Following the Guidelines of the American Psychological Association

Running head: SOCIAL MEDIA 1

Social Media

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School

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Date SOCIAL MEDIA 2

Introduction

This essay concerns my feelings of what is significant about social media in terms of understanding society. I will analyze the angle of the connectedness and networking aspect of social media as well as provide two sources in this essay.

Connectedness

There was a movie called Six Degrees of Separation (Schepisi, 1993) that starred Will

Smith, Stockard Channing and Donald Sutherland. In this movie, Will Smith poses himself to be the son of famous actor Sidney Poiter and due to his status in society he resides for a while at the home of the married couple in the movie Stockard Channing and Donald Sutherland. One of the bases of the movie is that everyone is connected by six degrees of separation. Meaning, through every sixth person on the planet – we all know each other. In the movie just mentioned, Will

Smith turns out not to be the son of Sidney Poiter and is an imposter who brings his gay lover into the home of Stockard Channing and Donald Sutherland without their express permission. I use this movie as an example to discuss the connectedness, both good and bad that exist through social media.

On a website such as LinkedIn that connects millions of people mainly for work-related and business purposes, as well as websites such as Facebook that is more prone to connecting family and friends, social media is highly effective in keeping people connected all over the world (Hanna, Rohm & Crittenden, 2011). Imagine someone who has moved from their hometown in order to take a job overseas leaving behind family and friends. Through the components of social media such as LinkedIn for business-related contacts, Facebook for family and friends, Google+ and Skype where you can actually call the person you want to speak to SOCIAL MEDIA 3 online and see them in order to see the physical changes with the passing of time, plus Google+

Hangout offers this as well as WhatsApp and FaceTime, everyone who has access to technology has very few excuses not to keep in touch with those people who they hold dear to their heart.

This is a revolutionary event in human history (Hanna, Rohm & Crittenden, 2011). Parents can stay connected to their children, long-distance relationships can flourish and last and long-time friendships can prosper and grow until perhaps eventually, the person who has left for overseas returns to the roost such as the chickens tend to come to roost, and return to their homeland.

Sometimes this does not happen, however with the advent of social media – the connections can last.

Another note about social media in terms of the disadvantages is that just like in the movie Six Degrees of Separation (Schepisi, 1993) mentioned earlier where Will Smith portrayed an imposter – the same thing can happen online. One must guard themselves against the perils of online fraud, human trafficking, drug promotion and other dangers that do exist with social media. With more education concerning these issues disseminated through the media, the schools and by community groups and the police officials – this should help to protect many, many people.

Networking

During the 1980s and 1990s, in-person networking events were a common affair. People would often meet for conventions and conferences related to their job field (Kaplan & Haenlein,

2010). Social media has transformed the in-person networking market into a cost-effective and cost-saving online environment where now people who even live in such faraway places such as

Canada, can attend a conference in Turkey via social media technology. The nature of how social SOCIAL MEDIA 4 media is transforming networking as it is associated with networking and the field of work is decreasing the need for many workers to actually be physically present in another country if they work for a global organization and/or do business with other countries. Social media is affecting networking and business practices in such a way where a busy individual with family obligations can still do business globally from the comfort of their home office and/or office at work.

Conclusion

This essay has discussed how social media is having a tremendous influence on how we are connected, as well as how we are networking. Not all of the changes related to social media are good ones since some people take advantage of the anonymity of being online in order to take advantage of people, however, with strong diligent work of community efforts, those who abuse social media for ill purposes can be prevented. SOCIAL MEDIA 5

References

Hanna, R., Rohm, A., & Crittenden, V. L. (2011). We’re all connected: The power of the social

media ecosystem. Business horizons, 54(3), 265-273.

Kaplan, A. M., & Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and

opportunities of Social Media. Business horizons, 53(1), 59-68.

Schepisi, F. (1993). Six Degrees of Separation. [Motion Picture]. Retrieved from:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108149/