How Social Media Shapes Identity

¶ … Social Media on Human Perception The human interactivity has its rots in the inception of faster communication systems like the telephone, telegraph and later on the email system. As the IT continued to develop and the globalization intensified, the frequent interaction between people on extreme ends of the world became a more regular phenomenon and hence more valued over the years.

The continued interaction has been seen in the gaming industry where competitors from different parts of the world connect to each other in real time over the internet and compete in the same game for hours. This has over the years engaged people from different parts of the globe though it has been limited to the gaming aspect only.

The other predominant mode of interaction in the contemporary society is the social media which has mushroomed over the last decade, seeing companies like facebook, twitter, SnapChat, Instagram, Flickr among many other having millions of users all interacting actively at the same time. The social media thirst has been fueled by the global trends of urgency in communication and since social media delivers messages instantly and replies offered sooner than conventional email system, it became perfect tool to fill the gap of communication.

Due to the prominent position taken by the social media in the current society, it is considered to be one tool that influences most the perceptions of people, especially the younger generation and how they see both their environment and themselves (Worsman S., 2011). This influence has triggered small to multinational businesses to turn to the social media for marketing purposes and for potential clients.

The social media is known to shape the social identity formation of the young people with people across borders influencing the way others look at themselves and how they handle issue and react to happenings around them. The trending issues have helped form common approaches and unified ways of doing things. The person that a youth becomes is significantly influenced by both the internal and external factors and the current extrinsic factor is the social media.

The identities forged by the social media are hence extensively and continually being shaped in a global manner. It is estimated that an average American adolescent spends 9 hours on social media (Wallace K., 2015). This time is not just spent on entertainment but also implicitly or knowingly used in research and social comparison of self with other cultures across the globe. Since the youth are at a stage of deciding whom they want to become, the flow of information from across the globe initiates social comparison.

The enormous amount of information from social media on whom they want to become often means enforcement of ideas, corruption of perceptions and even at times falsification of sense of who they would like to be or of what the actual world is out there. In as much as the information they get from the social media is rarely reliable source of whom they would like to become, nevertheless it forms an important basis of whom they become and social identity.

Persuasion is a central tool that social media uses in shaping attitudes among the social media users. The modeling sites with beautiful models, the body building facebook pages with muscular men, the sport Instagram sites with photographs of highly successful sportsmen and women among other social media platforms all act to persuade the individual that they too can become like those men and women they see on the social media. Unfortunately, the social media also acts to negatively shape the minds and identities of the youth.

The stereotypes that exist against the female gender or a certain race are often carried in the social media. The scorning of highly intelligent girls and successful women, the relocation and constant confinement of women to the subordinate role and sex tool position is constantly perpetuated by the social media. Once the youth and social media users in general get to be members of these social media platforms, they are daily fed on these stereotypes and hence they come to believe in them and exercise them on daily basis.

There are various advantages that come with the social media for both individuals and even large corporations. The ease of reach to a large audience makes social media a good platform for the businesses to advertise their products and promote their brands at a global level. Information on emergencies and disasters can also be shared across various agencies concerned through the social media hence facilitating quick and timely response to the disaster.

Educational groups have been formed and investment interactions have been enabled through the various chat modes on social media. Organizations have also benefitted from the interactive social media where the management is able to engage the employees in conversations at a global level hence cutting down the need to travel long distances. However, the challenges which come with the social media presence are varied and dynamic since the perpetrators also keep changing their approaches and tact each time.

The social media opens up the possibility of hackers infiltrating conversations which can be dangerous in cases where classified information is being passed across. Individuals can also fall victims to online scams and impersonations hence losing.