Will Social Media Become a Pleasant Tool or a Nightmare?
By reading the article “Users afraid of privacy breach, they are shifting from social media to private message while brands need to change strategy” from Digital Information World, I realized social media has turned everything upside down within one decade after the 20th century. Also, I feel really surprised how those large social media companies also involved in social media and as a part of the privacy situation that we are facing.
In this article, the author mentioned the 3 reasons behind the fast-growing social media are: connect to friends and family, get news and information and get entertainment. These were the main factors that attracted people on social media, however, now people are getting aware of what they are posting on social media due to privacy and data theft. People starting to reduce their screen timing of using social media and they choose to spend more time with their family and friends in real-life or share via private message.
Yet, social media does not have a negative impact only. Based on research, only 13% of people said social media has clearly disconnected their relationships and most people still use social media in their daily life to connect with others.
WHAT WE ARE LOOKING AT?
Back in the 20th century, we only have phones and letters to communicate with friends, families and work partners. Since the birth of the Internet, people have become more and more dependent on it. Truly, Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web, that internet connects the worldwide information for us, but at the same time, it generates data and gives some people the chance to use the data for their business. Companies see the business opportunities of social media, so that media became a tool for them to gain profits, and their final goal might not simply share information and connect people anymore.
Nowadays, almost every technology was build upon on the Internet and people believe the future development is toward information technology because technology is so convenience. Technology is developing so quickly and social media became an inseparable part of our daily life. People, like me, start to worry about personal information security issues now, as well as online fraud and corruption problems.
The internet has memory. All our actions on social media will leave a mark with the data, that people could intentionally track our habits, daily life. Secrets are not secret anymore. On the surface, digitalization brings convenience to people, but in the depths, it is a kind of stealing. Technology companies are becoming more and more unscrupulous. I realized it when I was using my smartphone. One day when I was talking with my friend about maybe going to the gym for a workout, and then Instagram advertised me the nearby gyms on their pages while I was looking through Instagram that night. It scares me because I feel like my phone is tapping my conversations and sending the data to the business that related to me and made me concern that is social media really trustable?
HOW SHOULD WE USE SOCIAL MEDIA?
Business socializes their brands and products more and more on the internet because it is actually very low cost and more efficient for them compared to advertising. At the same time, more and more people rely on social media, which creates an ecosystem for society. However, I feel this relationship is unhealthy at a deeper level. And I don’t see a way to solve the privacy problem of social media, because it’s so big that it relates to everyone and every country, and nobody can live without technology and social media.
Like the article said, as more and more people are getting aware of the ways to use social media, I think brands who are on social media should also carefully consider their ways of using this tool in the future strategic planning and development to create a healthier and trustable social environment.
