Living in a multifaceted environment of interaction, survival, power politics and globalization is a complex phenomenon. The influx of innovation, technological revolution, and integrated global economy has led to the increased flow of goods, services, and technology without any boundary restrictions. The emergence of social media is accelerating the pace of innovation. Using social media, populations are manipulated and consent for social, political, economic, multi-culturalism, education, career-building, and training and development and news propagation is manufactured in the public’s mind. Just like humans evolve genetically, they evolve technologically as well. Innovation of social media embarked as comfort but became a necessity. The pace of transformation of social media carries several pros and cons.
Pros:
According to Pew Research, one of the five US people, get political news from social media and is believed to be well-informed as compared to the people who get news from traditional media sources.
Over the period, political campaigns are rewiring human society by using social media for electoral politics. In 2003, Howard Dean, 2016, Donald Trump, and 2018, Imran Khan used social media for their political campaigns to address a large audience.
Similarly, social activists bring societal,
environmental, and ethical issues to the limelight by creating awareness. In
this way, people share their marginal views. Moreover, businesses generate
insights, stimulate demand, create targeted product offerings, and reinforcing
sales. From finding jobs in newspapers and hoardings to finding jobs on social
media networks, it has become a hub for the recruitment process. Development
growth is the source of rising living standards by improving the quality of
life and competing in the global market and that is what social media is doing
by employing thousands of skilled people.
Cons:
The disadvantage of social media varies from cyberbullying to addiction to lack of productivity to privacy issues, to intruding into personal relationships, to the dissemination of fake news, to fraud and scam, and body and mental fatigue.
2019, the survey of Cyberbullying Institute states that 36% of people have reported being cyberbullied and 30% have been victimized twice or more, an alarming percentage though.
However,
getting countless notifications from different Applications divert the
attention of the user, making him less creative and productive. People share
personal information to get fame without having the realization of the harm
their image can cause to them. The news goes through the self-censorship
process, which is directly or indirectly controlled by politicians who possess
strong political affiliations. If any information opposes the news policies of
a media company, that news is suppressed and only one side of the picture is
shown which frames the audience’s mind. Moreover, the overflow of information
makes the audience apathetic and unresponsive towards the propagated news.
Conclusion:
The two-way flow of communication on social media is linked with the view of the mass audience, intervening psychological and social mechanisms limiting the ability to change people’s attitudes and behaviors. Using social media either as moderation or addiction, totally depends on you.
This article is written by Hadiqa Tariq, one of the contributors to the SOL Community.
