Exploring the Role of Social Media in Improving Lives Globally

This essay examines the multifaceted role of social media in contemporary society. It begins by defining social media as online platforms facilitating communication, content sharing, and collaboration, emphasizing their ability to overcome geographical barriers and provide immediate access to information. The essay highlights the advantages of social media, including enhanced connectivity, educational opportunities for students and teachers, promotion of religious and community participation, and access to current affairs. It also discusses the benefits for businesses, NGOs, and government agencies, such as improved marketing, fundraising, and security. However, the essay also acknowledges the disadvantages, including cyberbullying, fake accounts, the spread of misinformation, hacking, identity theft, and addiction. The conclusion emphasizes that the positive or negative impact of social media depends on the user's approach, urging caution and responsible sharing. The essay references several academic sources to support its arguments, providing a comprehensive overview of the topic.

Running head: ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN IMPROVING LIVES
Role of Social Media in Improving Lives
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN IMPROVING LIVES
According to Zeng and Gerritsen (2014), social media are collections of online channels
of communication that are dedicated to community-based interactions, sharing of content and
collaborations. These involve technologies that are mediated or controlled by means of computer
that is designed in order to facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, career
interests and the like. These take place through the means of virtual communities and networks.
They have been capable to remove all types of obstacles while providing any kind of information
or advices to people. People can have access to any information within a very short span of time.
They have made lives of the people easier as they are able to connect with each other even with
people in the far away countries and have the business easier (Duggan and Brenner 2013).
The major advantage of the social media is the easier way of connectivity. People from
any part of the world can connect with each other much easily. Social media has brought the
whole world close to each other as result people are free to share their ideas and thoughts with
the others irrespective of the religion (Gikas and Grant 2013). The students as well as the
teachers are the most benefitted with the introduction of the social media. The experts and the
professionals can teach others quite easily with the help of social media. One can learn the
subject of choice from the social media irrespective of the location and educational backgrounds
of the person and even without paying any kind of course fees. Since the world is consisted of
people belonging from different religions and beliefs, social media has helped in the building and
participation of the people in their own community and religion. The people can also interact
with the people of different religions and communities, so that they can learn and collect certain
information about them (Tess 2013).

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ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN IMPROVING LIVES
With the help of social media, one can keep themselves updated about the current affairs
that are occurring in the world. Most of the time, it has been seen that the television and the print
media are biased and are not able to convey the true message, but this is not so with the social
media. The facts and other information are readily available just by doing some simple research.
Every people who are associated with the business whether online or offline are able to convey
their message to the audiences and to their valuable customers through the different types of
social media (Laroche, Habibi and Richard 2013). The business can be promoted not only to the
local communities but to the world at large. This process of promotion is more effective and
pocket friendly as most of the expenses in any business is incurred on the promotion of the
business by means of advertising. The businessmen can improve their sales and the reputation of
the business. Positive comments shared on the social media by the customers, can help the
business with the sales and goodwill.
The social media is the most effective in the promotion of the works of any Non
Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and such social welfare agencies. The welfare activities
and the donations required for the needy people can also be promoted by means of the social
media. People can also help these needy people in receiving the donations by the help of the
social media (Van Dijck 2013). These Medias also help to create a sense of awareness among the
people and innovate and improve the lifestyle of the people. People have discovered many new
and inventive goods that are capable of improving the personal lives of the people. The social
media has helped the governments a lot in improving the conditions of the country. The security
agencies are also benefited with the use of social media as they can spy on the criminals and
seize them (Fuchs 2017).

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ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN IMPROVING LIVES
Some critics are of the view that the social media are more disadvantageous. They argue
that the social media lead to more crimes around the world. Cyber bullying is one of the major
crimes that are caused by social media. A report has published that more and more children are
becoming the victims of cyber bulling. Since the social media do not restrict anyone from
creating the account, more and more people are creating fake accounts. These people can do any
kind of work as they are not being traced by anyone; it becomes quite easy to bully a person on
the internet (Zafarani, Abbasi and Liu 2014). Threats, rumours and other such messages are
created and sent to the people at large in order to create a sense of unrest and chaos in the
society. Hacking is another type of crime that has increased in the present society. More often the
personal and private data are hacked and are shared on the internet. This is mostly the case with
the organizations and the organizations or the company that has been hacked have to face
financial and personal loses. In the similar way, the theft of the identity another issue that causes
financial losses as the personal accounts are hacked (Mao 2014).
The teenagers of the society are mostly addicted by the social media which hampers their
personal lives. They are involved more with the social media and cut themselves away from the
society, wasting most of their times that could have been utilized by doing some productive tasks
as well. The critics are of the view that social media is capable enough to ruin someone’s
reputation. This is done by the creation of a false story and rumours and sharing and spreading
them across the social media. In the similar way, business can also incur losses as people convey
bad reputations over the social media (Alexander 2014).
To conclude, though there are many disadvantages of using the social media, there are
equally many advantages also. The advantages and the disadvantages of the social media,
depends on the fact that how the person or the individual take the use of the social media. The

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ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN IMPROVING LIVES
people who are using the media a bit mote carefully and not sharing the unnecessary stuffs are
less likely to be tortured or bullied through the use of social media. Social Medias always take
the permission of the users prior to the sharing of the stuffs that most of the people overlook and
share their stuffs, creating serious problems for themselves.

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ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN IMPROVING LIVES
References
Alexander, D.E., 2014. Social media in disaster risk reduction and crisis management. Science
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Duggan, M. and Brenner, J., 2013. The demographics of social media users, 2012 (Vol. 14).
Washington, DC: Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project.
Fuchs, C., 2017. Social media: A critical introduction. Sage.
Gikas, J. and Grant, M.M., 2013. Mobile computing devices in higher education: Student
perspectives on learning with cellphones, smartphones & social media. The Internet and Higher
Education, 19, pp.18-26.
Laroche, M., Habibi, M.R. and Richard, M.O., 2013. To be or not to be in social media: How
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Mao, J., 2014. Social media for learning: A mixed methods study on high school students’
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Tess, P.A., 2013. The role of social media in higher education classes (real and virtual)–A
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Van Dijck, J., 2013. The culture of connectivity: A critical history of social media. Oxford
University Press.
Zafarani, R., Abbasi, M.A. and Liu, H., 2014. Social media mining: an introduction. Cambridge
University Press.
Zeng, B. and Gerritsen, R., 2014. What do we know about social media in tourism? A
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