Social Media: Benefits, Risks, and Ethical Remedies

Introduction

Social media involves online content that people create and consume via highly accessible technologies. Essentially, social media marks a change in the way people read, discover, and share information, news, and content. It fuses technology and sociology, transforming monologues into dialogues and democratizing information — making everyone a potential author rather than a mere content consumer. Social media has become very popular because it enables people to interact through the internet and build relationships useful for political, personal, and business purposes. Businesses regard social media as an amalgamation of consumer-generated media. It takes many forms, including blogs, internet forums, wikis, pictures, podcasts, and video. The internet is therefore a fundamental social medium, and this is unlikely to change, since people continually seek to engage with one another online.

One can no longer neglect the major phenomenon that is social media. Tools such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and various blogs have achieved rapid success and tremendous popularity. Social media networks have emerged as mainstream communication channels, transformed personal relationships, enabled individuals to have a say in numerous issues, and created new challenges and possibilities for collaboration. Organizations urgently require not only a focal point for the innovation of new services and products, but also an awareness of effective knowledge sharing, which can be vital to their success. Incorporating and employing social media has immense potential advantages for both businesses and individuals (Gaal, Szabo, & Obermayer-Kovacs, 2015).

Electronic communication increasingly takes place by way of social networking, as more and more people use this flourishing communication method to share stories and express themselves. This sharing potentially benefits not only the individuals involved, but also society as a whole. However, while sharing stories via social media offers great potential benefits, using it in business settings is not always without risk (Jennings, Blount, & Weatherly, 2014). This paper, by examining social media utilization through secondary research, reviews social media usage in terms of its influence on users. It also considers potential drawbacks and offers potential remedies for the negative aspects of social media use.

Background

Recent internet advancements have allowed businesses to take advantage of new systems, one good example being social media platforms such as online communities. Firms ranging from Purina Cat Chow to Starbucks now have strong web presences that include Facebook pages, complete with deals, coupons, and bonuses for consumers who visit their business pages. Widespread internet availability has given people the opportunity to use social networking — from email to Facebook to Twitter — and to interact without the necessity of face-to-face meetings.

Web 2.0 applications have facilitated this development. Web 2.0 is a recent advancement that has transformed the internet into a social hub through the introduction of social media, enabling individuals to communicate and create content online. It gives users easier participation and greater interconnectivity. With the upsurge of social networking sites, a new era of content creation has emerged, in which people can easily share information and experiences with others. While sharing stories via social media poses great potential benefits, making use of it is not entirely without risk (Hajli, 2014).

Positive Effects of Social Media

Social networking sites began as places where one could connect with friends in a convenient, easy manner. Many people have reconnected with old school or college friends — people with whom they had lost touch — through social networks, and are grateful for that opportunity. Social media offers the chance to build stronger friendships with those whom one cannot personally meet, to connect with both new and old friends, to keep friends, family, and acquaintances informed about one's life, and to both obtain and share information about current events.

All of these are available through social networks. Individuals can raise their voices and communicate their perceptions and thoughts on a wide range of subjects — from politics to pop culture — through social media, reaching a potentially vast audience. This sharing feature ensures that individual opinions can reach audiences far beyond one's personal friends list. The option to form groups with like-minded individuals, share relevant information, and invite input or opinions on any topic is also available. There are tremendous options for interaction with other people on social networking sites (Ali, 2012).

Many individuals have also found that social media provides a way of addressing consumer issues. For example, if a purchased product breaks too soon, one can post a complaint on the business's Facebook page. This often results in a surprisingly fast response from the company, generally aimed at resolving the issue. Indeed, many individuals have reported that when calling a company failed to resolve a problem, posting a complaint on their Facebook page resulted in a rapid and generally positive response. Companies that use social media are well aware that a single complaint can potentially represent thousands of dissatisfied customers and lost sales, and they work hard to maintain a positive social media presence. There are now lectures, classes, and presentations dedicated to teaching effective social media use for business (Ali, 2012).

Social networking forms a vital part of many people's lives. Most people habitually check their favorite social networking site for updates shortly after going online. Businesses have taken note of social media's importance in individuals' lives and are employing different techniques to promote their products. Various customized applications are being created on these platforms, with the primary purpose of promoting brands or products. Because marketing via social media is cost-efficient and reaches large audiences, organizations are increasingly shifting toward social marketing (Ali, 2012).

Negative Effects of Social Media

A variety of research has shown that extensive social media use can lead to addiction. Throughout the day, users are inclined to post content or scroll through others' posts, and social media use becomes a significant part of their lives. Extreme social media usage has also reduced levels of human interaction. Because interacting with others through social networks has become relatively effortless, individuals may begin to isolate themselves behind their online identities. Face-to-face meetings and interactions have declined, and many people have lost the value of being together in person.

Businesses mostly use social media to find and communicate with clients, but social media can also be a significant distraction to employees during work hours. Some employees may be more interested in replying to friends' online posts than in completing work tasks. Two research studies on productivity losses due to social networking were reported by Wired.com. Nucleus Research found that employee use of Facebook cuts office productivity by 1.5%, while Morse reported that British organizations lost an estimated £2.2 billion per year due to employees' use of social networking. New technology is available for businesses to block social networks; however, its effectiveness remains inconsistent (Ali, 2012).

Conclusion

The use of social media is strongly rooted in individual and organizational culture. It forms another means of connecting with society through interactions and storytelling. Social media simultaneously generates opinions and interactions — which at times may conflict with corporate visions, both inside and outside a given firm. Social media sites collect vast quantities of data and function as computational social science tools. Facebook, the most prominent example, provides comparatively open access to personal information about individual users, which can be potentially sensitive. The individual is ultimately the only one who can truly guard their personal information, a task made more difficult by a limited understanding of what can be discovered through the wide variety of online tools that breach personal privacy.

As discussed above, existing regulations fail to provide satisfactory protection to individuals. Therefore, a more comprehensive approach ought to be developed. As a useful first step, social media users should be allowed to withhold individual data segments that they no longer wish social media companies or other users to access. A second important aspect would be to find effective ways to impress upon vulnerable children, teenagers, and young adults the dangers of excessive information sharing and of posting content that might result in future personal harm. The young man who posted pictures of himself mishandling food at a fast-food restaurant not only lost his job but also potentially blocked himself from a variety of future employment opportunities. Similarly, impulsive social media actions carry consequences that the public has not fully reckoned with. Education in this direction is a necessary step.

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