Persistent Use of Social Media and its Effects

Persistent Use of Social Media and Its Effects
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Persistent Use of Social Media and Its Effects
Introduction
Social media, a term used to refer to the different technologies that people use to make social interactions via the internet, is undeniably one of the defining technologies of the contemporary era. In 2019, Facebook, one of the leading social networks, reported a staggering 2.38 billion active users every month, while the total number of social media users as of 2018 constituted over 42.3 percent of the world population (Appel et al., 2020). This is a glimpse of how social media can be influential in facilitating social interactions. Consequently, social media have been embraced in most activities that are dependent on social interactions, such as product marketing and politics. The use of social media in different fields has taken different directions, with the users often having varied intentions with the use of the platforms. This has inspired scholars and researchers to dig up the effects associated with the use of social media for different purposes such as and social media marketing, which is mainly dependent on social interactions. In addition, the vast amount of personalized data that social media sites collect that is often regarded as a privacy issue also has effects on consumer comfort and the extent to which the consumer uses social media.
Summary to the Readings
Social Media Marketing Activities
In their article, Chen and Lin (2019) investigate the role that social media marketing activities play in influencing the intentions of the consumer based on the different factors that determine the success of a marketing strategy: perceived value, social identification, and satisfaction. According to the researchers, marketers should focus on the three types of social media user intentions: continuance intention, participation intention, and purchase intention. Continuance intention, in this case, denotes the ability to continue using the service; participation intention means the user’s continued engagement on the platform; purchase intention is the willingness to purchase a product on the networking site. The empirical study that Chen and Lin undertook (2019) with a sample size of 502 social media users concluded that social media marketing activities that do not necessarily relate to the product being marketed influence the users’ social identification and the perceived value. In return, the perceived value and social identification influence the consumer’s satisfaction and intentions.
Social Media Use and Political Activism
In another almost similar study, Ida et al. (2020) sought to investigate the relationship between youth’s persistent use of social media platforms and their influence on political activism involvement. The persistent use of social media from Chen and Lin’s perspective can be used to denote the continuance intention, that is, the desire to continue using the social media platform to engage others. The quantitative study by Ida et al. (2020) involved a sample population of 400 adults from Indonesia and Pakistan, using the typical data collection met...