Humans have not changed through the centuries of historical development. People socialize and find multiple ways to connect to their relatives, friends, and colleagues as fast and comfortably as possible; so, the technologies changed. Now, the exhausting instruments and devices for distant communication are gradually being replaced by social networking. The concept supposes the known to all interaction between individuals who have something to talk about, yet the act of communication is done via online platforms. The platforms grow fast; as cited in Chaffey (2021), “57.6% of the world’s population uses social media” (para. 4). That is not surprising if one considers the fact that modern people interact globally to expand their enterprises in foreign countries, migrate, or connect with those who have similar interests. Social media are available on smartphones, making their usage mobile and even more popular or necessary in emergencies. However, there are drawbacks to the availability of mass communication; for example, hate in social media might polarize society even more than real-life experiences. Thus, although social networking sites are beneficial, for instance, for customer service and teaching, it negatively impacts the social wellbeing of their users.
The significant advantage of social networking is that it is effective for marketing. The first use of social networking sites in business concerns gaining feedback about the products or services that a company sells. Namely, customer reviews are insightful about the levels of satisfaction with a product. As expressed by Sundararaj & Rejeesh (2021), “social media gives opportunity to businesses of getting in close contact with the consumer’s, understanding consumer needs & desires and evaluating customer satisfaction” (p. 2). Entrepreneurs can get feedback from a variety of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube. These are easily accessible due to search engines that allow the manufacturers to find all information from the customers related to the sold goods. Textual reviews are usually short and emotional, while long YouTube video reviews show a detailed process of customers’ interaction with the products. Finally, clients can contact the producers about the issues of the products or express their satisfaction. In this case, the entrepreneurs can directly communicate with their target market. Thus, social networking helps businesses enhance their products and services by getting direct feedback.
Gathering data about the customers’ needs on social network sites is widely available and straightforward. Sundararaj & Rejeesh (2021) mentioned that social media users register on the sites and share some of their personal data, such as age, gender, profession, and others. Some provide information about their hobbies and needs as well. As a result, marketers can analyze the demographics of their customers and compose a picture of their target market quite precisely. Hence, they understand who their clients are and what their values are. After that, the manufacturers and sellers try to make products or provide services that would satisfy the needs of their customers. The continuous interaction between the customers and a company also results in emerging loyalty to a brand, which benefits the business since more products can be sold to the same customers (Sundararaj & Rejeesh, 2021). If people see that their feedback impacts the services of a company, they value the process o reviewing more and develop trust towards a firm. Thus, internet commerce, as well as offline businesses that use social networking sites, benefit from using the analysis methods.
Moreover, the analysis of the customers’ reviews can reveal helpful information about the buying behavior of one’s clients. Social media often demonstrate not only the process of buying and the reaction of a customer to the product’s quality but also the factors that might have influenced the decision to buy. As evidenced in Sundararaj & Rejeesh (2021), “there is also a social influence on the individual which includes family, friends, relatives, public, society, social norms, culture and others” (p. 7). These factors are shown to impact the final decision of a consumer; social networking allows activating some of the elements more rapidly. As such, social media makes it visible to people that their friends, relatives, or other valuable persons buy a firm’s products. This creates a small tie between an individual and a manufacturer, increasing the reach of the latter. As a result, marketers use social media for advertising their products, increasing the knowledge about a company among potential buyers. Therefore, the technologies allow extending the customers’ group for various businesses.
Finally, the platforms for social networking play multiple other roles depending on their nature as well as the culture of their users. According to recent research done by Benson & Filippaios (2019), there are variations in the ways that people use social media that determine their overall effect on these individuals’ lives. For example, “younger users adopt social networks for building their identity,” whereas the older generation uses different business platforms (Benson & Filippaios, 2019, p. 4). Moreover, people of distinct nations might use social media for leisure or communication rather than business, proving that networking does not come down to commercial goods and their promotion only. Yet, it is crucial that “international users actively networked to form useful connections during job search and career management,” which is evidence that social media like LinkedIn are valid for employment. Hence, the combination of the functions which social networking guarantees wellbeing possibilities for people.
Therefore, it can be stated that through the commercial side of human interactions, social networking makes multiple lives of people better. From the perspective of entrepreneurs, social media provide a space for successful selling and promoting goods. Communication between the manufacturers and their buyers is more direct and cheaper, which boosts the development of small businesses. In turn, the analyses of the target markets make it possible to use social network sites to enhance the quality of the products and the satisfaction of the customers’ demands.
Social networking provides more opportunities for culture-specific services and, as a result, a better user or buying experience. People can enjoy the pleasure of being heard by the companies and being sure of the manufacturers’ responsibleness. Finally, for a middle-class person, it is achievable to purchase a customized product due to the communicational advantages and the diversity of platforms for finding the best performer for their projects. Yet, these are not the only benefits of social networking sites today.
Next, it should be born that social networking aids in the education process nowadays. In fact, most of the teachers and students are technology savvy. The present generation of students was born in years when digital technologies had already been widespread so that they are used to them from an early age. In turn, modern teachers and graduates who become teachers are not just familiar with social media; they actively use it in their everyday lives. As such, Boholano (2017) mentions that teachers get used to Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Tumblr. Moreover, Boholano (2017) comments that for modern teachers, “researching, communicating and even online job application across the
world via computer or cell phone is a snap” (p. 1). Apart from the obvious bonuses of the computer usage in the classrooms and educators being able to manage them, there are other advantages for both learning professionals and students. In the case of the teachers, they can participate in the discussion of the best practices for education, stimulating a community with a dialogue in social media. The advantages gained by students are discussed in the following paragraphs.
The primary benefit of social networking in the education sphere is the reduced effect of differences in cultures and nations. Boholano (2017) highlights that “educators can now much more readily connect their students to a huge and ever-expanding diversity of social, cultural, political networks” (p. 22). The result of this ability is the formation of multifaceted knowledge about the world among students and the capacity to view information from multiple perspectives. Moreover, “social networking tools such as del.icio.us, or citation management tools for researchers such as Connotea, can help learners find a broader community willing to share information and references” (Boholano, 2017, p. 23). This means that social networking includes not only the mass media but tools opted for educational purposes, which can ease the process of studying. The existence of the platforms for sharing valuable resources related to education is the best support for modern learners that could be found online. Finally, the phenomenon of “studyblr” (subsection of Tumblr for posting education-related content) clearly evidences that social media can successively promote learning.
The other important part of social networking sites that should be mentioned is wikis. As a concept, a wiki is a collaborative effort to collect information available to all or some circle of people with the ability to edit it further. Boholano (2017) emphasizes the role of Wikipedia that “exemplifies a fascinating new paradigm… open to everyone, not only to read, but also to create and maintain, and governed primarily by community consensus” (p. 23). The new practice, the free access supported only by the community itself, offers learners a possibility to become familiarized through concise articles available to read on all devices. Furthermore, “intelligent tutoring systems, virtual laboratories, and feedback mechanisms that capture rich information about student performance” help students to feel more important within the educational system (Boholano, 2017, p. 27). Social networking helps create an environment that places a learner in its center and supplies students with interactive, less monotonous tasks to understand new information. In fact, social networking has upgraded the process of learning to a new level if one considers the mentioned benefits; yet, according to other researchers, the benefits are overemphasized.
Accordingly, a valuable study should be mentioned about the lack of evidence for the positive influence of social networking on the process of learning. Namely, Koranteng et al. (2018) have researched if the access to sharing option via social media promotes more engagement among students. First of all, it was found that students do not consider social networking sites as practical tools for learning (Koranteng et al., 2018). Next, “contrary to previous studies which posit that knowledge sharing impacts engagement, it was observed that there is no relationship between the two” (Koranteng et al., 2018, p. 1131). however, the authors of the study highlight that they have researched the students’ performance within the mass media, not the networking sites explicitly created for learning. The functions of various platforms are different, as well as the behaviors and norms of their users, so the results of the study do not disprove the possible value of social networking in education. With these data in mind, it is safe to state that networking is a powerful tool that professionals should integrate into learning.
Finally, it can be argued that communication and feedback through social networking are the leaps forward in accessible and individual learning. The free materials available for everyone make it simpler to organize self-learning for students. Moreover, through the shared posts about education, the young generation gets inspiration and encouragement for their progress. The system of education, as a result, becomes less standardized, which is appropriate for the diversity of people who have different goals in learning. Yet, there is still the presence of authoritative knowledge due to the platforms for referencing, while blogging promotes critical thinking in the acts of gaining new information. The result is a new way of transmitting knowledge that is more collaborative and at the same time applied to the interests of multiple individuals. Moreover, more real-life experiences become available via social networking, especially in the fields of social studies. These facts make it possible to posit the professionalism of the teachers in social networking as a priceless and necessary skill.
Despite all the mentioned benefits, some scholars point that social networking is a negative phenomenon for the wellbeing of modern people. Namely, social networking creates psychological problems under certain circumstances. As such, Verduyn et al. (2020) were able to determine the source of unfavorable influence on wellbeing among users of social networking sites, which is social comparison. Indeed, people share information about their lives which could be viewed by others and raises stimuli for contrast. Social comparison is defined as “the tendency of using other people as sources of information to determine how we are doing relative to others…, or how we should behave, think, and feel” (Verduyn et al., 2020, p. 33). People participate in comparison differently: it depends on their personality and the way of the social networking sites’ usage.
Some details about the differences that determine the consequences of social comparison can be reviewed. First of all, people choose various targets for contrasting them with themselves: these could be persons with higher achievements or lesser. The way of comparison also varies; some tend to see commonalities in themselves and their targets while others see differences. Those who tend to relate themselves with socially unsuccessful individuals feel more negative emotions, as well as those who participate in upward comparison for finding differences (Verduyn et al., 2020). It was found that people who are envious or attention-seeking have lower self-esteem as a result of the comparison (Verduyn et al., 2020). The other factor is the usage manner which can be active when an individual interacts with others and passive if one only gathers others’ information. The second manner was shown to correlate with envious personality traits and, as a result, stress after comparison mechanism’s work. It can seem that those are unrelated factors, but, in fact, they characterize the users of social media precisely. Thus, social networking negatively affects only certain personalities, not all individuals subjected to it.
The other research also deals with the negative impact of social media on the wellbeing of people. Specifically, Raza et al. (2020) aimed to examine the influence of social networking on students, which is especially significant in the current study, emphasizing the education benefits of networking. The researchers wanted to determine the grounds for the use of social media; they had chosen the mass media for this purpose. So, they found that “the need for maintaining interpersonal interconnectivity, entertainment value and social enhancement value” are the primary motifs for using social media (Raza et al., 2020, p. 142). After that, they evaluated the students’ experiences and satisfaction gained in the process. As such, it was discovered that students could feel the social benefits if the media provided them with the fulfillment of their needs. In turn, overuse of the media leads to dissatisfaction because of the overload (Raza et al., 2020). Therefore, the life satisfaction of students using social networking depends on whether they feel social overload in the media or not, which is derived from the ways they use the networking.
The question about the social networking influence on wellbeing is ambiguous; mainly, the impact depends on the usage. The two reviewed studies show different aspects of the performance of people who use social media. It can be their passion towards the content of the social networking sites, the platforms themselves, which have different norms and functions, and the personalities that operate with them. It is clear that the general background of a person, their traits such as envy and attention-seeking result in the negative emotions and oppression of others. So, it is not social media or social networking that facilitates hate, self-guilt, or insecurities. The frequency of the usage also matters a significant part in the question about the influence of social media. It can be thus argued that it is within the individuals’ hands whether to consume the content that can make them fulfilled or to compare themselves to others in a harmful manner. From this perspective, social networking does not differ much from the usual human interactions, which is logically correct: humans are still humans.
To conclude, social networking is a multifaceted phenomenon that differs from person to person. Indeed, it has changed the way of communicating between individuals and the extent to which it is now possible. Social networking has shown to be effective in the areas of human activity that are connected to communication: marketing and education. In marketing, enterprises can prosper due to the help of the analysis through the networks, as well as the feedback option. Consumers, in turn, are not oppressed by sellers and have a voice for communicating their demands. In education, critical thinking and self-management, accessibility and real-life experiences, as well as sharing, result in the effectiveness of learning through networking. Yet, the use of social networking for activities related to comparison or social fulfillment might negatively impact social wellbeing leading to dissatisfaction with life. However, such cases occur in the circumstances in which individuals place themselves because of their personalities.
References
Benson, V., & Filippaios, F. (2019). The role of learning analytics in networking for business and leisure: A study of culture and gender differences in social platform users. Computers in Human Behavior, 92, 613–624. Web.
Boholano, H. (2017). Smart social networking: 21st century teaching and learning skills. Research in Pedagogy, 7(2), 21–29. Web.
Chaffey, D. (2021). Global social media statistics research summary 2022. Smart Insights. Web.
Koranteng, F. N., Wiafe, I., & Kuada, E. (2018). An empirical study of the relationship between social networking sites and students’ engagement in higher education. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 57(5), 1131–1159. Web.
Raza, S. A., Qazi, W., Umer, B., & Khan, K. A. (2020). Influence of social networking sites on life satisfaction among university students: A mediating role of social benefit and social overload. Health Education, 120(2), 141–164. Web.
Sundararaj, V., & Rejeesh, M. R. (2021). A detailed behavioral analysis on consumer and customer changing behavior with respect to social networking sites. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 58, 102190. Web.
Verduyn, P., Gugushvili, N., Massar, K., Täht, K., & Kross, E. (2020). Social comparison on social networking sites. Current Opinion in Psychology, 36, 32–37. Web.