The Oxford Dictionary defines Social Media as ‘websites and applications used for

social networking’. I feel this definition is inadequate due to the fact that it u
ses the original term in the explanation. A simple explanation (in my words) is ‘(
a) form of communication between parties for interaction’.
A brief history, Social media started all the way back in 1997 with a we
bsite called Six Degrees, this was very basic and only lasted until 2001 but it
was the first leap into the world of Social Networking. After Six Degrees, a few
others became ‘big’ with websites such as LiveJournal and Friendster but it wasn’t un
til 2003 when MySpace was created that a high percentage of the world actually s
tarted using these websites, this could also partly be due to more and more peop
le getting the internet at their residence(s) rather than just work or school. O
ver the years MySpace has started to die off with the introduction of Facebook a
nd Twitter in 2006, which are both still going strong to this day.
Of course there are many others but these few are generally regarded as the most
successful and most used. There are too many ways Social Media influences us to
list in such a small space so I’m going to discuss the most important implication
s, which are Cyber Bullying and ‘Text Typing’.
How exactly does Social Media influence our culture? The one we hear about most
in the news is cyber-bullying, but is this as much of a big deal as the media ma
kes out? Obviously it shouldn’t happen, but how much of it actually affects us? Al
most every week you can open a newspaper and read about how someone has been bul
lied on Facebook or Twitter, but we never (or barely ever) read about how benefi
cial Social Media is on our culture. 25% of Australian children have reported th
at they have been cyber bullied at least once in their lifetime1; this clearly h
as a negative effect on our culture as it puts people down and decreases their q
uality of life. In fact, statistics show that victims of Cyber Bullying are twic
e as likely to commit suicide compared to those that have never been Cyber Bulli
ed before2.
What about the benefits Social Media has on our culture? Social Media are great
interaction tools, of course, they have their downsides but if you look around,
(almost) everybody uses some form of Social Media to enhance their day-to-day li
fe. We have many different ways to access all our different forms of Social Medi
a, the most obvious is through a computer. Now the majority of people using thes
e services have access to them from their mobile phone. If, for example you sit
on a tram and look around, you see the masses using their mobile phones for this
very reason. But how do they enhance our day-to-day life? The main way they enh
ance our life is sharing our favorite moments with our friends and family. Years
ago, if you wanted to show your family your Christmas/Santa photo you would hav
e to pay someone to print it for you and then snail mail it to them, being costl
y and taking up to a week or more. But now with the introduction of Social Media
websites we can simply snap the photo on our camera (or mobile phone) and uploa
d it to the Internet and share it with whomever we want. We can also simply add
our opinions about what our friends are doing just with the click of a mouse (an
d of course typing a few words). Without this technology it would be a lot more
costly and time consuming. This shows that Social Media has a major influence ab
out how we communicate with others.
Text typing, we all know about it and the majority of the world have used it eit
her by messaging someone on their phone or making a Twitter update, but how is t
his influencing us and how we go about spelling and using grammar? I remember ye
ars ago my father sent me a text message saying “C U @ 3”, this is a 50 year old Doc
tor writing like a 4 year old, yet he still uses perfect spelling and grammar wh
en it comes to anything remotely important. Is the influence of Social Media aff
ecting how our youth learn? That’s a very open question, but it makes you question
whether (in this retrospect) Social Media is having a negative affect on us.
Looking at all the abbreviations for words and phrases, there are hundre
ds and the weird thing is, we can most likely decipher these without any thought
at all. Social Media has opened up a whole new language for us, or rather a var
iation of the English language. Are we spelling things incorrectly or is this ju
st a new, varied language? Aliza Sherman3, who is a writer that specializes in S
ocial Media states, “Who is to say if it (this language) is right or wrong?” I belie
ve this question doesn’t have a correct answer as it all depends on how this ‘langua
ge’ is interpreted. I feel this has a major influence on our culture as even pare
nts who don’t use such forms of Social Media are learning these words and abbrevia
tions due to the sheer amount of use by their family and/or friends. Dennis Pagu
io4, one of the writers from the website Ezine Articles, quotes “many teachers in
high school are complaining that SMS has become so powerful that it has started
to affect the writing styles of many students”. This is definitely worrying as it
would appear the text talk is ‘dumbing’ down students and could affect more and more
students (and others) in the future.
It’s clear that Social Media has a major influence on our culture and if things ke
ep going the way they are Social Media is going to have an even bigger impact on
us, whether that’s good or bad, only time will tell. I have mentioned the main wa
ys it affect us (Cyber Bullying and ‘Text Typing’) but there are many other ways it
influences us and will continue to do so. I for one will embrace the future and
it will be interesting to see what the next big thing is.