Social Media - Case Study Example

Researched Argument

Introduction

Social media is one of the technologies that have revolutionized our everyday lives. It facilitates connections of users across the globe through web-based software or applications accessible on their computers and smartphones. These web applications have varying uses, including social networking such as Facebook and LinkedIn, microblogging such as Tumble, photo sharing, including Snap chat, or video sharing platforms like YouTube (Zhang & Nuan, 2016). Moreover, the users of these websites cut across all ages and professions, including companies and institutions. As such, these platforms have people from all walks of life, with differing intentions and diverse cultures making it a global village. Notably, the user's data are private and supposedly protected from access without the user's consent. In other words, users are promised protection from exploitation, cyberstalking, harassment, and other social ills related to the infringement of privacy (Xylogiannopoulos et al., 2020). Unfortunately, violation of privacy on social media platforms has become a continuous occurrence with numerous reports of incidences that have cost users their jobs, relationships, marriages, and in some rare cases, their lives. This paper is jotted down to support the notion that social media platforms deceit users by promising privacy and protection, thus abandoning their responsibility and even gaining from bleaches at their users' expense. These companies benefit by selling user's personal information to third parties without users' consent, thereby breaching their privacy agreements.

Benefits of Social Media

Social media platforms have numerous benefits that users can enjoy on their web applications. Social media platforms are prevalent in that even very young children under the age of 15 access and depend on these platforms for varying reasons. For instance, children can keep in touch with their classmates and instructors during the summer holidays (Barnes, 2019). Platforms such as Facebook and YouTube enable school-going children to supplement their studies by watching online tutorials on topics they do not quite understand. Additionally, young users can appreciate cultural diversity and differences such as race because they can make peer friends from across the globe, which grows their personality and tolerance.

Young adults are not left out as they are exposed to numerous career experts. It expands their knowledge about different professions and appreciates their unique talents and capabilities. Also, college students and entry-level professionals can jump-start their careers through networking in platforms like LinkedIn. Social media platforms allow them to showcase their talents and even virtually attend lessons or interviews, saving them both time and money. Moreover, adults benefit mainly by working online, using dating applications to find love, networking with potential employers and colleagues, and furthering their education through online courses. Suffice to say, the benefits of social media are immense across all age groups.

Communication is vital in establishing and maintain relationships among family members and society. Social media has made it possible to communicate with family and friends who are far and near, keeping these relationships flourishing (Zhang & Nuan, 2016). Advancement in transport technology has made it possible for people to work in faraway places from home, with social media they can pursue their careers across the globe and still know how their puppy back home is fairing. However, the benefit to relationships at home is a heated debate as some researchers suggest that social media achieves the opposite. The logic behind this notion is that social media has made people within proximity distant by bringing them closer to those further away. For instance, friends or family will be seated together for hours but spend minimal time having face-to-face conversations because they are all on their phones, updating their statuses, hashtag dinner with family. The idea of "alone together" is supplemented by the social ‘masks’ we wear on social media (Faber, 2017). Users aim to create an ideal, likable personality and hide their flaws by showing the best parts of who they are and what they have or have achieved in life.

Consequently, users will use numerous 'friends' online who do not have an idea of who they are. However, this does not undermine the fact that social media is a useful communication tool that has helped keep loved ones in touch. The benefits accrued depend on the user’s choice to be genuine or fake; after all, it is an input-output situation.

Password and Privacy

Social media users are hopeful that as guaranteed in the terms and conditions clause, their privacy will be protected, and none of their personal information will be shared without their consent. Social media platforms require every user to provide a password that will deter intruders from accessing the user's account. The use of passwords suggests that the user has the primary responsibility to protect their personal information by ensuring the passwords are secure, easy to remember, and not shared. Social media platforms use password creation and validation systems based on big data analytics or algorithms (Xylogiannopoulos et al., 2020). Furthermore, passwords are used in data encryption to ensure that shared data retains originality and cannot be edited.

Nevertheless, the perceived protection of privacy using passwords is only that, a perception, nothing close to reality. Social media users who are lucky not to have experienced (yet) violation of their privacy will disagree with this statement and comfortably blame their fellow users for violations. Our findings show that users use privacy settings to effectively mitigate privacy concerns and desires for creating and strengthening social connections” (Shwartz 97). However, encrypted passwords have not served their purpose due to the numerous information provided to anyone who cares to look at decryption and hacking (Xylogiannopoulos et al., 2020). Ironically, information on decrypting passwords and hacking accounts is sometimes found on the same social media platforms such as YouTube. Hackers use viruses and malware to illegally collect data from unsuspecting data only to sell it to the highest bidder or blackmail the users, especially when acquired content is private or embarrassing. Moreover, some hackers completely take over accounts, especially those belonging to influential members of society or their competitors, to tarnish their 'online reputations' or delete profitable accounts. Such actions are done frequently and with ease that it begs the questions, is it worth the users time to set up passwords only for them to be easily bypassed by pros and even quacks?

The leak of personal data

Social media platforms require users to provide personal data when opening accounts, which is used to build their profiles. Such information is used for identification and to ensure that the user is human and not a robot. Additionally, the info is referenced in case of violations of regulations by the user and includes phone number, date of birth, country of origin, emails, contact details, and more depending on the platform one intends to use. Noteworthy, some of this information is mandatory, and potential users are not allowed to proceed unless they are wholly given. The requested info is at times questionable, for instance, what does a user's date of birth have to do with watching an educational video online, or looking for friends?

Moreover, contests on locational data use are a highly debated issue with opposing sides, each giving logical reasons. For example, by asking people to put pins of their location on Facebook, the disaster preparedness departments can inform them of their vulnerability towards storms, flooding, or forest fires. “Today we are using an unprecedented wealth of social media platforms to generate and share information regarding a wide class of events, which include extreme meteorological conditions and natural hazards such as floods.”(Rossi 149) Such information is especially useful in saving lives because people vacate from dangerous areas before incoming disasters happen. However, the same information can harm the user when accessed by people with bad intentions. For instance, obsessive stalkers use such info to monitor their victims, follow them around and, at times, hurt or kill them.

Additionally, data leaks have affected the lives of many users negatively. Data leaks involve the transmission of a user's data to third parties without their consent. Personal data is often sensitive and confidential, often data provided during registration to the social media platform or messages sent to friends online. Data leaks are sometimes intentional by hackers or websites or unintentional by new users who unknowingly leave their accounts open. For example, when embarrassing photos or messages shared among people leak and go viral, the victims’ are psychologically tormented and could become depressed. Unfortunately, when such occurrences occur, victims are blamed as people argue if they did not want the world to see, they should not have shared such info at all. However, it is unfair to blame someone regardless of their role in enabling such violations because the only mistake they made was to trust the wrong people. It is important to note that if the social media platform the data leaked from had kept their promise to safeguard the user's content, such infamous cases would be uncommon. Also, confidential data about companies shared among colleagues could fall into the wrong hands and get the innocent employees fired. Social media platforms also use information.

Moreover, social media users can be harmed through harassment, identity theft, and conning. Harassment can be directly through comments and tweets on social media where one user is uncouth, or indirectly whereby perpetrators send threats or blackmail. Identity theft is made possible by the data provided by users during registration (Irshad, 2018). Perpetrators use this info to make fake identities and commit crimes or drain funds from their accounts. Moreover, other offenders fake documents or certificates which they use to con people or get undeserving contracts. Unfortunately, social media platforms lack systems that can detect whenever data leaks or is accessed by unauthorized personnel. In sum, information is power and can be easily abused under 'conducive' environments.

Social media addiction

How many times in the recent hour has a user checked their status, updated their friends, uploaded a photo, or retweeted their governor? Answering the question would enable one to determine the level of dependency they have on social media, or perhaps indicate addiction. Most persons are often in denial that social media addiction is real, choosing to perceive it as a myth. However, addiction is a psychological or physical incapability to control one's urge or compulsion for consuming a drug, chemical, substance, or activity even though it is causing detriment (Savca & Ferda, 2017). Unknown to many people, addiction includes a dependency on anything that causes harm, not just drugs like cocaine. Noteworthy, addiction is categorized as a chronic disease out of the patient's control. Consequently, this addiction affects social connectedness as proven in a study “The analysis showed that Internet addiction, social media addiction, digital game addiction and smartphone addiction significantly predicted 25% of social connectedness.”(Savci & Ferda 33).

A functional society is heavily reliant on the connectedness of its members. Such relationships are enabled by constant face-to-face communication in contexts that illustrate love and concern. Communication enables members of society to express their grievances during meetings. When such problems are addressed, members gain a sense of belonging, acceptance, and possibly kinship. However, social media does not encourage interpersonal interaction and instead discourages people from sharing their problems. People are so busy on their phones and gadgets following world affairs, sports, fashion, and viral videos they no longer have time for the person next door.

Similarly, addiction to social media causes employees to lose focus at work, consequently reducing their productivity (Savca & Ferda, 2017). Low productivity might lead to suspensions or firing by the management. Moreover, students no longer concentrate on their studies as they are too busy keeping up with the latest news. Some students will even be active during ongoing lectures or exams. Consequently, addicted students will most likely fail in their assessments or eventually lose interest in education. It will affect society because such a trend will cause shortages of much-needed professionals from different fields.

The spread of unreliable and false information

Social media platforms are open to people from all walks of life. Content is developed for various reasons, some for scholarly purposes, while others are meant to attract or mislead the reader. It has been used as a tool to spread propaganda and false information (Wooley et al., 2017). Such behavior is incited by the desire to attract traffic to one's website, usually at the user's expense. Currently, social media has been used to rally millions to demonstrations whereby few people create and spread the information in minutes. “Unfortunately, there is a lack of investigating on effective and efficient evaluations and measurements for security and trustworthiness of various social media tools, platforms and applications, thus has effect on their further improvement and evolution.”(Zhang 924). The credibility of sources is left to the user to decide which is unfortunate because they rarely have the knowhow to distinguish between honest info and unreliable or false info. Spreading such information is dangerous to the security of the people as baseless info can incite riots among the people. Users are requested continuously to be selective of the information they create and post or forward without knowing the origin and its credibility to give such news. For instance, several famous people have been 'killed' in social media posts, causing unnecessary panic among relatives and friends.

Conclusively, we must recognize that social media is an integral part of our everyday lives as individuals and as a society. It is because it influences almost all aspects of our lives and enables us to communicate with loved ones, earn a living, network, study, and make friends from around the globe. On this note, social media websites should use innovative methods to protect the user's private data. Additionally, users should practice and advocate for integrity while posting content on these platforms. Vigilance by both the users and social media companies will ensure no data leaks, and in the rare event that it happens, it is controlled before any significant damage. In sum, both the users and social media companies should work responsibly to secure the platforms and fish out offenders.