Literature Review: Exploring Social Media Theories and Applications

This literature review examines the theoretical concept of social media and its real-world management implications. It analyzes four academic articles, including a foundational paper and three recent studies employing quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research designs. The review summarizes the theory's progression, common and differing themes across the articles, study limitations, and proposed future research directions. Key findings highlight social media's role in connecting people, its impact on learning and workplace effectiveness, and its potential negative effects such as addiction. The review also notes variations in data collection methods and research focus across the selected studies. Access more study resources like this on Desklib, your go-to platform for academic success.

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List of articles
1. Conceptual article
https://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/courses/compsci705s2c/assignments/reports/2014/Social
%20Media%20tyou044.pdf
Literature Review final report of social media
2. Quantitative article
http://iscsjournal.com/Makaleler/671028450_3c3s_11.pdf
A Quantitative research of on the level of social media addiction by young people in turkey
3. Qualitative article
http://www.thepractitionerscholar.com/article/download/11637/7985.
A qualitative study of online social networking site usage
4. Mixed method article
https://www.uttyler.edu/cbt/files/camp_regents/Using-Social-Media-as-a-Tool-for-Learning.pdf.
Research on use of social media as a tool for learning

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Abstract
Summary of the theory of social media
https://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/courses/compsci705s2c/assignments/reports/2014/Social%20Media
%20tyou044.pdf
A literature review on social media final report
Abstract
Social media has become vital in so many ways according to (Perrin, 2015). Over the years,
social media has developed and people are able to connect all over the world as it is said it has
made the world a small village. Some of the tools that are involved in social media are twitter,
instagram and Facebook which help people be on the lookout of new trends. The research
focuses on how social media has changed the business organizations in the world today. People
are using more of social media at their work places to link up with customers and gaining their
loyalty. Social media is of great importance to people working and it may affect them either
negatively or positively as mentioned by (Leftheriotis and Giannakos, 2014). It focuses on the
advantages of using social media at the workplace such as motivation to workers; information
sharing is made effective and providing people with a way of balancing their social and work
life. This study proves that social media is of great impact and influence to people in different
places.
http://iscsjournal.com/Makaleler/671028450_3c3s_11.pdf
A quantitative research on the level of addiction of social media among in turkey
The more people use social media by visiting websites, the more they get addicted to it. The
youth as compared to the rest have shown a high level of addiction as compared to people of the
other ages which has also helped expand social media. A research was conducted to investigate
the level of addiction of the youth to social media in turkey by using a social networking scale.
The scale is very effective and consists of ethics, convergence and addiction factors that will help
analyze data. They used variants such as gender, age, time spent on the internet every day and
the number of times they visit social media sites. It was found out that the youth are more
addicted to the social media than the rest. On the other side, social media has become of
importance in connecting people and also providing awareness to the public. People can also
send voice notes, emails, photos and even important data using social media. Social media is of
great impact to every individual and organizations in the world.

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http://www.thepractitionerscholar.com/article/download/11637/7985.
A qualitative study of online social networking site usage
The research mainly focuses on the main reason why people use and visit social networking
sites. It focuses on Facebook which is used to connect people around the world, dating purposes,
seeing of photos and also posting them. As much as this has been made fun, it was discovered
that social networking sites can affect people negatively psychologically. Some of the effects
include; people can get disconnected from friends socially, anger and depression too. At the
same time some of the people showed satisfaction of the social networking sites and after 48
hours, it was noted that most of them became Facebook addicts. Social media can be good at the
same time affect people negatively.
https://www.uttyler.edu/cbt/files/camp_regents/Using-Social-Media-as-a-Tool-for-Learning.pdf.
Research on use of social media as a tool for learning
Social media can be of great help to higher learning. The human resource, marketing and
education departments came together to understand the impact of social media to learning. They
investigated; the meaning of social media to individuals, the level of which people engage
themselves with social media and how it has helped build the community. The different sites of
social media were looked into and how they help in learning. Social media has helped promote
cognitive learning, collaboration and connecting of students all over the world. The method of
collecting data was both quantitative and qualitative where surveys were done and people’s
opinions and comments on the impact of social media on education were collected. It was found
out that social media is of great importance in assisting students not only to collaborate bu to also
get more information on things that are not learnt in class.

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Common themes/ findings across the articles
Social media plays an important role in the world today in different places such as schools, work
places and even at home. The main role of social media is connecting people all over the world;
people are able to send pictures, text messages, voice notes and important information at ease
using social media. There are different social media platforms such as face book, twitter,
instagram and Skype which a lot of people of all ages and classes use to communicate. Social
media also has a good impact on people such as increasing learning activities, making work
places effective and interacting with people from all over as well as a negative impact such as
addiction across all the articles.
Different themes/findings across the articles
The methods of collecting data were different in the articles in that the group being targeted were
different as well as the methods were different such as quantitative, qualitative and mixed
method of research There was a study conducted on the effect of social media to employees at a
work place, the other one on youths and the addiction to social media and on students so as to
know the impact of social media on learning. Some of the articles mainly revealed that social
media has greatly influenced people negatively such as bringing mental illness, depression and
anger while another article reveals that social media positively impacts to the society such as
motivation of workers.
Study limitations
As much as social media is of great influence at work and in organizations for employees and
employers, not everyone uses it to benefit their business rather for their own benefit and it is hard

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to determine them. The research also conducted in one company and it is not right to conclude on
the effects of social media at work without researching into other companies.
Different people have different opinions about social networking sites and also not everyone is
using all social media platforms so it is hard to come up with data on the different social media
platforms impact.
It is hard to be able to measure the level of social media addiction in people since how it has
affected people can cause them not to have a difference between their virtual and real lives.
Not all data was represented in the findings
Future research directions
More research should be done on a larger number of groups since they were targeting specific
groups, the data cannot be used to represent the whole world. There should be a more detailed
research on the impact of social media technologies on students and how they can help learning
objectives be achieved. Different academic disciplines and their specific social media platforms
can be looked into. Researchers can also use a bigger number of people to investigate the effect
of social network sites to prove the results as well as come up with a theory that explains social
networking sites effects on individuals

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References
Leftheriotis, I. and Giannakos, M.N., 2014. Using social media for work: Losing your time or
improving your work?. Computers in Human Behavior, 31, pp.134-142.
Perrin, A., 2015. Social media usage: 2005-2015.