People have different thoughts of when the real birth of social media

People have different thoughts of when the real birth of social media was. Some people think that letters can be seen as social media, because it was a way to communicate from long distances with. But the “real” birth of social media, that functions the same way as the ones we use today was in 1995-1997. In 1995 a website called theglobe.com launched a site where people could publish photos. Then in 1997 another website called Six Degrees launched. Sending friend requests and create profiles was something this website offered. Almost a hundred million of people used social media by the year 2000. Over time several similar pages were created. Today there is over a thousand of platforms and all of them are same but still different. There is something for every purpose, for everyone. There is Instagram, where you can post pictures and videos, Twitter where communication is done by publishing comments and Snapchat where you can send videos and post pictures on stories. All of this for free. Social media is also used for business today, smaller companies tries to be seen by sending their products to famous people and bigger companies pays for ads that shows up for every user. There is a lot of ways to make money through social media platforms. Nowadays almost everyone uses social media, a huge amount of the population does according to Global Web Index (www.wersm.com) . Social media is today the biggest forum for communication. It is in fact a collective term for online communication network. It has become easier to get in touch with people that even lives on the other side of the globe. The main reason to why teenagers uses social media is to stay in touch with friends and family, according to Global Web Index. It gets easier to link up with old friends but also with new people. Connecting with people with the same interests like yours is very common today. Real friendships and relationships can also be built via social platforms. The thing is that you can never know who you are actually talking with. We have the ability to see what is happening in the world with a simple social media post. It just takes a few seconds to see what people are up to. Because of the fact that social media is being mostly used through cell phones and sometimes even computers it results with less face to face interaction. According to Nick Zagorski who is a writer for Psychiatric News (www.ashford.edu) this results with that people isolates themselves even more. That results with that people lose their ability to interact with others in real life. Why this is a problem is because humans are social creatures and that makes the face to face interaction very important for human beings. Another reason to why teenagers use social media is because they want to share their life and also see what others are up to (www.wersm.com). It just takes a click to share every moment of your life with others. In that way followers gets informed of the things that are happening in someone’s life. Not only that, teenagers also use social media to try to impress on others. A special report from CNN shows that most of the 13 year old teenagers spend a lot of time trying to get the “perfect” picture (www.dagensanalys.se). Not a lot of people knows that the pictures and videos that are being posted on social medias stays there forever. If the account is public every post can be seen by everyone in the world. It can eventually cause problem if inappropriate things are being posted. A survey done by the Royal Society for Public Health (www.childmind.org) showed that teenagers felt like social platforms as Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and etc increased the depression, anxiety but also gave bad self esteem. The trending/ideal images on social platforms almost all look the same, a small and tall body, long hair, beautiful skin and so much more. That is what everyone needs to fit in to be beautiful. According to a study that was in collaboration with Projekt Flicka 68% of the 8000 participants wanted to look like models, actors and influencers that appeared on social media (www.diva-portal.org). That gives a really big effect on the mental health. Two nurses in Sweden did a survey about social media’s effect on teenager and they also came to the conclusion that there was a clear connection between low self esteem and social media (www.vardfokus.se). The survey also showed that teenagers feel bad about their bodies because they compare themselves to the ideal bodies published on social media. People easily get entertained by social media. You can watch funny videos and see what friends or celebrities are up to. Then without noticing you have been spending hours on social media. It distracts people a lot. We have the ability to browse on social media for hours without getting bored. Filling up spare time with entertaining content is also easy, but this also gives a big effect. It is very easy to become addicted to social media and spend hours every day browsing. This can create a problem for teenagers, because social media distracts them from their studies. A simple notification while you study can easily distract you. One click turns into another and before you know you have spend hours on social media, even if that was not the intention. In the worst case it turns into something that consumes daily habits. That results with no work done, therefore many needs to close their phones or leave them in another room so that they can maintain focused.In conclusion there is a lot of positive and negative things with social media. It is used by billion of people and affects everyone different. Using social media is today a matter of course for many, both companies and individuals. It makes it easier to communicate with others, to get in touch with friends and family and it also entertain you. But it can also cause stress, anxiety, depression, distract people from important work and isolate them. The list with the effects of social media platforms is endless. It is important to balance the time that is being spent on social media, otherwise it can give negative effects on your health. If everyone sets limits and tries to avoid the norms of the “perfect life”, “perfect skin”, “perfect body” etc, social media can be used as a tool for very positive things.