In the recent years, social networking and social media have become important topics. Any site that enhances social interaction including MySpace, face book and twitter is considered a social media (O’Keeffe & Pearson, 2011). Other virtual words and gaming sites including Second Life, Club Penguin, Sims, You tube and blogs also offer opportunities for social communication and entertainment (O’Keeffe & Pearson, 2011).
The revolution of social media enhances good relationships and contacts, advanced communication processes and improves social individuals’ activities. New social media has actually become a bridge that connects cyber space and real social life closer (Eltantawy & Wiest, 2011). Social media has also enhanced the possibility of creating a ‘smaller’ world which passes a lot of information within a short period.
Since it is a controversial topic, social media will continue being viewed positively and negatively. With increased use of social media, dependency is predictable. The value of transparency will also clash with the demands of security and privacy (Lampe, LaRosa, Steinfield & DeMaagd, 2011).
The continued use of social media will have a great impact to the society. First, social media will shrink the global neighborhood further (Lampe et al., 2011). It will in this case become a way to shortening physical distance and location through the information of relationships.
As people make and maintain virtual connections and work more globally, they will gain more appreciation of culture and diversity. For instance, the use of internet has had a number of positive impacts including increasing access to unlimited entertainment and information while facilitating production of new information and entertainment (Jue, Marr & Kassotakis, 2010).
Moreover, social media especially internet will become an important tool of mobilizing collective action and formation and execution of social movements worldwide (Eltantawy & Wiest, 2011). Similarly, most activists will use social media to organize demonstrations, public protests and consumer boycotts. New social media technologies especially blogs, social-networking sites and short messaging services (SMS) will successfully be used to implement social movements.
Additionally, social media will change governments by initiating effective communication between government officials, policy makers and the constituents (Lampe et al., 2011). For governments that will want to serve the needs of their people, social media will provide a channel to have their voices heard.
Elected official and government representatives will no longer have excuses of not understanding or getting to know the desires of those people they represent. Social media will also support social and political movements by giving policy makers opportunities for symbolic identification, political expression and information exchange (Eltantawy & Wiest, 2011).
New media technologies will also be more enlisted as helpful learning tools in most disciplines including sciences, arts, language and math. Similarly, social media will be used as a tool of fighting out crime in the society. Considering that social media is all about sharing information, social media tools will help in developing a collaborative mind set of fighting crime and other ills in the society. Social media will also be used to boost the fitness of health care.
Social media will have a great impact for the training of medical professionals and other operation efficiencies (Jue, Marr & Kassotakis, 2010). Moreover, the opportunities for partnership among experts within a bigger social network will improve the identification of cure and preventive measures of some illnesses. Curricula developers will also improvise new subjects related to social media including digital communication to accommodate the expected changes of communication in the society.
On the other hand, due to limited regulations and susceptibility to the peer pressure, social media may also be detrimental to the society. It is for instance speculated that there will be expression of offline behaviors including sexual experimentation, bullying and clique forming which may have negative impacts on the children’s physical and psychological health (Jue et al., 2010).
There is also great fear that children and young people will spend most of their time playing online games or surfing the internet instead of exercising or socializing with their peers. Moreover, social media may also lead to sleep disorders and addiction of internet among children, adolescents and the youths (O’Keeffee & Pearson, 2011).
Actually, some children today have been reported to have developed repetitive strain injuries from using video game controls and computer keyboards that affect their nerves, muscles, tendons, cartilage, ligaments and spinal disks.
Although we cannot foretell the future with certainty, most organizations worldwide have in fact began to integrate social media into everything they do hence changing the way big and small organizations accomplish their objectives. It is anticipated that in the next ten years, social media will yield a significant transformational impact.
We will also see a continuous launch of new forms of social media technologies. The collaborative nature and availability of technical and open source software will in this case improve the changing needs of users even more. At one point in time, individuals and organizations will also demand that their social tools be smart and simple.
Resources
Eltantawy, N. & Wiest, J. (2011). Social Media in the Egyptian Revolution: Reconsidering Resource Mobilization Theory. International Journal of Communication, 5, 1207–1224.
Jue, A., Alcalde, J. & Kassotakis, M. (2010). Social Media at Work: How Networking Tools Propel Organizational Performance. USA: Jossy-Bass.
Lampe, C., LaRose, R., Steifield, C. & DeMaagd, K. (2011). Inherent Barriers to the Use of Social Media for Public Policy Informatics. The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, 16, 1-17.
O’Keeffe, G. & Pearson, K. (2011). Clinical Report-The Impact of Social Media on Children, Adolescents, and Families. Journal of American Academy of Pediatrics, 12, 800-804.