Social Media

According to the website Search Engine Watch, 65% of the people in the US that use the internet uses a social media site, which is an amazing number because that would mean that nearly 195 million people use social media networks in the US alone. The trend of these social media users suggests that as time passes, more people will use social media. My question is “Is social media networks really a positive influence on our lives? Or is it turning into a major substance to abuse?” There’s really no set way that I could go about researching this question because it’s really a question based on opinion because some would feel that social media is great, whereas others would feel that it’s not a necessity. The only way that I could research this is to survey people that use social media and people that don’t and see how they feel about social media. I could also have personal interviews with some people and ask them why or why not social media is positive for their lives. The reason why I am posing this question is because I would like to know why people spend so much time on social media sites. The main questions that I will be asking during my research are, obviously, “Do you feel that you need social media in your life?” and “How much time do you spend on social media sites?” The reason why I’d ask those questions is to see if they’d even be able to answer my following questions. My following questions would support me with the information that I really want to know. Some of the questions will be “What do you do on these social media sites?” and “Have you ever noticed someone that you know in real life acting differently online?” This will help my research in knowing why so many people spend so much time on social media sites because it will let me know the behavior of people online. I already assume that people use the social media networks in order to portray a life that they want to lead to impress other people, but with the feedback from other people that either portray these lives or have witnessed people portraying different lifestyles online I will know for sure one of the many motives of people spending so much time online. Along with surveying people, another way that I will research will be by using my own personal experiences with social media. I myself am I big social media user, especially the social network twitter, and I tend to over exaggerate online too but the purpose of me doing so is to be comical. I can use my personal experience using twitter to observe people that basically commit identity fraud by lying about their lives, or I could even observe people that steal other people’s identities. I understand that some people make fake accounts to help promote various things or even try to sell stuff, so I may have to exclude those accounts from my research. All of this research will help me find out why people feel the need abuse the Internet and behave differently than they do in real in real life. This would help me and other people in the world, if I publish what I find, better understand the generation of people today and possibly lead to ideas or programs that will lead the people to be more original or more confident in their self.