The Daily Social Media Usage of Global Internet Users Amounted to 135 Minutes in 2017.

Social Media

Ahmad Al-Radhi

Methodist University

Social Media

The daily social media usage of global Internet users amounted to 135 minutes in 2017, and it is increasing every year it is hard to imagine a life of an average person without social media. The usage of various mobile devices is increasing, and there are certain challenges that occur in the connection with the extensive use of social media. One even might say that social media is a Pandora’s Box of a sort. Even though, from the first glimpse it might seem that there are numerous positive and wondrous things hidden in, it has all the chances of unleashing troubles that might have rather unpleasant consequences.

 Undoubtedly, one of the aspects of the individual's life that suffers most from extensive media usage is communication. It is hard to disagree that one of the mightiest influences that social media has is the one on the way of individuals' communication. Remember the times, when communication was carried mainly through the mail, via the telephone and, most frequently, in person? Nowadays, people are accustomed to sending text messages with the help of various social media platforms (Jennings, Evans, Blount, and Weatherly, 2014). Obviously, the very rules of communication were redefined. The contemporary paradigm of the social media usage in a society has been altering the very understanding of what communication is.

As a rule, there are several aspects that define a good communication. The meaningful dialogue is probably a key element of any successful communication. However, with a usage of social media both interlocutors are involved in the conversation differently. There is so much more to a conversation than just a simple exchange of information. Usually, the facial expression, body language and even the voice tone of the interlocutors pay an important part. Social media excludes these aspects as well as many others depriving the process of communication from its relevance and genuineness to some extent. Therefore, there is a need to determine some solutions to the existing problem of communicating via the social media. First of all, it is necessary to understand the notion of social media as well as its importance in the contemporary world. There are many tools that social media platforms use and it is necessary to understand them in order to employ them in the future. The rules of contemporary social media usage redefine the rules of communication itself.

It is not possible to exclude social media from the contemporary life, as they provide a lot of positive features, but it is also necessary to resolve the issue with communication. One of the ways is to redefine the renowned notion of conversation. This is because the times are changing and some of the oldest concepts need to be in a way adjusted to the contemporary life. On the hand, “A 2012 study from the University of Singapore found that the transition from normal to problematic social media usage occurs when it’s used to relieve stress, loneliness and depression. For those users, social media provides continuous rewards (likes, shares, retweets, comments, etc.) that cause the user to engage more and more, eventually leading to many problems, including: depression, work issues, and personal conflicts”.