Individuals use social media as an outlet to express their thoughts and opinions so many people can “hear” them without face to face communication. Thinking of social media brings to mind Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Wikipedia, but in fact those are just the tools. Socializing can happen in different ways, such as texting, music, videos and photos. One of Social media’s characteristic is participation. For example, when you post a status on Facebook you wait for someone to comment and give you feedback, and the same happens with Twitter as well. Additionally, conversation is another characteristic of social media that can begin with a simple comment or like and evolve into a conversation between individuals due to common interests or opinions about a certain topic. Social media assist in spreading the news faster as well as keeping individuals informed on new topics. As soon as something bad happens, the news go viral via social media such us YouTube and Facebook.
Overall social media has changed the way people interact with one another and how they express their own ideas and thoughts and make it public so everyone can participate. After looking further into social media we can conclude that it is not a fad but a fundamental shift in the way we communicate. After the Industrial revolution social media changed the means in which companies communicate with consumers. Nowadays businesses focus on finding new ways to attract customers and change the way of communication to match the ones of modern society. There are different tools such as promotions to advertise a product and most of the time companies create a page on Facebook so people can join and get all the latest deals.
To conclude, social media have a huge impact on an individual’s lifestyle and it will continue to do so as technology grows and new social tools are available.
