True and lasting connection can and doescome from social media — it is born thereand it is nourished ther

Alicé is 17 and met her best friend onTwitter... ‘I was lonely before Twitter,’ shesays. ‘Without Twitter, I would still bedepressed. No one has ever tried to be myfriend...’ She connected with a girl onlinewho was going through the same things,and that really helped. She made more of aneffort to connect with people at school.Alicé has had in-person meetings withnearly 20 of her Twitter friends... ‘I wouldhave never met the people I’m friends withwithout the internet,’ she says... ‘I’ve had thedeepest conversations with people I’ve meton the internet... I’ve never had such supportfrom people; I treasure them. I wasdumbfounded at how much they actuallycared

How can we see ourselves and our truepurpose/talents if we are constantlyviewing other

“[Social media] nurtures short attentionspans, the craving for instant graticationand impersonal barbaric behavio

8/24/2021Pro & Con Quotes: Are Social Networking Sites Good for Our Society? - ProCon.orghttps://socialnetworking.procon.org/are-social-networking-sites-good-for-our-society-pro-con-quotes/3/22“Social media is a platform for sharingideas, information and points of view. Thiscan have important educational value: itextends the information young people canaccess while also giving them insight intohow others think about and use thatinformation...For those children who feel marginalised intheir local community, social media canhelp them connect with other people whoshare the same interests or outlook on life.In some cases, teenagers with criticalproblems can turn to social networks forfast support and guidance. There are plentyof groups that offer such help online.Social media is also an important platformfor driving social issues, such as racialissues, to greater national and internationalattention.”

Challenging Truth and Trust: A GlobalInventory of Organized Social MediaManipulatio

“Six or Seven Things Social Media CanDo for Democracy

Around seven out of ten Americans (69%) use social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram,Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, up from 26% in 200

During the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic in 2020, Americans consumed about 53 minutes ofnews per day, according Flixed, a site that provides “cord cutting” tools for people looking to ditchtheir cable boxes. That was an increase of 22 minutes. Facebook was the primary social mediaplatform source for coronavirus news (35.8% of people surveyed), followed by Twitter (17.0%) andYouTube (16.3%). People who turned to Reddit as their primary social media news source about thepandemic were most likely to report a decline in their mental health (57.6%), followed by Twitter(43%), then Facebook (41.6%).[291

A Jan. 2015 study published in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology found that collegefreshman averaged over two hours a day on Facebook, a habit that harmed their grades.Sophomores and juniors only experienced a negative impact on their GPAs when they usedFacebook while studying. By senior year, students were using Facebook less and had gotten betterat multi-tasking, so the time spent on social media was not impacting their g

Companies worldwide struggle to balance employee socialnetwork access at work for business purposes, which couldraise revenue and the company image, versus employeeaccess for personal use, which could lead to lost revenuefrom decreased productivity and security breaches. In 2012,64% of employees reported visiting non-work relatedwebsites, 41% visited Facebook, 37% visited LinkedIn, 28%visited Google+, and 8% visited Twitter. [164] Two-thirds ofbusinesses fear that social media endangers corporatesecurity and one in four social networking site usersunwittingly exposes him/herself to crime by revealingpersonal details. Seven million households that useFacebook reported problems in 2012, ranging from someone using a log-in without permission tobeing threatened online or in person, a 30% increase from 2011. Phishing, the act of attempting toacquire personal information for identity theft, increased 240% on social networking sites from 2008to 2009. [81]Illinois passed a law in Aug. 2009 banning registered sex offenders from using social networkingsites. [165] However, a Dec. 31, 2008 Internet Safety Technical Task Force report presented to the USState Attorneys General found that adults lying about their ages to initiate relationships with minorsare a rare occurrence; 43% of online sexual predators were identied as minors, 30% were adultsbetween the ages of 18 and 21, and 9% were adults over the age of 21.[166]On May 2, 2012, Maryland became the rst state to pass a law prohibiting employers from askingcurrent or prospective employees for their user names or passwords for social networking sites. [167][168] Governor Jerry Brown of California announced via Twitter on Sep. 27, 2012 that he sign

President Donald Trump, a frequent Twitter user who started his account in Mar. 2009, set apresidential record for most tweets and retweets in a single day with 142 posts on Twitter on Jan.22, 2020. [289]Social media continued to play a role in the 2020 presidential election as a major method ofcommunication for and about the candidates. Donald Trump’s social media interactions dominatedhis rivals: in Oct. 2019, he had 181 million interactions (dened as likes, comments, and shares),compared to a combined 58 million for all 17 Democrats in the race. [2

An Aug. 23, 2018 study published in the American Journal of Public Health has found that the sameRussian trolls, bots, and content polluters that inuenced the 2016 US presidential election usedTwitter to stoke both sides of the vaccines debate to promote “political discord” during the election

Social networking sites play a large role inshaping the political landscape. More than aquarter of US voters younger than 30(including 37% of those 18-24 years old)reported that they obtained information aboutthe 2008 presidential campaign from socialmedia. [151] On Nov. 3, 2008, the day beforethe US presidential election, Democraticcandidate Barack Obama had 2,379,102Facebook supporters, 38% more thanRepublican candidate John McCain who had620,359 supporters. [152]On June 12, 2009, the White House announced, via the White House Blog, that it was joining Twitter,Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and Flickr in order to “create... unprecedented opportunity to connectyou to your government in order to obtain information and services and to participate inpolicymaking.” [153] Joining the social media sites was part of the administration’s efforts to meetPresident Obama’s call to “reform our government so that it is more ecient, more transparent, andmore creative.” [154] On Sep. 16, 2009, The Washington Times broke a story that the White House hadbegun collecting and storing comments and videos posted on social networking sites, bringinginvasion of privacy criticism. Defenders stated that the White House was simply complying with thePresidential Records Act, which requires the preservation of all presidential records. [15

Social media’s largest source of revenue isadvertising. Twitter, YouTube, and Facebookprot fr om advertising while LinkedIn protsfrom ads, subscribers, and selling data tothird parties. [148] Social media ad revenue isexpected to reach $8.8 billion in 2012, anincrease of 43% from 2011. [149] Gaming alsoaccounts for a large portion of soc

As the sites became increasingly popular, the user base expanded from teenagers and young adultsto include more people over the age of 50. Although Facebook began in 2004 as a site for collegestudents with log-ins restricted to those with .edu e-mail addresses, in Sep. 2006 it openedregistration to everyone and as of Jan. 15, 2014, 23.3% of users were 18-24 years old, 24.4% were25-34 years old, 31.1% were 35-54, and 15.6% were 55 and older. [26][179][180] As of Feb. 2014, nearlytwo-thirds of social media users accessed sites from their computers once a day and nearly half ofsmartphone owners visited a social networking site every day. Two in ve Americans have usedsocial media at work, while one in ve admits to having logged into social media while in thebathroom. [147][181]

Facebook reached one billion monthly users worldwide on October 4, 2012, making it the mostpopular social networking site with one in seven people on the planet as members. [142] 71% of onlineadults in the United States use Facebook. Every day, Facebook manages 4.5 billion “Likes,” 4.75billion content shares, and over 300 million photo uploads. [175][176] As of Sep. 2014, 51% of US adultsuse YouTube, 28% use Pinterest, 28% use LinkedIn, 26% use Instagram, and 23% use Twitter. [177]Twitter has 288 million monthly active users and over 500 million tweets are sent daily.

SixDegrees.com, which existed from 1997-2001, is considered the rst social networking sitebecause it allowed users to create personal spaces and connect to friends online. Friendster,created in 2002, popularized social networking in the United States but was quickly outpaced byother social networking sites such as MySpace (2003), Facebook (2004), Twitter (2006), Pinterest(2009), and Google+ (2012)

Opponents of social media say that the sites prevent face-to-face communication; waste time onfrivolous activity; alter children’s brains and behavior making them more prone to ADH

Proponents of social media sites say that the online communities promote increased interactionwith friends and fam

es, users maydevelop biographical proles, communicate with friends and strangers, do research, and sharethoughts, photos, music, links, and more

Social media lacks privacy andexposes users to government andcorporate intrusions.81% of people surveyed feel “not very” or “notat all” secure when using social media sites toshare private information.

Pro 2Law enforcement uses social media tocatch and prosecute criminals.73% of federal, state, and local lawenforcement professionals surveyed think“social media helps solve crimes morequickly.” [196] A survey by the InternationalAssociation of Chiefs of Police found that 85%of police departments use social media tosolve crimes. [199] The New York PoliceDepartment was one of the rst forces to adda Twitter tracking unit and use socialnetworking to arrest criminals who havebragged of their crimes online. [6] Social mediasites have helped in the prosecution andconviction of a number of crimes, including: aprofessional soccer player charged withinappropriate activity with a minor in the UK in2016, [197] a gang charged with the beating ofa gay couple in Philadelphia, PA, in 2014, [198]and rioting hockey fans in Vancouver (Canada)in 2011. [7][8]

64% of people who use Twitter for news saythat they have encountered something they“later discovered wasn’t true,

Social media spreads informationfaster than any other media.78.5% of traditional media reporters polledused social media to check for breaking news.[190] 59% of Twitter users and 31% ofFacebook users polled followed breaking newson these sites. [191] Social media sites are oneof the top news sources for 46% of Americans,compared to 66% for television, 26% forprinted newspapers, and 23% for radio. [192]Social media users have been responsible forreporting events before traditional mediaoutlets, including the Paris attacks in Franceon Nov. 13, 2015 (Twitter, Facebook, and Vine),[193] the Ebola outbreak in Nigeria and SierraLeone in July 2014 (Twitter), [194] the Bostonmarathon bombing on Apr. 15, 2013 (Twitter),[195] and the Aurora, CO, theater shooting onJuly 20, 2012 (Twitter and YouTube). [3]President Donald Trump said that theimmediacy that Twitter affords him is thereason why he tweets, noting that pressconferences and press releases take too longto reach the public. [271]