Since the beginning of the human civilization people got together physically to share their emotions, feeling & experiences because human is a species who likes to be as a herd or as a group. Due to the changes occurred in the behavior & life style with the development of the technology people got isolated. Social Media arose as a solution for isolation which allows people to share their experiences virtually. Thanks for the social media now people in every nook & corner all around the world can get closer and make relationships without any barriers of age, gender, social& cultural issues. Though the social media is for all it is much prevailing among the teen ages & youths. Among all the social media networks Facebook, Tweeter, LinkedIn are the most popular social Medias.
Day by day more & more advanced
and user friendly options and facilities are added to attract more people
towards the social media. In a way,
we can imagine Facebook as a mirror where
Individuals entertain superficially protecting their emotional
relations, “like” button in Facebook; we are hungry for emotional experiences
to fill our inner void, a lot of individuals start to follow tendencies to find
a group, looking for feelings and experiences.
To get
worst, people are starting to accommodate with the ease of smartphones, which
can give them everything they believe is needed without having them to get up
off the couch. This ability smartphones and tablets possess has to be deal with
very carefully as we are might starting to become with time, more narrow-minded
from what’s around us - the system we live in, laws, politics, cultural issues,
etc. What if in a few decades we won’t have access to our Internet browser in
computers and mobiles, only accessing online information through apps? The
answers to this question could be catastrophic for our modern society.
The moment we live in is
probably one of the most decisive for human society, the paths we are taking in
the way of dealing and living with technology will influence our future
generations for ages. Hence, we need to double our attention by deciding who is
leading us and where to. Otherwise, we might find out Albert Einstein's foresee
was right with his saying:“I fear the day when the technology overlaps with our
humanity. The world will only have a generation of idiots.”
When
Social Media was young and emerging, it was considered to be part of
entertainment and interaction. Now we can find social networking being a very
important and an unavoidable aspect in our daily lives. But interestingly this
sector of media has grown into something that is fixed, serious and real.
Everything is recorded, saved and can exists for years or maybe even for decades.
In this chapter we are focusing on different aspects of legal issues in social
media and try to see what future will hold for our generation. More attention
should pay towards the internet law & social behavior business as many
situations are recorded in misusing internet especially in the area of
copyright infringements, trademarks, privacy and business issues. We post
images, videos, music, texts and other material online without letting the
lawful owner know where their content is going to appear. This may cause legal
consequences or in the mildest cases you can get away with it by taking the
content down. However, the best way to spread other users' content is to refer
to the original author if possible. In future regulations on copyrights and trademark
infringements will be most probably even more tighter as this has happened
already in the past years
Most people are already hooked and can’t live without daily dose of social networking. It will be very interesting to see how far social media platforms will take their policies in the future and what will be the result of this.
Not very
long ago we had the freedom to interact with people around the globe
anonymously, without identifying ourselves. An Interactive playground with no
fixed rules and a great platform for entertainment. Now many businesses see a
great opportunity in the social networks, they have emerged to the viral
environment to interact with us. This has lead into loss of personal privacy
and will most probably keep on doing so. Tag, Like, Share, Feed, Tweet, etc.,
but this can all be turned against you. Everything needs to be
identified and boxed, not a single stone can be left unturned in the name of
safety. Social networks ask people to submit their real information and data by
applying “security measures”, but at the same time our data may be already
transferred to the third parties who will find our information as a valuable
asset. That happens often, for example, in the area of advertising. A recent
suspicious example is rumors about anonymous Facebook users buying Estonian Facebook users
accounts and their friends for
personal usage in the area of advertisement .Another very suspicious matter of
social media usage is when judging employees. Most employers search the candidates’
social network profiles to get a better overview of them. This is legal as
there is no law around this, but it has caused a lot of debate on the equality
and neutrality of hiring process. Also firing employees due to their social media activities could be and are considered a legal issue.
Even
though security measures are becoming more and strict, the possibility of
identity thefts might increase, if these sites would ever be hacked. This makes
us think weather we really want to give away valuable information of us or not.
Security is important in reality and we can be more sure about it in real life
then online. Where is our data going online, who is controlling it and what is
done with it, is unquestionably scary? It’s hard to predict weather our future
will bring us more security in the realms of social media platforms, but if the
security measures are more tightened, there is always a small hole in the
system.
Right now the generation
of young people is growing up with a social media. Most of the social media are
made for them being a target audience. It is often providing us to
multi-tasking, therefore, it is difficult to concentrate to one thing and
result for that could be things that are not well done. Generation like this is
“constantly connected”. But to they realize what can be consequences for being
this kind of generation? Is it more a good thing or a bad and how big is
people's awareness of that?
The model of how
youngsters are communicating these days is very different of how it was 10
years ago. In many aspects social media existence is affecting our lives and
not in a good way. For example physical aspect –
young people are using social media very often and the most common way to do
that is sitting behind a computer. That kind of lifestyle is affecting their
body and brain. Although the research of Internet usage is still in its early
stage, constant usage might actually change how our brains work - result for
that can be limited
attention span, bad memory, lower comprehension, poor focus and greater risk
for depression. So
constantly sitting in one position is not good for person health – also
spending lot of time watching the screen is bad for eyes.
Another important aspect
what youngsters are lacking while using social media is their face-to-face
communication with other people. They are being more and more anti-social and
more “media centered” social. When lacking real conversations, people also have
fewer opportunities to self-reflect - children develop in the context of a
relationship and emotions are central in all relationships.
If sometimes even adults
can easily lose themselves in social media and not understand what is right or
wrong then for younger people it is more difficult. But it is much easier for
adults to separate the ethical aspects than it is for children. Cause kids are
saying and doing things they tend to regret latter on. Children are giving up
their privacy before they fully understand what privacy is and why it's
important to all of us.
It is
quite clear that social media has a impact for young people who are growing up
with it – that constant sitting behind computer or looking into screens of
tablets and smart-phones is bad for physical health, communicating in social
media is affecting face-to-face communication and can easily disturb children
mental stages. Also in ethical aspects there can be misunderstands, especially
among youngsters – it is hard to define what is wrong and what is right in
virtual world. But we do not have lots of examples of that kind of generations
so, therefore, it is really hard to see all the consequences that consuming
social media can provide. Probably we are smarter in next 50 years, when more
generations have growing up side by side with social media. The impact of heavy
media and technology use on kids' social, emotional and cognitive development
is only beginning to be studied, and the emergent results are serious. Clinton
article also suggested that they should discuss how social media could help
empower kids to find their voice, their purpose and potentially create the next
technology revolution.
“we don't have a choice on whether
we DO social media, the question is HOW WELL we do it.”
- Erik Qualm an -
This
statement clearly guides us how to use the social media in the correct &
proper manner. It is the responsibility of the elders to guide the youngsters
to use the social media correctly as well as the elders should set examples for
the younger generation in proper use of social media.
Udari Madubashini
[CIS 2010/2011] udasach@gmail.com
Great work nangi keep it up...
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