The Impacts of Social Media

 written by 20416 Lee Min Jeong

Now, more than ever, all companies and industries are turning their attention to social media. As a result, social media is now an essential part of our lives.

In the movie Search, released in 2018, a father finds a decisive clue in his daughter’s social media platforms such as Google, YouTube and Facebook to find his missing daughter. Like this, social media also provides clues to criminal cases that cannot be found in real life.

It is a double-edged sword that someone can track their information through social media like the movie Search. We can find information about the missing person on social media platforms. It is easy to collect information, which means that your data can be easily exposed. In this point, social media may be considered harmful in that information is unintentionally exposed, and others can easily steal it. It is essential to focus on these aspects, but we should not forget the advantages of social media.

Social media has changed not only people’s daily lives but also the Internet culture worldwide. It is a phenomenon that would not have existed without the influence of social media, from uploading pictures of food and places to the craze of Korean culture. 

What will social media look like in our lives in a rapidly changing era?

Social media is an online tool or platform used to share people’s opinions, thoughts and experiences with each other. It is a service that builds a network of relationships between people who share specific interests or activities. 

Social media has various forms, such as text, image, audio and video on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok.

What Role Does Social Media Play in Society?

Social media platforms are used in the field of marketing. It can imprint the identity of channels, brands or services by stimulating individual emotions or experiences to consumers.

Social media has the characteristics of active interaction and open communication media, so visual brand promotion is possible using this. This is because viewers are directly exposed to channels, brands and services through the screen from the moment they encounter social media and select a marketing screen.

For example, when you look at Instagram, YouTube or Facebook, you can see commercial advertisements on your screen. Furthermore, you could be attracted to advertising on celebrities’ Instagram and YouTube.

People not only know about political and social issues and views through social media but also promote their views. For example, online activism is making people actively respond to international and domestic issues such as politics, climate change, guns and immigration. 

This is becoming a new trend. This phenomenon has shown the world how to efficiently use social media and strengthen messages online.

What Will Social Media Look Like?

VR (Virtual Reality) and AR (Augmented Reality) cannot be left out as technologies that will have the greatest impact on social media in the future.

Metaverse platforms can become new social media. 

Facebook, a leading company in the VR device field, is also preparing for this field in advance. 

The specificity of the metaverse platform is that real-life interactions take place in the media. Social media in which relationships are formed and exchanges take place will also be affected.

Social Media in the Future, Virtual World Just like Reality

Future social media creates social media avatars using holograms, begins social media VR friends, talks with social media VR friends, and reproduces human relationships and social touch in the virtual world. 

For example, people can share a hug with the other person who actually appeared in front of them while wearing VR glasses or share a tea cup or a drink. 

As a result, social relations and companionship in the virtual space, which are different from just written conversation windows, may be formed. In the process, new and evolving sites will emerge, and countless social relations sites will be created and disappear every moment in proportion to numerous human relationships.

Many experts are paying attention to whether there will be perceptual changes in the social media community. This is because changes in social media can become a trend and fundamentally change people’s networks and how they operate their businesses. Of course, we can’t help but think of the disadvantages of social media. Our task in the future is to improve our shortcomings and develop social media.

As we can already see on various social media platforms, more and more sites are formed around people who share interests, values and lifestyles. It is not far away from the world where social media becomes human life and society itself will come.