30 Social Media Overview
Michaela Taylor
30.1 Introduction
Keywords
- Social media – the 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) (Webster, 2021)
- Communication technology – refers to all the tools used to send, receive, and process information. In today’s fast climate, efficiency and convenience are the keys to successful communication technology (Novak, 2019).
- Employee recruitment – organizational actions that are intended to (a) bring a job opening to the attention of potential job candidates; (b) influence whether these individuals apply for the opening; (c) affect whether recruits maintain interest in the position until a job offer is extended; and (d) influence whether a job offer is accepted and the person joins the organization (Hodgkinson & Ford, 2008).
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, students should be able to:
- Understand what social media is and the impact it has had on society in the aspects of business marketing, employee recruiting, and mental health.
- Describe the role of social media in the past decade and its impact on the growth and development of society.
- Identify aspects of social media as a base knowledge for future chapters’ discussions.
- Discuss the vast possibilities social media holds when looking into future data collection.
Social media is a technology mainly of the current generation and will continue to grow generation after generation. In the past couple of decades, social media has developed immensely into a technology that serves more purposes than the creators could have ever imagined. The initial intent of social media was to make communication and connection accessible from a distance and has developed into a technology that serves endless other purposes.
Although social media is a vastly helpful technology, there are also many downfalls to social media. Social media can be intentionally used in harmful ways to hurt others, but at the same time, some of the adverse effects of social media are unintentional. Many of the addictive behaviors towards social media have begun to cause many problems throughout society (Keles, 2019). As you read through this chapter, you will see the progression of social media and some of the impacts it has had on society and the world. You will also be introduced to a future outlook on social media and its possible further development in the near future.
“Mobile Phone Social Media” by Erik Lucatero is under a Pixabay License.
30.2 What is Social Media?
Key Takeaway
As defined by the Webster dictionary, social media are 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 (2021). This definition is a very broad and open-ended definiti