Discussion on Social Media

When stopped at red lights, while waiting on line in the supermarket or even having lunch with a friend, we often find ourselves with our cell phones firmly planted in our hands or placed right next to us; within arm's reach and our line of sight. We are responding to emails, checking the weather, searching the web and, of course taking pictures and selfies to post on social media. A little known fact is that the first selfie was actually taken in 1839 via daguerreotype process by Robert Cornelius, a photography enthusiast in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (cite). Obviously, the trend didn't quite take off at the time, however by 2013, Oxford Dictionaries chose ‘selfie' as their word of the year.
We have become so accustomed to the accessibility of friends, family and information, it is almost laughable to conceptualize them as technological innovations. Cell phones and computers have become extensions of ourselves, our identities. They offer us almost limitless opportunities for information, self-expression and connection to others. Take a moment to imagine life before this technology existed. Feelings of loss, fear, grief and even sadness may arise, but when we consider how long this technology has existed and how long humans have existed; this technology is but a drop of rain in the ocean. However, there is no question that we are dependent, transfixed and would be utterly lost if it were to simply disappear.
Social media use has exponentially increased during the past decade. For example, a recent study released by the Pew Research Center shows that 65% of all American adults are now using social media, up by almost a ten-fold from 7% of a decade ago ADDIN CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "author" : [ { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "Perrin", "given" : "Andrew", "non-dropping-particle" : "", "parse-names" : false, "suffix" : "" } ], "id" : "ITEM-1", "issue" : "October", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2015" ] ] }, "number-of-pages" : "2005-2015", "title" : "Social Media Usage: 2005-2015", "type" : "report" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=6ffa7319-4c76-45fc-821b-3fa59cf545dc" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "formattedCitation" : "(Perrin, 2015)", "manualFormatting" : "(Perrin, 2015, p.1)", "plainTextFormattedCitation" : "(Perrin, 2015)", "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(Perrin, 2015)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" }(Perrin, 2015, p.1). Not surprisingly, social media usage is most prevalent among young adults, aged 18 to 29 years (90%) but individuals aged 65 and up are adopting the technology, with usage rates increasing from 11% to 35% in just five years (2010-2015) ADDIN CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "author" : [ { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "Perrin", "given" : "Andrew", "non-dropping-particle" : "", "parse-names" : false, "suffix" : "" } ], "id" : "ITEM-1", "issue" : "October", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2015" ] ] }, "number-of-pages" : "2005-2015", "title" : "Social Media Usage: 2005-2015", "type" : "report" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=6ffa7319-4c76-45fc-821b-3fa59cf545dc" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "formattedCitation" : "(Pe...