from personal to national and international level. It has reduced human effort. Besides all this, It has very negative social impact. People trust technology more than their effort and struggle. People use unethical ways to complete their targets, projects and task. Cheating in exams is increasing day by day and the worst thing is people don’t feel it negative or bad. The society has accepted this way. People don’t focus on creativity. If we realize all this and want to make change, we have to maintain equilibrium. We get help from technology but we should not totally depend on technology. We should socially interact with people. And we have to realize and focus on awareness creativity and positive change.