Social Media Project

1. Project Description

The overall goal of this project is to give my opinion on social media in general, alongside giving some interesting statistics into the usage of social media. I will give a small idea on how my social media is like, as well as what I think of social media's impact onto the world in general, alongside what I may have learned.

2. Social Media Addiction Survey

Before this project was created, I had to take a survey to gauge whether or not I was "addicted" to social media in general. I'm not a person who strives to post about myself online in general, with the few socials I have being made purely to follow people whom I admire (most of which are game developers who post updates about their games online). I guess I would consider myself "active" on YouTube, but that's mostly because I like to leave videos playing in the background while I do something else entirely.  Other than that, if you consider Steam a social media service, I guess I could be considered addicted. Even then, I wouldn't really say that.

The results are about what I expected. I had a "healthy relationship" with social media. Kinda underwhelmed by the numbers the website (itstimetologoff.com) was giving. It must be outdated, because with how prevalent social media is in every day life right now, I find it hard to believe that only 5%-10% percent of Americans are struggling with social media addiction. 

Facebook, interestingly enough, still has a strong grip onto the majority of social media, having the highest amount of social media use in the entire chart at 3,065. YouTube, if considered a social media platform, is just behind. The list goes down from there, before cutting off at Pintrest at the bottom.

4. Social Media's Impact on Society 

Personally, I find that social media has had an iffy impact on society. I am definitely in favor of it's existence. The ability to share one's thoughts with others online, who may relate to those thoughts in question, and the connections that could form between people who would never find each other in the real world is extremely valuable. That and allows people who are creative to freely share their creations with others on a massive scale; that inspires some to create their own stuff, or simply bring joy to others in general.

On the flip side, I feel as if the way society in general glorifies one's digital footprint to bee quite daunting. I know a few people who are completely obsessed with social media, and the online world in general. Hell, for the longest time, I'd consider myself quite obsessed with online culture in general. I might still be. But I feel as if to neglect one's health, both physically and/or mentally, in exchange for more screen time has become a fairly common exchange. And I'm not saying that these people should have their devices destroyed and should be chucked outside because that's "normal". But I simply feel like more restraint should be taught to people who are growing up in such a confusing era of transitioning to a more technologically advanced future.

5. Lessons Learned

Personally, I've learned that maybe I should keep control of my own social media use and keep up with my current tendencies to use social media, as they're considered healthy. I was also personally taken aback by how prevalent Facebook is still is, which I find surprising because I rarely see anyone use it nor do I believe it has much influence anymore.

Finally, I'm taken aback by how big social media is now. It feels like social media has taken over and etched it's way into every facet of modern life now. While I do believe that maybe some restraints should be placed on social media's influence on people, and people's usage of social media; I ultimately have to acknowledge that the future may involve social media being more prevalent and I'll have to try to adjust. That or retaliate if I believe social media's influence is proving to be immoral to a normal person (ex. Everyone has to have a social media account of some kind, or social media of all kinds demands sensitive personal information).

SOURCES

1. itstimetologoff.com

2. Smart Insights

3. Datareportal