Social Media

What is Social Media? Social Media is a considerable way of interacting with others as well as networking. Since there are a multitude of platforms created, social media has grown. There are many platforms that gain popularity and maintain it, while others gain and lose that popularity. 

In 2002, the year that I was born, there was a social media platform that was gaining a lot of popularity. That platform was called Friendster. Despite the platform gaining a lot of attention, the developers weren't prepared, and because of that their servers were impacted. The following years, 2003 - 2005, seemed to be the year where new and different platforms became available to the public. Myspace was introduced in 2003 and then in 2005 YouTube was introduced. What made these platforms differ from Friendster was that with Myspace users were allowed to customize their public profiles. The difference with YouTube was that they allowed users to post any content they wanted without restrictions. As time progressed more platforms were created; Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitch, Vine, BeReal, and lastly TikTok. 

The first time I was introduced to a social media platform was YouTube. It was during school when the teacher would put a video on to help us understand a topic better or sometimes it was random funny videos. After being introduced, I went home and searched for videos about some games that I had heard from friends and other topics that interested me at the time. It was fun seeing how there were gameplays of games that I wanted to play but couldn't buy. A few years later I was in middle school and finally had my own device. At that time all I did was play games, but after a while some friends convinced me to make some social media accounts. This is where I finally participated and got a better understanding of what social media was. As time went on, I also realized the impact that it had on others and how quickly information spread. 

While reading what was assigned to us, I realize that participation throughout social media is divided. One being friendship driven or interest driven. Friendship driven means that a group of people that are most likely already friends are creating and sharing things that they have created. Interest driven means a group of people that aren't friends and make friends online and share their creations of joint interest. It is interesting how those that are friendship driven are considered cool kids and those that are interest driven are kids that aren't popular. Being on social media is something that people adapt to. Many people like me end up finding our own communities within these social media sites. It is always interesting to see the different communities within a social media platform. A social media platform that has many communities within itself is TikTok. It's also super helpful to understand and learn new things. I always have loved that there is a community for everyone on one application.

If social media didn't become this significant, would there have been something else that would've risen?

References

1. Layton, Julia, and Patrick Brothers. “How Myspace Works.” HowStuffWorks, HowStuffWorks, 29 Aug. 2007, computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/social-networking/networks/myspace.htm.
2. McMillan, Robert. “The Friendster Autopsy: How A Social Network Dies.” Wired, Conde Nast, 27 Feb. 2013, www.wired.com/2013/02/friendster-autopsy/.
3. McFadden, Christopher. “A Brief Timeline of YouTube’s History and Its Impact on the Internet.” Here’s the Fascinating Story of the Rise and Rise of YouTube, Interesting Engineering, 6 July 2023, interestingengineering.com/culture/youtubes-history-and-its-impact-on-the-internet