How do we Interact with Social Networking Sites?

     Social networking sites are undoubtedly a strong presence of today’s society, and are found in apps such as Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and Tiktok. What these apps do is let us communicate with each other through a variety of fun ways over different platforms and sometimes these applications can be great for a variety of purposes. Maybe a business advertises itself on Instagram where a mass body of people will end up seeing it. It allows people from all over the world to communicate with one another and join online communities through multiple platforms of communication. However, there are also some negative effects to the use of social networking sites. There have been many cases where sites like google have been helpful, of course, but with access to literally every answer one has ever needed, it is being questions how our attention spans start to drift quite easily. Working on a project is much harder when the notifications of a phone are coming through like rapid fire. It has become somewhat natural the people instinctively want to know what is being said immediately, thus we break our concentration and pick up the phone. SNS themselves all share the same main purpose, to communicate with each other. They are different enough though, in the ways that they allow us to communicate. YouTube is a platform that shares videos with people where an app like Snapchat is more about communicating through sending photos. Over the past three days, I have used a handful of these apps in order to communicate with my own friends. The ones we probably use most are the messages app for basic communication and Instagram which we use to send posts we find entertaining or funny, namely in the form of memes or movie news around every couple of hours or so. In retrospect, these networking sites have changed the way I interact, not only the frequency I use these apps, but as said earlier, it affects my attention span. There have been a couple of times where my attention was starting to drift, whether it was to check my phone or something else, I almost lost focus and had to remind myself to keep working. This is what one of the sources was theorizing about, however make not that not all platforms are just useless distractions as they can be a way to share, express and self-advocate to name just a few positives. Given the fact that the media I consume are by accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers, it is out of the question that others do experience and consume the same images as I do. They do share different thoughts on what are being presented though, which can also be listed as a positive for these platforms. To share opinions and read other opinions and reading them is something I enjoy doing occasionally. The ability to respond to these opinions, despite a good or bad reaction, is still a valid way of communication. It is safe to say that these networking sites are here to stay, and whether they have good or harmful effects, that is up to us on how we use them. 

Heinrichs, John H., and Lim, Jeen-Su, and Lim, Kee-Sook. “Influence of Social Networking Site and User Access Method on Social Media Evaluation.” Untangling the Web, vol. 10, no. 6, 23 Dec, 2011, pp. 347-355. Wilely Online Library, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/cb.377  

Carr, Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Why Do We Educate? Voices From the Conversation, vol. 107, no. 2, 09 Dec, 2008, pp. 89-94. Wiley Online Library, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1744-7984.2008.00172.x