Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
Comm 1500
Professor Cancio
Social media has become a staple of many Americans’ everyday life by providing a
platform to expand businesses, share memories with longtime friends and create famous
personas to display for the world. But, to what is extent is social media beneficial and to what
extent is social media hurtful? This essay will evaluate the positives and negatives of social
media for the professional platform, how it affects people personally and how it changes societal
expectations.
Social media has completely overtaken the world by storm with almost as many users of
Facebook as there is people on the planet. An article from CNN quotes, “Facebook, the world’s
largest online social network, had over 1 billion active users by the end of 2012, with over 80%
from outside the United States.” (Smith, Segall, and Cowley 2012) With that amount of outreach,
the possibilities that open from joining the bandwagon of social media becomes an incentive in
almost every aspect of life. A specific benefit from social media is in the business landscape, that
has now incorporated and converged itself with social media through the abilities of sharing
content, having a platform for advertisements and being able to receive feedback from the
consumer. NBC News reports that in 2017 Facebook made $39.9 billion in ad revenue (Atkinson
2018), which speaks volumes towards the impact of Facebook as an economy, but also shows its
prevalence on businesses as well. A business creates a profile for itself on social media then pays
the platform to share and advertise the company’s goods and services. The company gets more
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outreach towards customers and Facebook gets revenue per advertisement sold, it’s a mutualistic
and beneficial relationship for both parties. If you’re ever questioned about the significance of
social media for companies ask yourself this, “What companies do I know of that aren’t found on
Facebook?”
Now that it’s established that businesses and social media are intertwined in a mutualistic
form, is there a possibility that it could be negative? To steal from Uncle Ben in Spiderman,
“With great power comes great responsibility,” a cliche that has actual depth (surprising right?).
With the integration of business life and personal life through social media, the lines become
vaguer and smaller between what is meant to be shared with friends and what is meant to be
shared with coworkers. Photos of someone yacking from drinking too much Kettle One is
hilarious to your friends from high school, but is unappealing to your boss at Chase Bank. In the
blink of an eye, the fortune and empire built in cooperation with social media could be the spark
of an avalanche that steals it all away. One example of this is when Youtube influencer
PewDiePie was caught yelling the N-word on camera that was then quickly shared and reposted
across all social media platforms, forcing the content creator to make a formal public apology,
branding him with a scarlet letter for the rest of his career. A second and major example of this
was in early 2018 when vlogger Logan Paul uploaded a video of him and his castmates
wandering through Japan’s famous “Suicide Forest” only to find a man hanging from a tree. Paul
continued to videotape the corpse and broadcasted it on Youtube, which got extreme backlash
from society. An article quotes, “Logan Paul has revealed he lost $5 million following the fallout
over his “suicide forest” scandal.” (Fernando, 2018) This proves that social media and
technology as a whole demands conscious awareness and it will not hesitate to remind and check
Social media allows whoever is behind the screen to create and manifest themselves into
whatever kind of persona they imagine with endless variety of choice between the colors of their
background page on their profile, to the content that is posted on that page. With this much
availability for creation at anyone’s disposal, what do you do with it? The beginning is to create
your own profile, post all the photos of you and your golden labrador, then after that, you post
pictures of you and your best friend. After that you search your friend’s name and add them and
tag them. After getting all of the mundane and immediate out of the way, it is up to you to decide
what you want to create. The importance of creating online friend groups with people that are
essential to someone’s real life behind the screen seems simple, but a study proves the significant
correlation between close online connections and self-image. The article states, “Results show
that browsing a social network enhances self-esteem for participants focused on strong ties while
browsing Facebook. Social network use did not significantly affect self-esteem for those focused
on weak ties while browsing Facebook.” (Wilcox and Stephen 2013) This states that by creating
a close connection with people and things that are influential to the user increases their self-
esteem opposed to doing the opposite. Along the lines of self-esteem, is there a way for social
media to belittle someone’s view of themselves? Child’s Mind Institute posted an article on the
question claiming, “Teens who have created idealized online personas may feel frustrated and
depressed at the gap between who they pretend to be online and who they truly are.” (Jacobson
and Child Mind Institute) This quote claims that adolescents and young adults aren’t able to
differentiate reality from what is seen online and what is really there. This problem has sparked
large epidemics in society for slimmer wastes, larger biceps and fuller lips and when the
photoshop is edited too perfectly, the consumer begins to degrade themselves and their self-
worth. MD, Katherine Phillips reports on this phenomena, stating, “Body Dysmorphic Disorder
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affects 1.7% to 2.9% of the general population — about 1 in 50 people. This means that more
than 5 million people to nearly 10 million people in the United States alone have BDD.”
(Phillips) This states that one in every fifty people suffer from body dysmorphia and with the
prevalence of social media, the ability to relinquish this epidemic becomes harder to achieve.
Social media’s large outreach creates high saturation towards content and when that is
paired in connection with supply and demand, the content becomes more extreme and fantastical.
When there’s a large expectation for demand the supply is forced to be more appealing and awe-
inspiring, segueing the introduction and impact of photoshop on social media. With the need for
slim thighs and fat butts, the motives to download body tuning apps skyrocket. The beautifying
tuner app, FaceTune has become a staple for Instagram as it helps contourt body frames, remove
blemishes and whiten smiles. The first version has sold more than 10 million copies (at between
$3.99 and $5.99 each) and was Apple’s most popular paid app of 2017. (Solon 2018) This not
only proves that beauty and youth can be achieved at a cheap price of $6, but that almost
everything portrayed on social media is a facade. When you comment on your friend Sarah’s
photo saying, “You’re a work of art!!” you’re realistically and grammatically right, because she
Finally, the prevalence of social media proves to have mutual benefits for both companies
and social media platforms equally, but it is important to be wary of what is posted because your
boss is one share away and so could be your career. Along the lines of awareness, it is important
to be social media literate and recognize what is a real portrayal of reality and what is a saturated
tint of the truth. The demand to be perfect is prevalent and always will be, but it’s important to
realize that perfection is boring and $6 too expensive. Use social media as a tool to achieve
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success and maintain close connections, but don’t let it be your sole reason for success, because
if you do and the day comes that you lose all of your followers, what would you have left?
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Work Cited
nbcnews.com/card/facebook-made-39-9-billion-ad-revenue-2017-n864576.
Fernando, Gavin. “Logan Paul Has Finally Addressed His Rise and Fall.” News.Com.Au,
logan-paul-went-from-one-of-the-worlds-most-famous-youtube-stars-to-
universally-hated/news-story/5ba9df3077d1d9bcb203641e1ccdf1b9.
Jacobson, Rae, and Child Mind Institute. “Social Media and Self-Esteem | Impact of
childmind.org/article/social-media-and-self-doubt/.
Smith, Aaron, Laurie Segall, and Stacy Cowley (2012), “Facebook Reaches One Billion
users/index .html.
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Solon, Olivia. “FaceTune Is Conquering Instagram – but Does It Take Airbrushing Too
www.theguardian.com/media/2018/mar/09/facetune-photoshopping-app-
instagram-body-image-debate.
Wilcox, Keith, and Andrew T. Stephen. “Are Close Friends the Enemy? Online Social