I have found a model which depicts a range of statistics on social media use from 2012. This diagram shows the amount of people who interact via social networks divided up by a different sites such as Facebook, Twitter etc.
As you can see it states that more than 350,000,000 users suffer from Facebook addiction, people cannot even stop themselves from using these online forums. It is like it is a drug, it has a hypnotic effect while also providing a way of escape for many.
The fact that 750 tweets are posted on Twitter every second shows how much people enjoy voicing their opinions or updating interesting things about their lives. This reflects how popular the social networks are as a platform for individual expression and freedom of speech. However this also raises problems with the fact that the content cannot be monitored because of the sheer volume of it. This means that anything can be posted online, for anyone to see. This means anybody but specifically children use the internet they are extremely vulnerable and at risk. Inappropriate content or messages can be posted online and they can only be removed once the issue has been bought to the attention of the social networking site. This is also a big issue when it comes to cyber-bullying as there is nothing stopping negative comments being posted, or stopping others from joining in.
Instagram has 5 million images uploaded to the site everyday. Sharing pictures is a fairly new phenomenon that has swept the world. It is this idea of being able to share content that is a good form of interaction but again there is no monitoring on the content that can be uploaded. The trend with tagging things can then group any connections to the photo. Any terms can be tagged with a photo which means negative and abusive terms can too.
This model shows the power of online communities and the amount our population rely on them. They are a form of entertainment and social interaction but there are many dark sides to them too. For example issues like cyber bullying and addiction.
No comments:
Post a Comment