The Comparison Between the Benefits and Problems which Emerge from Online Social Media: Facebook and Twitter

A. Prologue

　　　　If we talk about social media, we can’t stand without Facebook and Twitter. Why I can say like that? It because both of them  is the popular social media in this era. But I don’t make any sense about promotion about its. So, lets we start this essay with those social media. Then we make an assumption about another social media is as same as the function of Facebook and Twitter. And lets expand our way of think about this topic, and  then make the clear conclusion in the end.

Facebook

　　　　Facebook is an online social networking service. Its name stems from the colloquial name for the book given to students at the start of the academic year by some American university administrations to help students get to know one another. Facebook was founded in February 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow Harvard University students, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. The founders had initially limited the website’s membership to students of the university of Harvard, but later expanded it to colleges in Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It gradually added support for students at various other universities before it opened to highschool students, and eventually to anyone ages 13 and over. Facebook now allows anyone who claims to be at least 13 years old to become a registered user of the website. According to a May 2011 Consumer Reports survey, there are 7.5 million children under 13th with accounts and 5 million under 10th, violating the site terms of service.

　　　　(http://wikipedia.org/)

We can see that fact, one of the popular social media, Facebook has a big problem about the membership. It has over 5 million accounts under 13th which is violating it site term of service. How about the information filter can work in that conditions? We’ll explain next.

　　　　At first, I’ll take a look into the benefits of this social media. Facebook has the greatest amounts of members in the world. From America, Europe, Asia, Australia, until Africa, it has a great amounts of members spread. It make some reason how the information from another world side can broadcasted to the other side of the world, how the products which sold by the American bought by the Asian, and many other questions can answered by Facebook.

Twitter

　　　　And the next, lets see about the other popular social media, twitter. Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables users to send and read “tweets”, whichare text messages limited to 140 characters. Registered users can read and post tweets but unregisterd users can only read them. Users access twitter through the website interface, sms, or mobile devices app. Twitter Inc. was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and by July 2006, the site was launched. The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with 500 million registered usersin 2012, who posted 340 million tweets per day. The service also handled 1.6 billion search queries per day.

　　　　(http://wikipedia.org/)

Another explanation about this social media is “twitter as same as SPAM site of the internet”. Because it possible for the users to make uninteresting informations here. With 140 characters, it can’t make some clear informations, so the users make some tweet-flood on timeline. For a few users, it can be bothering. So, twitter have it suggestion “follow your interest”.

　　　　In this part, i’ll try to take a look about the beneficial properties of this social media. Same with the facebook before, twitter also has a great amounts users. So it possible to the users excange the informations around the world. Not only in social, but also in politics, economics, cultures, and the other informations. But there’s another problem here, may you  hear or look about tweet-war? What’s that? May it affect the social relationship for each users? We’ll answer it together.

　　　　

B. Problems and Its Explanation with the Benefits of Facebook and Twitter

　　　　From the explanation about two popular social media above, we can focused in the problem which is influenced to the social relationship among the users. I’ll try to make an analogy in order to simplify the problems. Facebook has many benefits that can be look only in one sided eye, I won’t describe what’s the benefits here. I just want to make some pattern of the answer about the problems which influenced by Facebook to the users. Facebook has many users under 10th, that can controlled by itself. The adult materials like porns, social news, which is not for children exchange in this social media everytime. In that uncontrollable part, the parents whom have a busy time everyday can’t make a guidance to their child. So, it possible to the under 10th users will get some adult informations that can harassing and violating their views or their thinking. How about their future? Maybe it will answered after the effects of this phenomenon appear to us in the next decade.

　　　　Then for the next social media, called “the SMS site of the internet”, twitter. Twitter is really different from Facebook, because of its exclusivity in characters. It only provide 140 characters for each post, so it like send the SMS from the internet, but more public then the real SMS. The serious problem of this social media is called tweet-war. Why do I call it the serious problem? Because it can make direct influence of social relationship between the users who did the tweet-war. What is tweet-war? Tweet war is the war which declared by the two or more users that make something by allusion in order to tease or harass, and maybe violate someone or other users. Because war is not about bombs and rockets. It’s about words (http://edition.cnn.com/).

　　　　Many public figure or celebrity around the world trapped some case with the law because of tweet-war. Tweet-war often emerges from a little “spicy” words. After it tweeted from a user, it will appear to the timeline, then another user who know the purpose of the tweet or know about the “spicy” tweet for, answer it with another “spicy” tweet. And it reply one another until tha war declared from here. Sometimes tweet-war was forgetting by the users if in the real life it doesn’t become a problem. But tweet-war often become a real life problem, which is influence the social relationship of the users. That problem can’t only meet in those two popular social media, because it can appear everywhere in the virtual world.

　　　　At the other part of the social media, like what I wrote above. Social media have many benefits for its users. It can be the effective information exchanger around the world. We can exchange information about social, economics, politics, culture, and many other. We also can transform our social media become an online catalog for our product and make an online shop. This called e-commerce way to get profit. So, the social media is a promotion media for our commercial products. And there’s many other benefit that can’t explained for details here, because of this wide world of the virtual world called World Wide Web will connect many people around the world and make many way to get the benefit from social relationship in social media services.

C. Social Media Influence for the Society

　　　　In the other side of those online social networking services, they transform the global community behaviour. Not like the label, social media or social networking, the online ways make a new form of interaction between people around the world. I ever read some statement, “Virtual world is make the long distance become close, but it also make something near us become so far”. Can you describe what the purpose of that statement? If you can’t, I’ll try to make some analogy to explain that statement. When you go browsing some information with your device (it can be laptop, smartphone, tablets, etc) you can meet with some people in another place, but sometimes you forget with your friends around you. You prefer to keep browsing and chatting than make a discussion about your lesson with a person near you, with your friends or your family.

　　　　

D. Conclusion

　　　　Social media or social networking services have many benefit to become the information exchanger, and also become the way to accelerate the exchange of information around the world. But, it has another bad influence to the social relationship in the society or global community.

It will bear some negative bahaviour, like an individualism person, make a people become antisocial in their real life, and prefer an online primary life than socialize with another people in their real life. If it continued, we can’t see some group of people in the society discuss about something together in some place, but we’ll discover them discuss something from their private place in front of their communication devices, in the online ways. I can say like this from the fact which shown today.