What is the purpose of Social Media?
The internet has always been a space created for the intention of worldwide communication, knowledge and the creation of a community. Coming into the new era of the 2000s, there have been new ways created to have more deeply communication channels. For example, recent applications (apps) used are Snapchat, Tick tock, Twitter, and Instagram (and so much more). I want to analyze the main use for Instagram. For a while, I was against in having applications like Snapchat and Instagram because what I saw for the purpose it was used I did not like, as I will mention later as to why.
Each application is used in different ways but there are used for the same purpose, for communication. Now the thing is, each app is meant to expose what kind of content you want to show, either publicly or privately. For example, Snapchat is mostly used to see the daily life of a person in what they are doing through, displaying through photos or videos. Instagram, on the other hand, is a different type of profile of a person, you can have a more professional or clean side. On Snapchat I can show my friends walking my dog in the park in the focus in showing the dog. On Instagram, I can show a more posed picture of my dog sitting in the grass, with the park in the background. These application gives the power to show viewers what we want them to see, the power of visual communication.
Instagram was launched in 2010 but did not become as popular till 2013, in eighth grade as for me. As people became used to the idea of Instagram all I saw was people putting fake profiles of themselves, exposing their bodies, followers and marketing. My friends kept pushing me to have an Instagram and Snapchat so they chat with me when I question why not chat through normal text messages. Yes, people do tend to put out to the media things that can be altered. Once I got a profile on my own I told myself I was not going to alter myself but be honest. As I kept using the app and asking people for their profile names I came to the realization, that these applications are like the window of a person’s life and people want to see your profile to see what you are like as a person and what is going up with you without even having to ask or communicate directly with you, even though it is altered.
Applications like these are a form to advertise ourselves for the sake of followers. In this era, the more followers you have can either give you statues of popularity and/or famous, money in sponsoring other products, opportunities, an ego boost, a platform or just simply comfort. Social media lets one express themselves in fashion, music, art, philosophy, fan pages of movies, tv shows or such. Of course, not everyone uses these apps for the same reasons. I have mine simply to get in touch with people.
As time passes there will be new applications or applications used now that can be used for different purposes. Social media can be a platform of encouragement for others and is still used as a communication and knowledge platform. At the same time, social media is effective because it appeals visually to human wants and needs, as said above. Will I keep using these applications? Yes. Why? Because its a trend and if you are not on board, in whatever app/website it is, you will be behind in what is going on. Maybe not on everything but most stuff, yes.
