Introduction
Cause-effect phenomenon means the consequences of something: for example, an influence of technologies on society and the world in general. The technology that I will discuss is social media. In my opinion, they are the most influential disruptive technology because they changed and widely expanded the ways of communication between people. While there are many various technologies, from biotech to robotics and cosmic industry, that shape the future of humanity, social media are at the core of the modern transformation of the world.
Comparing Social Media with Other Disruptive Technologies
One may compare social media with other, more complicated technologies, such as genetic engineering and artificial intelligence. First allows modifying genomes, cures illnesses, and is not limited by that. AI technologies, in connection with robotics and information technologies, led to the creation of various intelligent systems, which influence on the world is tremendous. However, while those technologies are also disruptive, let us consider the influence of the much more common and familiar one: social media websites. Today, they are used everywhere: businesses promote their goods, contact customers, provide services, and do marketing via social networks (Cartwright et al. 41). It helps them raise their brand awareness, and as more and more businesses worldwide use them, the very way of doing business is changing. Education is also transformed by social media, facilitating and increasing information flow: remote studying has become possible, and the opportunities for professional exchange are immense (Greenhow et al. 182). Politicians are now using social networks extensively, such as Facebook and Twitter, to connect with their electorate, communicate their ideas, and sometimes for propaganda (Lupu et al. 160). One may see that social networks are a robust transformative tool.
No matter how complicated the technology is, the degree of its impact on the world is determinative in the question of its cause-effect phenomenon. It is about causal bonds and influence: technologies that influenced the world most are those with pronounced cause-effect patterns. In my opinion, social media win as the most disruptive technology because they are the primary reason for the rapid increase in information flows, which promotes globalization and transforms the way people live (Ngwainmbi 60). By facilitating information flows, connecting people, companies, governments, and other people, they quicken the development of all other technologies. Due to that, they are the most influential and have the strongest cause-effect compared with other technologies. The following parts of the essay describe specific aspects of human life transformed by social media development and widespread.
Interconnection of the World
The foremost consequence of social media widespread is the rise of connections between people in various world locations. Those living in distant locations in the world can now be in touch with each other. Citizens of India and Brazil, for example, may become friends simply using social networks, as now more than one-third of the Earth’s population use social networks regularly (Greenhow et al. 178). I think that the reason for such popularity is that people are social creatures, and thus are always in need of communication and new experience. Social media are so successful in their influence because they work with information, communication and, therefore, influence people’s minds directly.
Usage in Education
The field of education transforms rapidly, facilitating knowledge exchange in various formats, both online and offline. Teachers may cooperate better to teach their students more efficiently, which highly stimulates the progress of technology and humanity in general (Greenhow et al. 180). Students may study online via social media, saving their time and being able to learn more. The valuable information is much easier to find in social media, which are excellent sources of various data. Facilitated communications between various students and teachers make scientific projects easier to realize, accelerating the progress of multiple science fields and technologies. To summarize, one may see on those examples that social networks are the major driver of social change and transformation.
Usage in Businesses
Social media is widely used in business, and probably no company may have sustainable success today without their usage. They help in advertising, product presenting, being in touch with customers, and cooperation with other businesses. They are especially useful in the case of business – business (B2B) cooperation, as they enable quick and efficient communication and idea exchange (Cartwright et al. 45). It helps them create new products and realize them to customers who require them much quicker. In the case of innovative businesses, the speed of innovations generation is constantly accelerating, stimulating progress. Due to globalization and the spread of social networks in various countries, companies may scale up and even become international much easier.
Social Disruptions
As social network usage takes more and more people’s attention, it changes their lives quickly, and not always people are ready for that. Social media are often used for political propaganda, for example, which changes how governments work and communicate with their citizens (Flew and Iosifidis 4). They break existing borders, disrupt cultures while creating new contexts for cultural exchange, communications, and various new boundaries between people. Such influence means that social media change social structures across the world.
Negative Influence on Personalities
While the general cause-effect of social networks may be considered positive, negative consequences are also widely present. In my opinion, all disruptive technologies have both positive and negative influences: the reason is that they rapidly change the initial conditions, creating both new opportunities and threats. Internet addiction and mental issues have become a significant concern in the 21st century, and social media are a large contributor to those modern problems. For example, the habit of posting something into their account became common among people, especially younger ones (Ngwainmbi 57). Adolescents are, in general, more vulnerable to those social network influences: they often spend hours online, with the risk of losing their identity (Elsayed 14). Their sleep problems increased rapidly in the U.S. in the 2010s, which is another negative influence of social networks, as teenagers prefer to spend time online rather than sleep (Abi-Jaoude et al. e138). Thus, social media drastically increase the load on people’s minds, especially in the case of children.
Another negative consequence caused by social networks is the rise of worries, paranoia, and other negative feelings among the world population. The reason for that is the large influx of information: the human brain often cannot manage it easily, being overloaded and causing bad feelings. Fake news and misinformation are also common in modern social media, being the reason for paranoid feelings in various countries (Lupu et al. 160). When politicians, governments, businesses are all trying to promote themselves, they often choose propaganda as their tool. It forces people to mistrust every piece of information found online; while it stimulates critical thinking, paranoia and excessive worry are more common issues. The rise of populism is the consequence of the increased information flows and opportunities to transfer information, as these possibilities enable politicians to fulfill their desire for power (Flew and Iosifidis 1). In that way, social networks are disruptively changing the political situation in the world, often also making people much less trustful and more suspecting.
Overall, social networks, while creating many development opportunities, also hinder motivation to use them due to the large flows of information and, thus, distractions. Sleep time and quality losses, social identity problems, mental issues, wrong information such as suicidal content are examples of unfavorable influences on a human’s mind. Another example is the excess of propaganda and other fake or biased information, which promote negative feelings in those who consume it. Overwhelming information is common in the world influenced by social media; however, those enormous negative consequences are another proof of their power and impact.
Conclusion
I would like to summarize by reviewing the main reasons why social networks are one of the most disruptive technologies:
- They accelerate the progress of all other technologies, which have a large influence on the world as well. They work with information, increasing and facilitating its flow, directly influencing everything in the world.
- They stimulate changes in sociopolitical structure in various countries, changing the ways of communications between people, governments, businesses, totally rebuilding the society.
- They have various and very pronounced negative consequences, which should be faced, such as the rise of the mental issues rate.
Those consequences are large-scale, proving that social media technology has a profound cause-effect phenomenon.
Works Cited
Abi-Jaoude, Elia, et al. “Smartphones, Social Media Use and Youth Mental Health.” CMAJ, vol. 192, no. 6, 2020, pp. E136–41, Web.
Cartwright, Severina, et al. “Strategic Use of Social Media within Business-To-Business (B2B) Marketing: A Systematic Literature Review.” Industrial Marketing Management, vol. 97, Aug. 2021, pp. 35–58, Web.
Elsayed, Walaa. “The Negative Effects of Social Media on the Social Identity of Adolescents from the Perspective of Social Work.” Heliyon, vol. 7, no. 2, Feb. 2021, p. e06327, Web.
Flew, Terry, and Petros Iosifidis. “Populism, Globalisation and Social Media.” International Communication Gazette, vol. 82, no. 1, Oct. 2019, pp. 1–19, Web.
Greenhow, Christine, et al. “What Should Be the Role of Social Media in Education?” Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol. 6, no. 2, Oct. 2019, pp. 178–85, Web.
Lupu, Noam, et al. “Social Media Disruption: Messaging Mistrust in Latin America.” Journal of Democracy, vol. 31, no. 3, 2020, pp. 160–71, Web.
Ngwainmbi, Emmanuel K. “Social Media Use among the Youth and Working Class: Conditions for Remediating Globalization and Cultural Space.” Media in the Global Context, 2019, pp. 49–93, Web.