Integrated Professional Skills: Social Media Report Analysis, LSC

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of social media's impact, challenges, and security measures. It begins by comparing the positive and negative effects of social media on the internet, addressing issues like knowledge sharing versus privacy concerns. The main body then delves into specific challenges such as data privacy, cyberattacks, spam, and cyber-spying, outlining potential security measures to mitigate these risks. Furthermore, the report includes a comparison of popular social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, highlighting their key features, applications, and suitability for business purposes. The report concludes by summarizing the main points and provides a list of references.

INTEGRATED
PROFESSIONAL SKILLS
IN THE DIGITAL AGE

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Comparison between positive as well as negative impact of social media on internet...............3
Challenge and security measures in using social media.............................................................4
Comparison of social media sites................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Social media is basically the wide platform in order to connect with the wider audience
for building brand, increasing sales as well as to drive profit. The main of this report is to study
the various challenges which users face due to the prevalence of social media and use as well as
importance of social sites in organizations.
This report gives a brief about comparison between positive as well as negative impact of
social media on internet, challenge and security measures in using social media and comparison
of social media sites.
MAIN BODY
Comparison between positive as well as negative impact of social media on internet
Social media is basically the interactive mediated technologies which facilitate creation
as well as sharing of data and information and interest through virtual communities together with
networks. The various social media have become one the determining factor across the world
which has transformed the lives of large number of people and have affected the internet to a
great extent.
Positive impact Negative impact
Knowledge base
The various social media websites like
Facebook, Instagram, twitter and many more
helps are a great source of knowledge and
information which helps the internet to a great
extent. The social media generally have wide
base of knowledge and information which
helps large number of people to enhance their
knowledge along with the skills ans
capabilities. For example- the widely known
social website which is Facebook where each
and every day people look for new people and
explore new relation helps internet to increase
Privacy and security
While using social media, people generally
compromises with their security and privacy
and this forms the most important negative
impact of social media on internet. Many
social media websites like Facebook,
Instagram are a house of hackers and thus are
not much reliable source. When an individual
search for something on for instance Facebook
then the hackers can easily install malware into
their system and steal their personal
information. This also had a negative impact
on internet as for running these social media,

its usage (Huda and et.al.,2017). For these
social media, people generally uses internet as
without internet they do not have access to any
of the aspect thus wide usage of social media
websites also increases the use of internet
everyday.
some or the other source of internet is required
(Siddiqui and Singh, 2016). The less use of
social media by people in fear of lack of
security also reduces the usage of internet and
eventually their expose to people also reduces.
This has a great negative impact on internet as
their cost which sometimes they change from
premium users also declines.
Communication speed
This is one of the most important role of social
media which it plays for internet and thus helps
the usage of internet to a high level. Since the
introduction of social media across world,
people now do not have to travel to distances
for meeting their friends or loved ones instead
the social media have made it easier for them
(Huda and et.al.,2017). Within a single click,
individuals are able to send message or get in
touch with other individual through social
media. This has eventually increased the
exposure of internet. Like for instance in order
to arrange meeting at different locations,
organizations generally Skype for video calling
and or this, it is essential to have the access of
internet. Thus, this have eventually not only
increased its usage but have also raised the cost
of using internet.
Effect on health
The social media not only affects the personal
life of people but also poses a great impact on
their physical as well as mental health. It has
been reported that the usage of social media
increases the risk of heart problem to more that
65.7%. Besides this, as per the report of
National health center, the depression rate
among children due to the increased use of
children has increased from 45% to more than
89.5% (Anderson and Jiang, 2018). Thus, this
negative impact on the health of people due to
social media have also become a challenge for
internet. Due to the release of various
campaigns and initiatives on reducing the use
of social media, there has been a decline in rate
of surfing and thus the use of internet. Because
of these various campaigns, people including
youth has reduced using social media and this
has decreased the use of internet.

Challenge and security measures in using social media
While using social media, people generally comes across the wide range of challenges
that somewhat hinder their personal life. These challenges not only impact the wider community
but also affects large number of organizations and disrupt their operations.
Data privacy
This is the most important and widely known challenge which the users while using
social media encounters and thus affects their life to a great extent. It is generally seen that the
social media are not highly reliable source of gathering information as there always remain the
risk of hacking. While using the social media websites, the hackers generally install virus in their
computer system and gather all their personal information. This is highly seen in organizations
where the data security is not much stringent. While surfing, criminals generally install malware
in their computer system and steal the confidential information of company like customers
detains, financial information etc (Wamba and Carter, 2016). Thus, the lack of privacy ad
security is regarded as the biggest challenge which users face. In order to overcome this, the
most efficient security measure which the user can take the highest advantage of privacy-
protection techniques and should revise their privacy setting periodically. The organizations
should weekly change the password of their confidential files so that their information is not
leaked.
Cyber-attack
This is the another most important challenge which the users faces while using social
media and thus impact them to a great extent. Cyber-attack is basically the malicious attempt by
the hackers to data and information system of the other individual or organizations. The cyber
attack enables hackers and criminals to steal personal information of the another party by
installing virus in their computer system. Through the Cyber-attack, hackers breaches the
network via vulnerability and thus blocks the access to any key constituent of this network.
Besides this, it also renders system inseparable and thus steals all the confidential information. In
order to overcome this, there are wide range of security measures which the users can take to
protect themselves from Cyber-attack (Ahmad, Musa and Harun, 2016). The users should
continuously update their antivirus system being installed in their system and with this, should

change it on periodic basis because hackers even sometimes have access to antivirus. Besides
this, users should install the powerful antivirus which ave a great success rate.
Spam attacks
This is the another challenge which users generally faces while using the social media on
large platform. Spam messages are generally the unwanted messages which are being sent to
users from unauthorized entity. Spam is considered as the most dangerous in comparison to the
tradition email and it is reported that on an average, people generally spend more time on spam
messages. These usually comes from the fake profiles as well as spam applications and when
users open these spam, an unknown virus is being installed in their system which has the power
to target information of users. In order to protect themselves, users need to consider various
security measures which will save them from hacking and will help them to secure their personal
information (Kizgin and et.al.,2018). The users should not reply to these spam messages as upon
opening them can sometimes install virus. Besides this, users like organizations should avoid
sharing the unnecessary private information on email with the third party. Along with this, users
should have the spam filter like Office 365 ATP that will identify the spam emails and will
detect various unknown threats.
Cyber-spying
Cyber-spying is basically the form of Cyber crime in which hackers keeps a close watch
on the activities of users for the purpose of stealing confidential information by taking the
advantage of malware. This is the ongoing challenge which users generally faces while surfing
through the social media. This Cyber-spying is generally seen in organizations where the hackers
keeps a close watch on the daily activities of employees by installing virus in their computer
system and thus steal their confidential information. Besides this, through Cyber-spying
criminals are able to gain the intellectual property rights of organizations and attacks their
confidential information like stakeholder information. For addressing this, the users should take
the various security measure and the most important one is installing the anti-spying software in
computer system (Tajudeen, Jaafar and Ainin, 2018). This software will protect the network
through which employees communicate with each other as well as wit customers. Besides this,
the employees in organizations should be thoroughly advised to frequently change the password
of their portal and should set a strong password which will be difficult to hack.

Comparison of social media sites
Facebook Instagram
Features
The most important feature of Facebook it
allows the users to regularly go through
various news. The news feed forms the basic
and primary system of Facebook through
which users are able to see the various content
which is being posted on Facebook. Another
feature of Facebook is the ability to form
groups. On this social media website, users can
easily form various groups of their employees,
relatives, colleagues, friends etc and thus helps
them to communicate with each other within
that group (Liu and Lopez, 2016). This
basically ensures their security and simplicity
to interact with only those individuals which
they want.
Features
The most exciting feature of Instagram is the
image editing where the users are able to edit
their picture as they want and thus helps to
mold it as they want. The photo filters in
Instagram enables the users to create a
different look and provides a well-through
opportunity to grow the business. Another
most used feature of Instagram is the Instagram
stories. This mainly enables the users to put
their activities in a little circle which the
disappears after the 24 hours. By putting the
stories, users are able to highlight their life
events and thus helps them to see the life
events of other people (Saboo, Kumar and
Ramani, 2016).
Applications
The most widely used and renowned
application on Facebook is the gifts
application wherein the users can easily send
virtual gift to the other individual in form of
small icon. Facebook provides tons of gifts
from which users can choose and can gift to
their loved ones on any occasion. Another
most mesmerizing feature of Facebook is their
marketplace. This market place enables the
users to connect with large numbers of people
who are looking for different products and
Applications
The most captivate application of Instagram is
Pixlr which enables the users to create their
own filters along with effects as well as
textures. With this application, people can
easily adjust the brightness as well as
sharpness of wide array of images. This also
comes with special feature of red-eye fixer.
Another highly known application of
Instagram is Crowdfire. This application
mainly recognizes the inactive followers and
allows the users to delete them from their

services. This communication between the
suppliers and customer occurs online and all
their transactions takes place between them
(Alalwan, 2018).
follower list when they become inactive. This
basically is designed to give a fresh look to the
followers pool and to increase bug fixes
(Pulido and et.al.,2018).
Suitability for business
The various features and applications of
Facebook are highly helpful for the
organizations and assist them to take their
branding messages to the wider audience. For
example- the application of Facebook which is
marketplace provides a momentum to wide
range of people to start their own business and
provide wings to their dreams of becoming
entrepreneur. Besides this, the news fed
feature of Facebook allows wide range of
organizations to know what their competitors
are posting, what are the current consumer
trends etc. This helps them to effectively
design their products and services an gin
competitive advantage (Huda and et.al.,2017).
Suitability for business
Instagram is well known for its existing
features and applications but this not only
attracts the people of society but also helps
numerous organizations to gain a great market
share. For example- the widely used Pixlr
application of Instagram helps the
organizations to build their unique brand by
incorporating a range of filters and make it
attractive. Along with this, the another feature
of Instagram which is photo filters which
allows the organizations to remain consistent in
their image as well as style. This features helps
them to give a signature look to their brand and
take the message to wider audience and gain a
large market share (Huda and et.al.,2017).
Social media goes beyond the constraints of marketing as well as branding and thus is
one of the mot important part of the customers outreach to brands. Social media websites are
usually transforming the manner in which organizations communicate with each other. Today, a
wide range of tools are being available at affordable cost in comparison to traditional systems
like emails which helps the organizations to communicate on wider platform. Blogs posts as well
as tweets allows even the small organizations to solicit immediate feedback from customers,
create communities, promote their services as well as products and thus provides an immense
platform to communicate with wider audience (Anderson and Jiang, 2018). Therefore, these
websites can be used as the communication tool by organizations.

CONCLUSION
It has been summarized that social media has become an inseparable part of the entire
community that is continuously leaving its great impact. Social media where on one hand
increases usage of internet, on the other hand it also reduces its usage and impacts it negatively.
There are wide range of challenges which the users faces while using social media websites like
limited privacy, Cyber-crime etc. Thus, to protect themselves users can take variety of security
measures like continuously updating passwords etc. Besides this, social media websites provides
a wide range of application which even help organization to take their branding message to
customers and advertise their products.

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
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Anderson, M. and Jiang, J., 2018. Teens, social media & technology 2018. Pew Research
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