Social Media as The Most Influential Invention in The Last 100 Years

Hours on end normal people are spending time alone cooped up in a room, but are still connected to the whole world at the click of a button and seamlessly entertained. Well, these regular people could be doing many things with this phone, but the best guess is to turn to social media. With no complaints these people are scrolling continuously through social media. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and more are keeping the world updated on the latest trends. People are interested to see the breaking news because they want to know what is going on in the world around them. Social media gives everyone exactly that. These many factual and information filled cites create so many opportunities, but it can also cause mental sufferings for its users. Social Media is the most influential invention of the last 100 years because it efficiently connects users from all around the world, delivers entertainment, and broadcasts the trends of today.

With the vast amount of people consuming the new technologies it is changing how people connect with their spouses (Ortiz-Ospina). Before all technology, people would have to meet each other in person, and while others still find their soulmates in person, others meet online before in person. Before finding forever partners online through social media, it has to get its start somewhere. One of the first ever social media platforms is My Space. A once remarkably skyrocketing platform, MySpace, in the past came to be a close competitor with Facebook in the early 2000s. Although by 2012 MySpace has no competition with Facebook (Ortiz-Ospina). This shows how social media came to grow, and how now this once huge app does not even exist anymore. Another app that will soon come to an end is TikTok. “TikTok, for example, launched in September 2016 and by mid-2018 it already reached half a billion users. To put this in perspective: TikTok gained on average about 20 million new users per month over this period (Ortiz-Ospina).” This fast growing, wide spread app has connected many young people and even ages beyond the teen years. Diverse individuals can connect through comedy and sharing personal experiences through videos and pictures. Many apps and websites have brought people together to become friends and even more, but the many great attributes do not end here.

Along with connecting users, social media is a huge source of entertainment. Today people use technology for many opportunities such as checking into a hotel or scrolling through instagram when bored, but social media is different. When most people open their social media page they do it to be entertained not updated (Brown). With the latest drama, more people find interest. Instead of watching shows or movies on television more people convert to the internet as entertainment. People have found social media to be a big entertainment factor (Brown). Television has become less and less popular because of how easy the access to entertainment is through a phone. People can use cellular devices to view any source of entertainment while laying down in a bed instead of having to go to living spaces where it might be loud and disruptive. Social media can equip engaging conversation and interesting entertainment at the same time (Brown). For example, through Xbox and other games people can communicate with their friends over a server while playing at the same time (Brown). In 2011, the American Academy of Pediatrics introduced the term “Facebook depression,” described as “depression that develops when preteens and teens spend a great deal of time on social media sites, such as Facebook”(“How Social Media Helps us Connect”). With social media, like Facebook, too much can lead to self of steam drops because of comparing each other's lives (“How Social Media Helps Us Connect”). Everyone knows and can understand the feeling of sadness and unhappiness. Something like social media, which is meant to create interest and happiness, causes so much stress of what a person should look and act like as a person. Instead of focusing on who everyone should be or want to be, each person’s life would be interesting as it is if they stayed as they are. More recently Facebook researchers finally acknowledge what other researchers found, that Facebook products can do real harm (Lanier). This shows how social media’s entertainment can be a good accet, but also bad at the same time and that includes social media trend influences.

Lastly, the users of social media influence today's trends. All over the world there are people that can be called connectors or sales people that start and end the great fashion and social trends (Kizer). These are interesting and different people that are very social to show people the best of different brands that they promote. These connecters use the social media platform and many followers to promote different brands, such as for clothing. Connectors, who set the trends, use their platform to send messages and promote products to the right group of people (Kizer). For example, if a clothing company is trying to sell a high heel shoe that is in women sizes it would be best to promote the product to a platform with mostly women. When production companies are beginning to form a new social media platform they first look at today's trends and end with looking at the rate of the use of social media on the newer communication technologies (Ortiz-Ospina). The apps set their trends on the group or age group that they want to reach. They will choose which people that are thought to like the product. Social media has many different kinds of trends and one of them is an age trend. The majority of people under 25 use Snapchat (73 percent), while only 3 percent of people over 65 use it (Ortiz-Ospina). There is also a gender trend through certain apps men and women use certain social media more than the other. For example, women use pinterest more than men do because it is all about the interest within the app. Social media has set the trends because of the role models and the particular users it has on the sites.

In conclusion, the most influential invention in the last 100 years is social media because it connects users from all around the world, generates entertainment, and influences the trends of today. People that use social media can potentially find their best friends and spouses. Through different movies and shows entertainment is a huge source of its followers. Although social media has its down side. By comparing each other by outer features and wealth, that is shown off through social media, as people self of steam is lowered. Feeling confident and whole as a person for a lifetime is more valuable than being entertained for a short time. Lastly trends are formed by the influential users of social media. The users engage in fashion and sports trends as hobbies and it is how society operates. Social media is a two in one to be taken advantage of. For those many numerous reasons that is why social media is the most influential invention in the last 100 years.