Impact of Social Media on Society

"Do you have Facebook?"
"Yes, of course. But I don't think you can find me, as there are too many people who have the same name as me. Try searching with my surname as well."
"Hey, you celebrated your birthday in K-Box, right? I saw the photos in your Facebook."
"Bro, I saw your comments about the YouTube video that I've posted in my blog. I'm happy that you are also deeply moved by the 'Dancing Peacock Man' as well."

Social media or "social networking" has almost become part of our daily lives and being tossed around over the past few years. It is like any other media such as newspaper, radio and television but it is far more than just about sharing information and ideas. Social networking tools like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Blogs have facilitated creation and exchange of ideas so quickly and widely than the conventional media. The power of define and control a brand is shifting from corporations and institutions to individuals and communities. It is no longer on the 5Cs (e.g. condominium, credit cards and car) that Singaporeans once talked about. Today, it is about the brand new Cs: creativity, communication, connection, creation (of new ideas and products), community (of shared interests), collaboration and (changing the game of) competition.

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In January 2010, InSites Consulting has conducted an online survey with 2,884 consumers from over 14 countries between the ages of 18 to 55 years old on social networking. More than 90% of participants know at least 1 social networking site and 72% of participants are members of at least 1 social networking site. On the average, people have about 195 friends and they log in twice a day to social networking sites. However, 55% of the users cannot access their social network websites at work. In the past, not many adults were able to make more than 500 friends, but with social media, even a child or teenager can get to know more than 500 people in a few days by just clicking the mouse. Social media has devalued the traditional definition of "friend" where it means trust, support, compatible values, etc. Although we get to know more people, we are not able to build strong bond with all the people whom we met as our available time is limited. Hence, there is an upcoming social trend of people with wider social circles, but weaker ties (people we don't know very well but who provide us with useful information and ideas).

Impact of Social Media on Society

Social media also influences people's buying behaviours. Digital Influence Group reported that 91% of the people say consumer reviews are the #1 aid to buying decisions and 87% trust a friend's recommendation over critic's review. It is thrice more likely to trust peer opinions over advertising for purchasing decisions. 1 word-of-mouth conversation has an impact of 200 TV ads. With the prevalence use of social media, there is numerous news related to it from the most viewed YouTube video on "Armless pianist wins 'China's Got Talent'" to Web-assisted suicide cases (e.g. New Jersey college student who killed himself after video of him in a sexual encounter with another man was posted online). Thus, does social networking make us better or worse off as a society?

Positive Effects of Social Media

Besides having opportunity to know a lot of people in a fast and easy way, social media also helped teenagers who have social or physical mobility restrictions to build and maintain relationships with their friends and families. Children who go overseas to study can still stay in meaningful contact with their parents. To a greater extend, there is anecdotal evidence of positive outcomes from these technologies.

In 2008, President-elected Obama won the election through the effective use of social media to reach millions of audience or voters. The Obama campaign had generated and distributed huge amount of contents and messages across email, SMS, social media platforms and their websites. Obama and his campaign team fully understood the fundamental social need that everyone shares - the need of being "who we are". Therefore, the campaign sent the message as "Because It's about YOU" and chose the right form of media to connect with individuals, call for actions and create community for a social movement. They encouraged citizens to share their voices, hold discussion parties in houses and run their own campaign meetings. It truly changed the delivery of political message.

Obama campaign had made 5 million "friends" on more than 15 social networking sites (3 million friends on Facebook itself) and posted nearly 2,000 YouTube videos which were watched over 80 million times. At its peak, their website, MyBarackObama.com, had 8.5 million monthly visitors and produced 400,000 blog posts. In order to ensure that their contents were found by people, the Obama campaign spent .5 million on Google search in October alone, 0,000 on Advertising.com, 7,000 on Facebook in 2008, etc. Currently, Obama's Twitter account has close to 6 million followers.

In 2010, after the earthquake happened in Haiti, many of the official communication lines were down. The rest of the world was not able to grasp the full picture of the situation there. To facilitate the sharing of information and make up for the lack of information, social media came in very handy to report the news about the affected area on what happened and what help was needed. Tweets from many people provided an impressive overview of the ongoing events from the earthquake. BBC covered the event by combining tweets from the work of its reporter Matthew Price in Port-au-Prince at the ground. Guardian's live blog also used social media together with the information from other news organisations to report about the rescue mission.

It has been two years since CNN officially launched iReport as a section of its website where people can upload video material, with contact information. During the Haiti crisis, CNN had published a range of social media material but not all the materials were verified. The editorial staff would vet the reports from the citizen journalists and labeled them differently compared to unverified contents. On Facebook, a group, named "Earthquake Haiti", was formed to show support and share updates and news. It had more than 14,000 members and some users even pleaded for assistance to the injured Haitians in the group. Using email, Twitter and social networking sites like Facebook, thousands of volunteers as part of Project Ushahidi were able to map reports sent by people from Haiti.

The most impressive part of the social media's impact on Haiti is the charity text-message donations that soared to over million for the victims in Haiti. People interested in helping the victims are encouraged to text, tweet and publicize their support using various social networking sites. The Global Philanthropy Group had also started a campaign to ask wealthy people and celebrities, like Ben Stiller and John Legend to use Twitter and Facebook to encourage others to give to UNICEF. An aid worker, Saundra Schimmelpfennig, allowed the advice from other aid workers and donors to post on her blog regarding to choosing which charitable organisations to support. In the meantime, donors were asking questions in Twitter, Facebook and blogs about their donations and endorsements of their favourite charities. After every crisis, the social media for social cause becomes a more effective medium to spread the word.

Negative Effects of Social Media

There are always two sides of every coin. Social media is just a tool or mean for people to use. It is still up to the users on how to use this tool (just like a knife, can help you to cut food or hurt others). Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project and Elon University's Imagining the Internet Center conducted a study on "The Future of Online Socializing" from the highly engaged, diverse set of respondents to an online, opt-in survey consisted of 895 technology stakeholders and critics. The negative effects presented by the respondents included time spent online robs time from important face-to-face relationships; the internet fosters mostly shallow relationships; the act of leveraging the internet to engage in social connection exposes private information; the internet allows people to silo themselves, limiting their exposure to new ideas; and the internet is being used to engender intolerance.

Some respondents also highlighted that there will be development of some new psychological and medical syndromes that will be "variations of depression caused by the lack of meaningful quality relationships", and a "new world society". The term, "Social Networking", has begun to deceive the users to believe they are social creatures. For instance, spending a couple of hours using Farmville and chatting with friends concurrently does not convert into social skills. People become dependent on the technology and forget how to socialise in face-to-face context. The online personality of a person might be totally different from his/her offline character, causing chaos when the two personalities meet. It is apparent in online dating when the couple gets together in face-to-face for the first time. Their written profiles do not clearly represent their real-life characters. It is more enticing for people to type something that others want to hear than saying the truth.

Besides the "friendship", creators of social networking sites and users redefine the term, "privacy" in the Internet as well. The challenge in data privacy is to share data while protecting personally identifiable information. Almost any information posted on social networking sites is permanent. Whenever someone posts pictures or videos on the web, it becomes viral. When the user deletes a video from his/her social network, someone might have kept it and then posted it onto other sites like YouTube already. People post photographs and video files on social networking sites without thinking and the files can reappear at the worst possible time. In 2008, a video of a group of ACJC students hazing a female student in school on her birthday was circulated and another video of a SCDF recruit being "welcomed" (was hosed with water and tarred with shoe polish) to a local fire station made its way online.

Much news has been reported about online privacy breach in Facebook and Facebook is constantly revising their privacy policy and changing their privacy controls for the users. Interestingly, even when users delete their personal information and deactivate their Facebook account, Facebook will still keep that information and will continue to use it for data mining. A reporter asked whether the data will at least be anonymized. The Facebook representative declined to comment.

In the corporate world, human resource managers can access Facebook or MySpace to get to know about a candidate's true colours, especially when job seekers do not set their profiles to private. Research has found that almost half of employers have rejected a potential worker after finding incriminating material on their Facebook pages. Some employers have also checked the candidates' online details in Facebook pages to see if they are lying about their qualifications. Nowadays, younger generations have a complete disregard for their own privacy, opening doors to unwelcome predators or stalkers.

Impact of Social Media on Society

Raymond Tay
Founder & Trainer of Leader's Wheel LLP

Having strong interest in personal development and helping others.

My Company Site: http://www.leaderswheel.com
My Learning Blog: http://www.leaderswheel.com/raymondtay

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Water Pollution Problems: A Real Issue

Water pollution has always been a major problem to the environment. With industrialization in major areas and urban cities growing the water around them just keeps getting polluted. The sad part about the whole ordeal is that water pollution can be prevented in a lot of cases.

A lot of water pollution is caused by factories near rivers and lakes doing illegal dumping. This hurts wildlife because the pollution will flow down the river hurting plants and animals. In some cases it can be fatal.

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Another big form of water pollution comes from fisherman and yacht owners. People who are just out to enjoy the sun will throw their waste overboard or have a leaky engine. A lot of them don't care because it doesn't usually directly effect how their day is going to turn out.

Water Pollution Problems: A Real Issue

The nice thing is that if your boat is caught illegally dumping or not meeting basic standards you can be forced to pay a large fine. By putting laws such as these into effect water pollution has decreased some. However, it still isn't anywhere nears what it needs to be.

There have also been rules and regulations given to transport lines, especially concerning fuel tankers. When a fuel tanker ends up sinking it releases thousands upon thousands of gallons of fuel into the ocean. This fuel gets all over marine life and can cause serious damage to beaches and coral.

Another type of water pollution comes from farmers. When they spray their fields the fertilizer and insecticides can soak into the ground and get caught in a water system or river. This will then in turn hurt plant and animal life because the waterways are being poisoned.

If you think water pollution doesn't affect you then you are wrong. The pollution ends up hurting nature and poisoning fish that we may eat. On a more direct approach it can even pollute drinking water.

With so many bad side effects of water pollution it is a wonder that there isn't more being done to prevent it. The general public needs to learn more information about it so that they can learn to fight it and keep the waters clean.

Water Pollution Problems: A Real Issue

Visit our blog, World Water Awareness, to learn more: http://worldwater1.blogspot.com/

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The Influence Of The Internet On People's Social And Psychological Realities

The influence of the Internet has caused a change in the way we communicate, learn and shop.

The Internet is probably most famous for the ability to spread information, fact or fiction. We were once limited to news editors of a local paper, then to national cable news. Now anyone can search the globe, visit local papers in foreign countries, and see the views of all sides. This ease of information has also brought with it a large amount of hoaxes, money schemes, and fallacies.

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There is no question that easy access to the Internet, like the introduction of mail service and the invention of the telephone, has changed the nature of people's connection to others in their social world. Mail made possible connections among people without physical proximity, and the telephone facilitated communication among distant people, making rapid connections possible across long distances.

The Influence Of The Internet On People's Social And Psychological Realities

But has this communication revolution changed the pure nature of interpersonal and group processes?

On the one hand, since the primary use of the Internet is communication, some people might speculate that the Internet will have positive social consequences in people's everyday lives because it increases the frequency and quality of interpersonal communications among people. People with easy access to others would feel better connected and more strongly supported by others, leading to happiness and engagement in families, organizations, communities, and society more generally.

But, on the other hand, the ease of electronic communication may lead to weaker social ties, because people have less reason to leave their homes and actually interact face to face with other people. The Internet allows people to more easily work from their home, to form and sustain friendships and even romantic attachments from their home, to bank from their home, to vote and engage in political and social issue based discussions with others (from home).

In this variety of ways, Internet communications can potentially displace face-to-face communications. I think this point is important because psychologists in many researches have described and proved such face to face and telephone connections as being of higher quality, when viewed in terms of their contribution to satisfaction and well-being.
Reading a series of longitudinal and experimental studies (e.x. McKenna, Green, and Gleason), who test a theory of relationship formation on the Internet, these researchers directly address the argument that the psychological quality of Internet social interaction is lower than is the psychological quality of traditional face-to-face interaction.

Consider my own use. I've received several e-mail messages in the past hour. My boyfriend confirms the dinner for tonight. Even though it is weekend, my colleagues send me questions about the pending exam expects a quick answer. So does some graduate student from Europe, that I recently met on "MySpace" with an urgent request for a letter of recommendation. My friend Ksenija sends me an IM to tell me the latest news about her new love. And so on and so on...

I assume that I am also living a virtual life, and what's the most interesting of all, all of my friends online, are also my friends in real life. And if they weren't that in the past, I somehow managed to bring my cyber friends into my real life, so I could here in my real life enable real communication, real face-to-face "talks", real exchange of emotions, feelings of happiness, satisfaction and well-being. I'd say for me, the Internet is a great new way for doing old things.

So, what else conclusion can I bring except the one that Internet life cannot stand on itself without real-life communication. It is simple: If we understand the qualities of face-to-face communication that influence the impact of such communication on people and their social interaction, we would be able to predict the probable influence of any new communication technology. However, researchers show that people sooner or later convert their cyber contacts into more traditional face-to-face, the same as I do. People use the Internet, in other words to help them achieve their real-life goals. And rather than technology's changing people's social and psychological reality, in other words, people change their use of technology to facilitate their creation of a desired social reality.
Internet users should closely examine their behavior, to ensure that excessive time online will not negatively impact their personal well-being. We shouldn't throw our computers out the window, but neither should we charge on blindly into complete dependence on the Internet. As with many things in life, it seems that moderation and balance are key to maximizing the Internet's positive effect.

The Influence Of The Internet On People's Social And Psychological Realities

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The Kids Verses Derek Jeter and Jerry Seinfeld

OK so I never intended to spend my life working with children. Yes I did the childcare degree in the UK but that was because I wanted to travel. I thought if I got that degree I could become a nanny which was a great way to travel the world for cheap, and I was right...it was. And then when I came to the USA and my children were born, I wanted them with me so working as a preschool teacher was a win win...But I NEVER expected it would become my career...But it did...And the funny thing is, I was really good at it. I moved up from being Assistant, to Teacher, to Lead Teacher, to Assistant Director, to Director, and I really enjoyed it.

But do you know what I did not enjoy, do you know what really really p##*@ed me off the most? It was the fact that what I did was seen by society as not very valuable, I mean I can only draw that conclusion as we here in the USA value things with a dollar amount, and as the dollar amount placed on me was to an hour, what other conclusion can I draw?

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Part of my job as Lead Teacher was to teach children to read. Now I may be a bit naive but I think that this is THE most important job on the planet, I mean think about it.... If children cannot read, there will be no doctors, no lawyers, no scientist, no teachers or professors, no....., well, you get the picture.

The Kids Verses Derek Jeter and Jerry Seinfeld

I really don't understand it, as a licensed family daycare provider, I saw parents wince when I told them my cost for taking care of their child for a week from 7am to 6pm was 0.00 (this worked out at .75 an hour) And yet these same parents don't think anything of paying much much more for other services..Here are some examples.....

Piano tuner. an hour

Dog grooming to an hour

Computer hard drive install 9.00

Plumber 0 an hour

So why is anything related to children valued so low? This speaks to our Public School Teachers also but that is another post. These days many qualifications are required to be a preschool teacher and yet the pay remains low.

But you know what, that is really not what bothers me the most, even though I truly think we should be paying these people much much more. No, what bothers me the most is when I open my MSN news and the first thing I see is that Derek Jeter just signed a new contract with the Yankees for...wait for it.... million!!!! Yes you read it correct million for 3 years

So based on this, I can only draw the conclusion that this is what we consider valuable.....

Teaching a child to read.... thousand over 3 years

Throwing a ball, catching a ball, hitting a ball, running in a circle..... million over 3 years

Seriously, I have to ask..what is wrong with this picture? Why is it that we place so little value in the care and education of what is obviously our most important "resource" for the future and yet so much on our 'entertainment"

What needs to be done for this to change? What can WE as individuals do to let society know that this is unacceptable and that we HAVE to invest more money in both early childhood and our Public education system and NOT be making the damaging cuts that are happening right now all over the country. But more important, how can we, as a society start placing less emphasis on movie stars, rock stars, people in sports and stop idolizing them.

And not being outraged when someone gets paid million per episode for starring in a show about nothing!....JERRY!

The Kids Verses Derek Jeter and Jerry Seinfeld

Read more here http://www.fierceover50.com

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Crime and Its Impact on Society

Exactly what is crime? Simply put, crime is an act that violates the rights of a person, or persons, or their property. That's a rather simplified definition. The actual definition is much too long for this article. But crime is not only a violation of a person or persons; it can also be an act that could endanger the lives or safety of the public in general. An example of that type of crime could include the firing of a weapon inside the city limits. By discharging a firearm in a populated area, you endanger the lives of all who live within the range of that particular weapon. The bullet could ricochet and hurt an innocent bystander, or if fired into the air, it could come down and injure someone. By firing the weapon in a populated area, the person who fired it has demonstrated a wanton and reckless disregard for the safety of others.

Crime affects us all in one way or another. Because of that, society has enacted laws designed to protect every man, woman and child. For instance, the person who shoplifts from the local department store causes all of us to pay higher prices for the products or services we need. Let me explain. When people shoplift it costs the company they steal from money because they had to pay for that product and they got nothing for it. They just lost money. Now imagine four people a day shoplift products totaling . In seven days they lost 0. But what if that company has 100 stores nationwide and each store loses a day. That comes to 00 a day, ,000 a week. Multiply by 52 weeks a year and you get a whopping 8,000 lost every year. Now they have to implement security measures to control their losses. And it isn't cheap. They have to install cameras, hire security people to watch the cameras and walk the floor, insurance for those people not to mention the salaries for each of them. On top of all that there is the cost of prosecuting
all those shoplifters.

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Many companies spend millions every year to prevent theft. The money lost from stolen products, money spent on security and wages for the security staff has to be made up somewhere. Guess who has to make up the shortage? You guessed it. You, the honest shopper, ends up having to pay higher prices for the products and services you want.

Crime and Its Impact on Society

But the price you pay for crime doesn't stop there. You don't get off that easy. Once the lawbreaker is prosecuted he/she has to be incarcerated. Housing, clothing and feeding criminals is expensive. In 2007 a local newspaper, The Sacramento Bee, reported that the average annual cost of housing prison inmates in the California prison system was ,287 per inmate. In 2008 TV station WHAS in Louisville, KY. reported that the average cost of housing an inmate in KY. was ,000. WHAS also reported that Kentucky has the fastest rising inmate population in the country, causing huge money problems for the people of Kentucky.

Crime costs all of us in higher prices for food, clothing, etc. and in taxes to pay for housing criminals once they are prosecuted.

Crime and Its Impact on Society

For more information on crime, visit [http://policemicroblog.com] and [http://lawfirmmicroblog.com]

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Cause and Effects of Korean War

The Korean War took place between the time period of June 25, 1950 and July 17, 1953. The two Korean regimes fighting against each were the Republic of Korean supported by the United Nations and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and its allies.

Korea was an independent nation since the 7th century. However, certain parts of the country came under the Japanese jurisdiction as a consequence of the war that took place between China and Japan during the years 1894 to 1895. Korea was engulfed completely by the Japanese forces in August 1910. With the culmination of the Second World War, Korea was taken over by United States and Soviet Union in unison. The US authorities sought help from the United Nations to end the issue of a conjugated occupation of Korea.

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To resolve the conflict, the United Nations suggested elections in the country, which were drastically opposed by the communists in North and South Korea. While the United Stated desired to prevent the multiplication of communism; the Soviet Union wanted to extend it as far as possible throughout the world. With Kim II-Sung at the helm of affairs in North Korea supported by the Soviet Union, forces under him attacked South Korea under the anti-communist government of Syngman Rhee on June 25, 1950. China plunged into the war in order to gain mileage against the probability of a US invasion. The war ended on July 27, 1953 due to armistice. However, this was a momentary cease fire without the signing of any long term peace treaties.

Cause and Effects of Korean War

One of the most obvious effects of the war as in the case of any conflict was high numbers of casualties. The Korean War widened the gap between the United States and the Soviet Union on the issue of communism. The war also propagated animosity between the US and China. As a direct consequence of the fear of the repercussions of communism, the US arbitrated into Vietnam to abolish the possibility of another North Korea. South Korea became a permanent location for the American military troops. Despite the armistice, the actual war has not ceased since then. Korea remains bifurcated with the two sides on constant war readiness. The economic wide between the two sides has also deepened with the passage of time.

While South Korea has progressed economically and technologically; North Korea remains as a poor and immensely militarized country. The nuclear tests and numerous missile tests conducted by North Korea pose a threat to South Korea as well as Japan. The eight point peace agreement signed by the leaders of the two sides of Korea on October 4, 2007 did open avenues of talks, peace, economic cooperation, renewal of highway, air travel and train services. However, the unification of North and South Korea still remains a dream in the hearts of many.

Cause and Effects of Korean War

Kum Martin is an online leading tax expert. He also offers top quality articles like:
Greek Mythology, Alexander the Great.

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