Social media has grown rapidly in these recent years. People like to capture every particular moment of their lives and display it on social media. Parents, who live far away from their children, stay connected to them with the help of social media. Many people also showcase their talent or conduct business over social media. If something is bothering you or you want to express yourself, and can only send your message to be spread amongst a large number of people, social media like facebook or Twitter is a useful platform. It is also helpful for students. If you are a student and have missed your classes, you can exchange your classwork with your friends with the help of social media. Here, you can find what are the advantages and disadvantages of social media.
Social media also keep you updated about the happenings all around the world. There are many useful ways social media can help you. Well, it is proved that social media is a great method to stay connected with people around the world. Social media is also beneficial for business which provides advantages like communicating with your audiences and converting them into possible leads thus increasing your website’s traffic.
Table of Contents
Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Media
What is Social Networking?
Social networking is growing day by day with new social applications. It has grown to become one of the largest and most influential components of the web. Social networking has a structure that lets people express themselves and meet people with the same interests. In recent years social networking is a direct result of advancement in information technology and the internet. Today it is commonplace but very popular among many. You might have heard of social platforms that help with this such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. These types of platforms have become popular mostly for family reunions, event planning when there has not been a reunion in two decades.
Creating a reunion event section on a social platform gets information out to those known relatives yet reaches the unknown as well. Event sections and groups are useful for stimulating enthusiasm about an event, which promotes a positive outcome in event attendance.
Be that as it may, then again, social media has negatively influenced the general public. Much the same as everything has both good and bad impacts, social media additionally has negative and positive sides to it. Usage of anything in excess can be harmful. Like as the limited use of social media is good, but if it is used excessively, it can be disastrous. Willingly or unwillingly, social media can have a negative impact on users. Today in this article I am going to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of social media for society.
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Advantages of social media
When we talk about the advantages of social media, it is great in many ways. As I already described in short that how is social media a great tool. Let us go into detail and understand its every advantage-
Free to Start
The first and foremost advantage of social media is that it is entirely free to start. None of the largest platforms have signup fees of any sort, so the only investment you’ll need to make is to sign up yourself. Social media also offers paid advertising options. These can be a great tool for growing your following and reaching more users but are by no means mandatory for businesses. It is the main advantage of social media when we talk about the advantages and disadvantages of social media.
Best Connecting tool
Social media the best tool to keep connecting people all over the world. It helps people, living far away, to communicate with each other. If you and your family are living far away from each other, you can stay connected with the help of social media. Social media has made expressing ideas easier.
Easy to use & learn
Social media is easy to use as well. It comes with many tutorials which are easy to learn from. Anyone, who is an expert in a certain thing, can upload a tutorial video on social media so that millions of people, both known and unknown, can learn from it and he/she can earn money from that. You do not have to pay for these tutorials or go to a professional asking for help. No matter in which corner of the world you are, you have access to these tutorials.
Best opinion tool
Social media helps you to reach out to a large number of people across the world. Like if you are in need of something or you need some advice on a certain thing, you can post it on social media there will be many people who will come to their opinion. This will make your issue available to a wide range of people who can help you out.
You can merely take free advice which you like. Even social media is also helpful if you are sad or suffering from anxiety you can post your feelings on social media. There will be many people who will come to console you can you’ll feel right.
Information and Updates
Another most important advantage of social media is that it keeps you updated about the happenings all over the world. So, if you don’t have time to go through the newspaper, no problem. Just stay tuned to social media, and you will be able to keep yourself updated. Social media, unlike television and newspapers, gives you unbiased news. Nowadays people are so busy with their hectic schedule that they have no time of reading a newspaper or watching the news. Facebook recently launched its new feature of news so now through it you can keep yourself updated on what is going around the world.
Provides fame
Social media is an amazing option to help you showcase your talent to the world and earn recognition for that. People also conduct their business over social media. Hence, Social media helps you not only get prospective clients but also increase your fame among your audience. Some people become social media stars using social media effectively and live star life. It is also one of the best examples of the advantage of social media when we talk about the advantages and disadvantages of social media.
Promotion
Social media is great for increasing brand loyalty and promotion. Whether you have an offline business or online, you can promote your business to the largest audience through social media. The whole world is open to you and you can promote to them. This makes the businesses profitable and less expensive because most of the expenses made over the business are for advertising and promotion. This can be decreased by constantly and regularly involved in social media to connect with the right audience. Social content can boost traffic to your website. This can lead to increased online conversions such as sales and leads. You can get improved customer service and efficiently respond to feedback.
Positive feedback is public and can be persuasive to other potential customers. Negative feedback highlights areas where you can improve. Though you can easily find your target audience. Customers can see you through the social media platforms they use most. You can choose to maintain a presence on particular social networks that are in line with your target audience.
Awareness
Social media also helps in creating awareness about something amongst a vast mass of people; you can do this with the help of social media. You can ask for help and share your social caption with as many people as you can. It is social media that has helped people discover new and innovative stuff that can enhance personal lives. From farmers to teachers, students to lawyers every individual of the society can benefit from social media and its awareness factor.
Entertainment
Social media is an excellent source of entertainment. Within the study, it was found that consumers spend more time on social media platforms on a weekly basis than watching TV, viewing films, or finding clips on YouTube; even more than listening to music and texting. Even when people are watching TV or movies, they are also on social media. If you stress out and you need to relax then, social media is the best option. You can browse through your social media apps and enjoy talking to your friends, sharing posts, make new friends and even watch videos.
Noble Cause
You can also seek help from social media if you are doing some noble work and want to involve others in it. Like you can promote an NGO, or any social welfare activities and donations for the needy people. People are using social media to contribute to needy people, and it can be a quick way to help such people. Many social campaigns are running on social media successfully.
Helps Govt and Agencies Fight Crime
Last but not least through social media, Government can spy on antisocial activities. It helps the government to catch the accused.
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Disadvantages of Social media
No doubt Social media is a great tool, on the other hand, it can be harmful in many ways. Let us check out each disadvantage of social media in detail-
Cyberbullying
One of the most important disadvantages of social media is Cyberbullying. Yes, Cyber Bullying is increasing day by day. This is something we come across every alternate day. Many children and teenagers have been victims of cyberbullying in the past few years. These days, rivalries become so personal that children leave no stone unturned to defect each other. So fake messages, rumors, and threats are sent over social media which leads to chaos. It is very dangerous disadvantages of social media when it comes to the advantages and disadvantages of social media.
Hacking
Hacking is one of the main significant concerns these days. With the growth of technology, capture someone’s privacy has become very easy. Hacking can make one’s data available to the hacker. This can cause serious financial loss or a loss of reputation. Several such cases have been reported in the past few years. This can seriously affect the victim’s personal life. Personal data and privacy can easily be hacked and shared on the Internet. There are many Facebook and Twitter accounts that have been hacked in the past and this has affected their individual personal lives. These photos and videos after being hacked can easily be shared on the internet and become viral which in many cases causes huge losses to the victim and their loved ones.
Addiction
Nowadays Teenagers are so much addicted to social media that they don’t have any time to spend with their parents. They always stick to social media and waste their time which they could have utilized doing something productive. No doubt social media is an excellent way to educate students, but instead of getting educate children to grab the wrong things from social media. They get addicted to pornography. Learn techniques to commit a crime. Not only this, children use social networking sites to cheat and copy their assignments. So addiction is the vital disadvantage of social media when we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of social media.
Reputation
You never know the wrong brand strategy can make your brand in a tuff situation. i.e., when you make a mistake offline, a few will know, but when you make a mistake in front of hundreds or thousands of your online audience, most of them will know! As you know competitors don’t leave any chance to ruin your reputation. Social media is transparent and open. Customer feedback is often immediately public. Respond quickly and change your organization if there are structural complaints. This is usually a complicated process for traditional companies.
Cheating and Relationship Issues
There are several cases of fraud and cheats found occurring through social media. Some fraudsters trap innocent people and take money from them, and in return, they don’t provide the service they promised to. You can get many cheating and relationship issues on social media. Many people have used social media platforms to propose and marry each other. However, after some time they turn to be wrong in their decision and part ways. Similarly, with the help of social media couples used to cheat each other by showing fake feelings and incorrect information on social media.
Social Media causes death
Social media can also lead to loss of life. There are many dangerous challenges and games are going on social media which are life-threatening. According to the research, the ratio of death due to social media is high among teenagers, to be at par with their peers, give into such challenges and end up losing their lives.
Social Media causes health issues
As I have already mentioned above if you use social media excessively that will make you lazy and gives rise to several health issues. It affects your eyes and causes headaches. The rays emitted by electronic gadgets can also have a long-term effect on your health.
Glamorizes Drugs and Alcohol
Last but most important through social media many people especially youngsters get addicted to drugs and alcohol. People follow others who are wealthy or drug-addicted and share their views and videos on the web which eventually inspires others to follow the same and get addicted to drugs and alcohol.
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Final Words- advantages and disadvantages of social media
I think these advantages and disadvantages of social media are enough to decide that how much it is beneficial and harmful to your personal life. For the business owners, I have also tried to explain the advantages and disadvantages of social media very clearly. At last, I want to conclude that If social media is used wisely, it will prove to be extremely helpful to you. If not, it can hurt your life.
I hope you understand the advantages and disadvantages of social media. If you have any point related to the advantages and disadvantages of social media you can suggest us via comments.