Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks.^[1][2] While challenges to the definition of social media arise^[3][4] due to the variety of stand-alone and built-in social media services currently available, there are some common features:^[2]

1. Social media are interactive Web 2.0 Internet-based applications.^[2][5]
2. User-generated content—such as text posts or comments, digital photos or videos, and data generated through all online interactions—is the lifeblood of social media.^[2][5]
3. Users create service-specific profiles for the website or app that are designed and maintained by the social media organization.^[2][6]
4. Social media helps the development of online social networks by connecting a user’s profile with those of other individuals or groups.^[2][6]

The term social in regard to media suggests that platforms are user-centric and enable communal activity. As such, social media can be viewed as online facilitators or enhancers of human networks—webs of individuals who enhance social connectivity.^[7]

Users usually access social media services through web-based apps on desktops or download services that offer social media functionality to their mobile devices (e.g. smartphones and tablets). As users engage with these electronic services, they create highly interactive platforms in which individuals, communities, and organizations can share, co-create, discuss, participate, and modify user-generated or self-curated content posted online.^[8][6][1] Additionally, social media are used to document memories, learn about and explore things, advertise oneself, and form friendships along with the growth of ideas from the creation of blogs, podcasts, videos, and gaming sites.^[9] This changing relationship between humans and technology is the focus of the emerging field of technological self-studies.^[10] Some of the most popular social media websites, with more than 100 million registered users, include Twitter, Facebook (and its associated Messenger), WeChat, ShareChat, Instagram, QZone, Weibo, VK, Tumblr, Baidu Tieba, and LinkedIn. Depending on interpretation, other popular platforms that are sometimes referred to as social media services include YouTube, QQ, Quora, Telegram, WhatsApp, Signal, LINE, Snapchat, Pinterest, Viber, Reddit, Discord, TikTok, Microsoft Teams, and more. Wikis are examples of collaborative content creation.

Social media outlets differ from traditional media (e.g. print magazines and newspapers, TV, and radio broadcasting) in many ways, including quality,^[11] reach, frequency, usability, relevancy, and permanence.^[12] Additionally, social media outlets operate in a dialogic transmission system (i.e., many sources to many receivers) while traditional media outlets operate under a monologic transmission model (i.e., one source to many receivers). For instance, a newspaper is delivered to many subscribers, and a radio station broadcasts the same programs to an entire city.^[13]

Since the dramatic expansion of the Internet, digital media or digital rhetoric can be used to represent or identify a culture. Studying the rhetoric that exists in the digital environment has become a crucial new process for many scholars.

Observers have noted a wide range of positive and negative impacts when it comes to the use of social media. Social media can help to improve an individual’s sense of connectedness with real or online communities and can be an effective communication (or marketing) tool for corporations, entrepreneurs, non-profit organizations, advocacy groups, political parties, and governments. Observers have also seen that there has been a rise in social movements using social media as a tool for communicating and organizing in times of political unrest.

Social media can also be used to read or share news, whether it is true or false.

History

See also: Timeline of social media

Early computing

Front panel of the 1969-era ARPANET Interface Message Processor

IMP log for the first message sent over the Internet, using ARPANET

The PLATO system was launched in 1960 after being developed at the University of Illinois and subsequently commercially marketed by Control Data Corporation. It offered early forms of social media features with 1973-era innovations such as Notes, PLATO’s message-forum application; TERM-talk, its instant-messaging feature; Talkomatic, perhaps the first online chat room; News Report, a crowdsourced online newspaper, and blog and Access Lists, enabling the owner of a note file or other application to limit access to a certain set of users, for example, only friends, classmates, or co-workers.

ARPANET, which first came online in 1967, had by the late 1970s developed a rich cultural exchange of non-government/business ideas and communication, as evidenced by the network etiquette (or “netiquette“) described in a 1982 handbook on computing at MIT‘s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.^[14] ARPANET evolved into the Internet following the publication of the first Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) specification, RFC 675 (Specification of Internet Transmission Control Program), written by Vint Cerf, Yogen Dalal, and Carl Sunshine in 1974.^[15] This became the foundation of Usenet, conceived by Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis in 1979 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University, and established in 1980.

A precursor of the electronic bulletin board system (BBS), known as Community Memory, appeared by 1973. True electronic BBSs arrived with the Computer Bulletin Board System in Chicago, which first came online on February 16, 1978. Before long, most major cities had more than one BBS running on TRS-80, Apple II, Atari, IBM PC, Commodore 64, Sinclair, and similar personal computers. The IBM PC was introduced in 1981, and subsequent models of both Mac computers and PCs were used throughout the 1980s. Multiple modems, followed by specialized telecommunication hardware, allowed many users to be online simultaneously. Compuserve, Prodigy, and AOL were three of the largest BBS companies and were the first to migrate to the Internet in the 1990s. Between the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s, BBSes numbered in the tens of thousands in North America alone.^[16] Message forums (a specific structure of social media) arose with the BBS phenomenon throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. When the World Wide Web (WWW, or “the web”) was added to the Internet in the mid-1990s, message forums migrated to the web, becoming Internet forums, primarily due to cheaper per-person access as well as the ability to handle far more people simultaneously than telco modem banks.

Digital imaging and semiconductor image sensor technology facilitated the development and rise of social media.^[17] Advances in metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) semiconductor device fabrication, reaching smaller micron and then sub-micron levels during the 1980s–1990s, led to the development of the NMOS (n-type MOS) active-pixel sensor (APS) at Olympus in 1985,^[18][19] and then the complementary MOS (CMOS) active-pixel sensor (CMOS sensor) at NASA‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in 1993.^[18][20] CMOS sensors enabled the mass proliferation of digital cameras and camera phones, which bolstered the rise of social media.^[17]

Development of social-media platforms

In 1991, when Tim Berners-Lee integrated hypertext software with the Internet, he created the World Wide Web, marking the beginning of the modern era of networked communication. This breakthrough facilitated the formation of online communities and enabled support for offline groups through the use of weblogs, list servers, and email services. The evolution of online services progressed from serving as channels for networked communication to becoming interactive platforms for networked social interaction with the advent of Web 2.0.^[7]

Social media started in the mid-1990s with the advent of platforms like GeoCities, Classmates.com, and SixDegrees.com.^[21] While instant messaging and chat clients existed at the time, SixDegrees was unique as it was the first online service designed for real people to connect using their actual names. It boasted features like profiles, friends lists, and school affiliations, making it “the very first social networking site” according to CBS News.^[21][22] The platform’s name was inspired by the “six degrees of separation” concept, which suggests that every person on the planet is just six connections away from everyone else.^[23]

In the early 2000s, social media platforms gained widespread popularity with the likes of Friendster and Myspace, followed by Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, among others.^[24]

Research from 2015 shows that the world spent 22% of their online time on social networks,^[25] thus suggesting the popularity of social media platforms, likely fueled by the widespread adoption of smartphones.^[26] There are as many as 4.76 billion social media users in the world^[27] as of January 2023, equating to 59.4% of the total global population.

Definition and features

The idea that social media are defined simply by their ability to bring people together has been seen as too broad, as this would suggest that fundamentally different technologies like the telegraph and telephone are also social media.^[28] The terminology is unclear, with some early researchers referring to social media as social networks or social networking services in the mid-2000s.^[6] A more recent paper from 2015 reviewed the prominent literature in the area and identified four common features unique to then-current social media services:^[2]

• Web 2.0 Internet-based applications.^[2][5]

1. User-generated content^[2][5]
2. User-created self profiles^[2][6]
3. Social network formed by connections between profiles,^[2][6] such as followers or groups

In 2019, Merriam-Webster defined social media as “forms of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos).”^[29]

While the variety of evolving stand-alone and built-in social media services makes it challenging to define them,^[2] marketing and social media experts broadly agree that social media includes the following 13 types:^[30]

• Blogs (ex. Huffington Post, Boing Boing)
• Business networks (ex. LinkedIn, XING)
• Collaborative projects (ex. Wikipedia, Bitcoin)
• Enterprise social networks (ex. Yammer, Socialcast)
• Forums (ex. Gaia Online, IGN Boards)
• Microblogs (ex. Twitter, Tumblr)
• Photo sharing (ex. Flickr, Photobucket)
• Products/services review (ex. Amazon, Elance)
• Social bookmarking (ex. Delicious, Pinterest)
• Social gaming (ex. Mafia Wars, World of Warcraft)
• Social network sites (ex. Facebook, Google+)
• Video sharing (ex. YouTube, Vimeo)
• Virtual worlds (ex. Second Life, Twinity)

Some services of other social media subtypes (such as Twitter and YouTube) also allow users to create a social network, and so are sometimes also included in the social network subtype.^[6]

Mobile social media

Mobile social media refers to the use of social media on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. Mobile social media are useful applications of mobile marketing because the creation, exchange, and circulation of user-generated content can assist companies with marketing research, communication, and relationship development.^[31] Mobile social media differ from others because they incorporate the current location of the user (location-sensitivity) or the time delay between sending and receiving messages.

Social media promotes users to share content with others and display content in order to enhance a particular brand or product.^[32] Social media allows people to be creative and share interesting ideas with their followers or fans. Certain social media applications such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are places where users share specific political or sports content. Many reporters and journalists produce updates and information on sports and political news. It can truly give users pertinent and necessary information to stay up to date on relevant news stories and topics. However, there is a downside to it. Users are advised to exercise due diligence when they are using social media platforms.

According to Andreas Kaplan, mobile social media applications can be differentiated among four types:^[31]

1. Space-timers (location and time-sensitive): Exchange of messages with relevance mostly for one specific location at one specific point in time (e.g. Facebook Places, WhatsApp, Telegram, Foursquare)
2. Space-locators (only location sensitive): Exchange of messages with relevance for one specific location, which is tagged to a certain place and read later by others (e.g. Yelp, Qype, Tumblr, Fishbrain)
3. Quick-timers (only time sensitive): Transfer of traditional social media mobile apps to increase immediacy (e.g. posting on Twitter or status updates on Facebook)
4. Slow-timers (neither location nor time sensitive): Transfer of traditional social media applications to mobile devices (e.g. watching a YouTube video)

Elements and function

Viral content

Main article: Viral phenomenon

Social media sites are powerful tools for sharing content across networks. Certain content has the potential to spread virally, an analogy for the way viral infections spread from individual to individual. When content or websites go viral, users are more likely to share them with their social network, which leads to even more sharing.

Viral marketing campaigns are particularly attractive to businesses because they can achieve widespread advertising coverage at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing campaigns. Nonprofit organizations and activists may also use social media to post content with the aim of it going viral.

Many social media sites provide specific functionality to help users re-share content, such as Twitter‘s “retweet” button or Facebook‘s “share” option. This feature is especially popular on Twitter, allowing users to keep up with important events and stay connected with their peers.^[33] When certain posts become popular, they start to get retweeted over and over again, becoming viral. Hashtags can also be used in tweets to take count of how many people have used that hashtag.

However, it’s important to note that not all content has the potential to go viral, and it’s difficult to predict what content will take off. Despite this, viral marketing campaigns can still be a cost-effective and powerful tool for promoting a message or product.

Bots

Main article: Internet bot

Bots are automated programs that operate on the internet,^[34] which have become increasingly popular due to their ability to automate many communication tasks. This has led to the creation of a new industry of bot providers.^[35]

Chatbots and social bots are programmed to mimic natural human interactions such as liking, commenting, following, and unfollowing on social media platforms.^[36] As companies aim for greater market shares and increased audiences, internet bots have also been developed to facilitate social media marketing.^[37] With the existence of social bots and chatbots, however, the marketing industry has also met an analytical crisis, as these bots make it difficult to differentiate between human interactions and automated bot interactions.^[38] For instance, marketing data has been negatively affected by some bots, causing “digital cannibalism” in social media marketing. Additionally, some bots violate the terms of use on many social media platforms such as Instagram, which can result in profiles being taken down and banned.^[39]

‘Cyborgs‘—either bot-assisted humans or human-assisted bots^[40]—are used for a number of different purposes both legitimate and illegitimate, from spreading fake news to creating marketing buzz.^[41][42][43] A common legitimate use includes using automated programs to post on social media at a specific time.^[44] In these cases, often, the human writes the post content and the bot schedules the time of posting. In other cases, the cyborgs are more nefarious, e.g., contributing to the spread of fake news and misinformation.^[40] Often these accounts blend human and bot activity in a strategic way, so that when an automated account is publicly identified, the human half of the cyborg is able to take over and could protest that the account has been used manually all along. In many cases, these accounts that are being used in a more illegitimate fashion try to pose as real people; in particular, the number of their friends or followers resemble that of a real person.^[40] Cyborgs are also related to sock puppet accounts, where one human pretends to be someone else, but can also include one human operating multiple cyborg accounts.

New social media technology

Main article: Software patent

There has been rapid growth in the number of United States patent applications that cover new technologies that are related to social media, and the number of them that are published has been growing rapidly over the past five years.^{[citation needed]} As of 2020, there are over 5000 published patent applications in the United States.^[45] As many as 7000 applications may be currently on file including those that have not been published yet; however, only slightly over 100 of these applications have issued as patents, largely due to the multi-year backlog in examination of business method patents, i.e., patents that outline and claim new methods of doing business.^[46]

Platform convergence

As an instance of technological convergence, various social media platforms of different kinds adapted functionality beyond their original scope, increasingly overlapping with each other over time, albeit usually not implemented as completely as on dedicated platforms.

Examples are the social hub site Facebook launching an integrated video platform in May 2007,^[47] and Instagram, whose original scope was low-resolution photo sharing, introducing the ability to share quarter-minute 640×640 pixel videos in 2013^[48] (later extended to a minute with increased resolution), acting like a minimal video platform without video seek bar. Instagram later implemented stories (short videos self-destructing after 24 hours), a concept popularized by Snapchat, as well as IGTV, for seekable videos of up to ten minutes or one hour depending on account status.^[49] Stories have been later adapted by the dedicated video platform YouTube in 2018, although access is restricted to the mobile apps, excluding mobile and desktop websites.^[50]

Twitter, whose original scope was text-based microblogging, later adapted photo sharing functionality (deprecating third-party services such as TwitPic),^[51] later video sharing with 140-second time limit and view counter but no manual quality selection or subtitles like on dedicated video platforms, and originally only available to mobile app users but later implemented in their website front ends.^[52][53] Then a media studio feature for business users, which resembles YouTube’s Creator Studio.^[54]

The discussion platform Reddit added an integrated image hoster in June 2016 after Reddit users commonly relied on the external standalone image sharing platform Imgur,^[55] and an internal video hoster around a year later.^[56] In July 2020, the ability to share multiple images in a single post (image galleries), a feature known from Imgur, was implemented.^[57] Imgur itself implemented sharing videos of up to 30 seconds in May 2018, later extended to one minute.^[58][59]

Starting in 2018, the dedicated video platform YouTube rolled out a Community feature accessible through a channel tab (which usurps the previous Discussion channel tab), where text-only posts, as well as polls can be shared. To be enabled, channels have to pass a subscriber count threshold which has been lowered over time

Advantages & Disadvantages Social Media

Advantages of social media?

There is no question that social media has a profound impact on the way global communities and organizations interact with each other. Understanding social media’s advantages can help you structure your online activities beneficially. 

Here are the top 8 advantages of social media worth noting –

1. Global connectivity

One of the most recognized advantages of social media is that it has enabled excellent global communication. It is now possible to connect with users from all around the world through social media. 

It is also feasible to exchange large amounts of information, develop relationships, and enable global connections through social media. 

There is no doubt that social media has contributed significantly to bonds all across the world.

2. The right place for noble causes

In the last couple of years, social media has played a fundamental role in assisting individuals and communities that are desperately in need. Several groups and online social media platforms are dedicated to social work. 

Social media is the best place to start on that journey if you want to provide some form of assistance or aid to those in need. With this tool, you can reach out to the groups assisting people in need for initiatives that you can undertake from your side. 
Social media is an excellent platform to practice charitable work, assisting people in need by making their lives significantly easier. This is among the most significant advantages when comparing social media’s top advantages and disadvantages.

3. An excellent tool for education

Social media has proven to be an effective tool for facilitating the learning of new skills and concepts. 

Different social media platforms encourage learning by bringing together educators & professionals with students & learners from different age groups. 

With social media tools, it becomes possible for you to connect with instructors and learn at your own pace. Social media also promotes significantly better flexibility in the overall learning process.

4. Information & updates

Social media is one of the best places on the internet to receive up-to-date information and news. It is now possible to receive the latest information from across the world simply by accessing a social media platform. 

Social media and other forms of communication can play an excellent role in providing you with a genuine picture of global circumstances. 

As a result, social media directly contributes to the globalization of the world at large.

5. Share a large amount of information daily

Social media is one of the best places for you to share information with your loved ones and a larger community. Many artists and professionals resort to social media to share their pieces of work (such as songs, poems, artistic masterpieces, and food). 
Therefore, social media is an excellent tool to enhance your creativity and identity as a brand. This is among the best advantages when listing the advantages and disadvantages of social media platforms for businesses. This allows you to interact directly with millions of consumers, helping your artistic efforts gain appreciation. Your creative control can significantly improve with social media usage.

6. Join a community

We live in a diverse global society with different types of people from all walks of life. These include individuals from other backgrounds, religions, communities, and countries. 

Social media is an excellent tool that has facilitated the unification of different kinds of people across the world. 

For example, if you enjoy playing video games, you can join communities related to the same and interact with individuals across the world who share your interests. 

Social media, therefore, significantly contributes to a feeling of oneness amongst different communities.

7. Drive traffic to your website

If you have a business and are looking for ways to amplify your brand awareness, social media is one of the best ways to achieve this objective. 

With social media, you can drive traffic to your website by publishing on your timeline & bio and in groups. You can leave a link to your website on these platforms, directing visitors to what you have to offer. 

Most internet bloggers and business owners use social media for social networking. The result is an increase in the number of organic visitors to your website.

8. Access to paid advertising services

Continuing on the tangent established in the previous point, social media grants you excellent access to many paid advertising services. When comparing the advantages and disadvantages of social media, this is one of the most profound benefits!  

If you want to go beyond regular organic posting for your business, running paid advertisements is one of the best ways to proceed. 

Each social media platform on the internet offers a wide variety of paid advertising options to choose from. It is important to note that your social media advertising capabilities often vary depending on your selected platform. 

Paid advertisements play an important role in connecting your business with interested leads. Different social media platforms can also tailor your aids specifically to appear in the feeds of individuals looking for specific products and services. 

This provides an excellent opportunity for your business to expand its reach and obtain a large number of new leads. The more engaging leads you find for your business, the more followers you will gain. This contributes to the final conversions you experience for your business

Disadvantages of social media?

One of the important factors to consider is that while social media has several advantages, another side of the story needs awareness. Social media is often referred to as a double-edged sword. The impact of social media is often subtle and becomes more pronounced with repeated usage. 

Some of the most detrimental disadvantages of social media are as follows –

1. Trouble with privacy

The trouble with privacy is arguably one of the most significantly experienced disadvantages when listing the advantages and disadvantages of social media. Tweeting inappropriate information, sharing too much of your everyday life with a large audience, or unknowingly sharing your online location are some of the disadvantages of frequent social media usage. 

It is also important to note that security agencies worldwide have access to all the information you post on social media platforms. As a result, your privacy is almost always compromised.

2. Lack of emotional connect

Social media has become a significant hindrance to socio-emotional connections. The quality of conversation on social media can often be unpleasant because it is difficult to sense interest or emotion from another person.

Additionally, the celebration of special occasions and relationship milestones has a limit to sharing messages on social media platforms.

As a result, the emotional connection continues to decrease with increased social media usage. This is primarily because emotions & feelings are not easily expressed with simple text messages.

3. Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is one of the worst aspects of regular social media usage, topping the list of disadvantages associated with the same. 

Bullying that takes place online on social media platforms is cyberbullying. It uses false social media accounts to psychologically disturb or tease victims. 

False social media accounts are often untraceable. Bullying happens via sending derogatory material (such as photographs and videos) and inappropriate text messages. 

Being aware of this disadvantage is crucial when navigating an online presence.

4. Negative feedback for brands

People often look to social media to post content that they love. However, they also use it for poor experiences. This makes for one of the most noted disadvantages in our list of advantages & disadvantages of social media. 

Therefore, if you have a business and someone has a negative experience with your brand, social media allows them to share the same with others. This can significantly reduce conversion, especially if feedback is shared across different platforms. 

Negative feedback also contributes to the reviews that are on your webpage. People often look at reviews and read the negative experiences when becoming familiar with your brand and what it offers.

5. Decrease in quick-witted skill

Social media has disastrously impacted the quality of real-time face-to-face conversations with your loved ones. 

Quick-witted skill is thinking fast and responding in significantly shorter periods. However, on social media, a lot of time is spent crafting responses to comments or posting relevant content. 

As a result, there has been a significant decrease in quick-witted skills, contributing to the quality of your conversations. The quick-witted skill also directly affects how you respond to sudden changes in your physical and emotional environment. 

6. Hacking

In addition to cyberbullying, hacking is also regarded as one of the most severe drawbacks of social media that affect many people. 

Hacking refers to the process of gaining access to another individual’s personal information. Often, this information can cause harm rather than good. There have been many instances where hackers have managed to upset an individual’s financial and social stability. 

It is important to remember that hacking is illegal and can be reported. Legal action is often taken against hackers with fines, sentences, and, in some cases, imprisonment.

7. Spreading of fake news

Another negative aspect worth noting in our list of advantages & disadvantages of social media is that fake news spreads quickly. Individuals often create false social media posts and share them by spreading the fake news on groups and other platforms. 

The result is the strong dissemination of fake news. Almost anybody can create fake news on a trending topic and post the same on different social media platforms without verification. 

Fake news can have a disastrous impact on knowledge of different topics. Some may even prompt rebellious acts that are better avoided with accurate information.

8. Addiction

Finally, addiction is regarded as one of the most commonly-felt disadvantages of social media platforms. Post the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a surge in social media addiction, especially with the extra amount of leisure time experienced by many. 

People who use social media excessively develop a psychological addiction to the same. Social media addiction has affected the global teenage population in a majority of negative ways. 

People who use social media excessively are often cut off from society and the natural world. This can cause significant dissociation from what is happening in an individual’s real life.

A few more advantages of social media

1. Enables you to become more conscious and aware.
2. You can share your views and opinions about everything.
3. It is an excellent stress-reliever
4. Enhances customer engagement for businesses while helping small businesses thrive.
5. Improves customer relationships by fostering goodwill.

A few disadvantages of social media

1. Since everything is through texts, the emotional bond is lost between them.
2. Reduces empathy, causing harm to others’ feelings.
3. Leads to a lack of quality family time.
4. Facilitates laziness among youth.
5. Since it is impulsive, it leads to a lack of self-control and causes mental distractions.