B1+-+The+Internet+age

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How has Social Media changed the way people live?

__What is Social Media? __ Social media is a type of online media which in contrast to traditional media, makes it easy for you to communicate with anybody and everybody in the world. Now, with one hand, you can share your thoughts, ideas, pictures, videos and your whole life online. They can come in six different forms: 1. Collaborative Projects (e.g. Wikipedia) 2. Blogs and Microblogs (e.g. Blogger, Twitter) 3. Content Communities (e.g. Youtube) 4. Social Networking sites (e.g. Facebook) 5. Virtual Game Worlds (e.g. World of Warcraft, MapleStory) 6. Virtual Social Worlds (e.g. Imvu, Second Life)

(+) **Reconnect with friends ** If you ever lose contact with any friends you had, you can just find them on Facebook or Twitter and keep in touch this way.

**Keep up with what's going on** Through social networking, e.g. Facebook or Twitter, news whether about friends, family or the world, can be obtained in a snap. **Find friends** You can also find people with the same interests as you and gain new friends. **New knowledge** With sites like Wikipedia and Google, you can learn more by just typing a word. **Cost-effective** Now, communication is cheap as you don't need to spend money to for example, call friends, especially if they're abroad. You don't need to spend money to buy newspapers to learn the news. You don't need to spend money to buy dictionaries and encylopedias and books to learn new things. (-) **Scams** You could possibly be cheated of your money and sensitive personal details. **Access to inappropriate content** Youths, especially, like to use the internet to surf some content which they should not. **Bad company** You might make friends with the wrong people online since it's hard to know who they really are in reality. **Addiction** People may get addicted to social networking sites or virtual games and neglect their life in the real world.

__Impact of Social Media on the Everyday lives of Youth __
 * The total amount of media use by youth ages 8 to 18 averages 6-plus hours a day—more than any other activity.
 * The amount of use has increased significantly, up from 4-plus hours in the last five years.
 * Eighty percent of adolescents possess at least one form of media access.
 * There is extensive multi-tasking associated with media use (instant messaging while doing homework and listening to music on an mp3 player, for example).
 * Of particular concern is the amount of TV kids consume. From 2004 to 2009, television and video use averaged three to five hours per day, peaking between the ages of 11 and 14, a crucial period for kids' social development.
 * Fifty-four percent of teens send text messages, and one third of teens send more than 100 text messages per day.
 * One third talk face-to-face with friends, around the same percentage that talk on cell phones (38 percent) and land lines (30 percent).
 * Twenty-four percent communicate with friends via instant messages.
 * Twenty-five percent contact friends via social networking sites.
 * Eleven percent use e-mail.

Benefits do include:
 * opportunities for community engagement through raising money for charity and volunteering for local events, including political and philanthropic events;
 * enhancement of individual and collective creativity through development and sharing of artistic and musical endeavors;
 * growth of ideas from the creation of blogs, podcasts, videos, and gaming sites;
 * expansion of one's online connections through shared interests to include others from more diverse backgrounds (such communication is an important step for all adolescents and affords the opportunity for respect, tolerance, and increased discourse about personal and global issues); and
 * fostering of one's individual identity and unique social skills

Disadvantages: Usually done with the attackers in cliques ganging up on a certain target and harrassing them with hostile words or communicating false/embarrassing information about the target to others.
 * Cyberbullying

This is the highest risk.

This is the act of sending sexually explicit messages, photographs or videos using a digital device.
 * Sexting

After spending a certain amount of time on Facebook, the person (youth especially) will exhibit signs of depression. This could mean dire consequences as the person might turn to some suspicious self-help websites and turn to substance abuse, unsafe sexual practices or aggressive/self-destructive behaviours.
 * Facebook depression

__Has Social Media enhanced our ability to communicate and share information, or has it prevented us from real communication? __ With Social Media applications like Twitter and Facebook, we can easily communicate and share information with each other. It has now become even easier to share what you think with others and allowed us to keep up to date with what's going on with each other.

However, If everyone talks through social media nowadays, face-to-face conversations will be very hard to come by. This is already shown by a statistic above stating only one-third of youth talk to their friends face-to-face nowadays. __Conclusion __ Social Media has heavily impacted on our everyday lives, to the point that do you remember the longest time you didn't use Facebook? It has shaped our everyday lives, in fact becoming a part of it. Now, instead of reading the newspapers, we learn our news from Twitter or Facebook on the go. Instead of looking through dictionaries or encyclopaedias, we use Dictionary.com, Google or Wikipedia. Instead of calling or talking face to face with a friend, we use Facebook chat or Twitter. Social Media has made communication easy but we must always remember to use it in moderation. Acknowledgements: [] [] []_ []

Google Images Group Members: Melanie, Michelle, Xin Yu, Sonia, Fatiha