Final Summary/Reaction

My survey was posted for about a week and a half and I re-posted it a couple of times. After reviewing my results of my survey I was surprised at some of the responses I got. For example, one of my questions was "how do you mostly talk to people?" and I assumed that talking in person would be voted the most, but my results showed that texting was the most voted on. Social media is used everyday and I learned that it affects the way we socialize with each other. My study made me rethink how much I use social media sites.

Update

My plan is still the same. I made my survey and posted it on Facebook and Twitter. Now I am just waiting for the responses.

My plan

My plan for research is to make a survey on Google docs and post it on my Facebook and Twitter, asking everyone to take it. The questions I'm going to ask are general questions about them and how they use social media. The questions range from what websites they go on to how much time they spend on social media sites to how much they believe what they read online. From my results I hope to see if social media has an effect on someone's life.

Research Method

The research method I am choosing is to do a survey on how young people gather/voice information and opinions through social media sites. I chose this method because I can gather the most information from different groups of people and learn about their opinions the easiest. I plan on making a questionnaire and handing it out to friends and family members between the ages of 13-19.

Does an employer have the right to go on Facebook and search your account? This is the question that is being asked in Helena, Montana. In an article i found on the San Francisco Chronicle's website, it discusses the proposal of a bill that will protect workers' social media privacy. This means that employers will not be allowed to ask you for your username and password for Facebook, Twitter, etc.. In 2009, the city of Bozeman required all potential employees to relinquish their social media and personal email usernames and passwords before accepting employment. Employers believed that doing this would enable them to monitor their employees' behavior such as posting sensitive client information on a social media site. The bill passed the Senate with a vote of 48-2 and now needs the committee's endorsement to move to the full House.
I think this article is very important because it asks the question about how much an employer is allowed to go when they are screening potential employees. I do not think it should be allowed for employers to go onto people's Facebook and Twitter to conduct background checks. In addition, I think usernames and especially passwords should be secret and only known to the user. If employers require knowing the password who knows what they can do one your Facebook or even share your passwords with others. I support this bill and hope that eventually the legislate passes it.  

General Public vs. Twitter

An article I found on CNN discussed how Twitter opinions do not match the mainstream opinions. Pew Research Center conducted a year long study where they focused on political events such as the presidential election and presidential debates. Some of the differences they found from the general public's view to tweets was that Twitter was more liberal and always more negative. Some examples were from the first presidential debate and only 20% of the public thought Obama did a better job than Romney, but 59% of tweets favored him. Pew thinks that this is because most Twitter users are younger than 30 and are more likely to be Democrat. Also, the opinions about Senator John Kerry being nominated as Obama's secretary of state split the public 39% approved, 36% disapproved and 26% had no opinion. On Twitter 6% approved while 32% were negative and 62% expressed no opinion. From this, pew said that on Twitter users decide what they think is important enough mention publicly. An example of this is how nearly 14 million people tweeted about Obama's reelection while 70,000 commented on Kerry's nomination.
I think this article is important because it gives us statistics about how the general public views things and how Twitter users view things. The difference in opinion is mostly because of age difference. People who use Twitter are typically young and liberal and want to voice their opinions which are usually negative. Pew found that only 13% of adults use Twitter and only 3% say they tweet. The general public would mostly consist of 30-60 years old opinions. The opinions are also more negative on Twitter because it is easy to say what they think. The Twitter universe loves it when it's being mean to someone. I think this occurs because users are able to say what they want and no one can comment on it, they can only tweet back to them. Social media has spread the thoughts of different opinions everywhere most which are different from the general public and more negative. This article made me ask if opinions of the general public will change because of the use of Twitter.

In this article I found on Yahoo, it discusses how social media may be a big influence of the election in Kenya. In the last election smart phones and media were only for the upper class and most people received information through the newspaper and radio. After the last election in Kenya, violence occurred and negatively affected Kenya's image of stability. Now that smartphones are cheaper and mostly everyone has access to the media, more people are able to find news faster and allow people to "vent" their anger. Blogger and media guru. Bogonko Bosire, says that "70 percent of the election will be driven by social media propaganda " Social media allows voters to discuss their thoughts and arguments for everyone to see and comment on.
I think this article really shows us how much our society is changing because of social media. People are now able to get information fast and easy in addition to being able to share what they think to everyone instantly. If violence occurred after the last election without any social media, their is probably a greater chance that it will happen again because people are able to spread their thoughts and opinions which others could disagree with and cause huge arguments that could lead to violence in Kenya. The election is next week and it is unclear what the outcome of this election could lead to and if social media has an impact on it.

In the video I posted above, it informs us about the social media revolution and how it is changing our society. For example, now 1 in 5 relationships start online. People are being to communicate on social media sites and forming relationships from them. Also, more people are able to get jobs by using websites such as Linkedin. Social media is now a huge component when it comes to marketing. Businesses now use Facebook and Twitter to advertise their product and hope consumers will spread their reviews to their friends. From all the facts and statistics in this video, you can conclude that social media is changing our world at a rapid pace. I think it is a good thing that we can now form relationships and get jobs all online. If this is what the social media revolution is like now, I wonder what it will be like in 5 years.

I found this webpage on Northeastern University news about three questions regarding social media and a professor from the school answered them. The questions were asking if we were dependent on digital media, how digital technology and social networks affect our social skills, and what her prediction on how social networks would shape our society.
 I thought her answers to the questions were really insightful and made me look at social media in a different way. One thing I disagree on in one of her responses is that she says we become more social if we use social media sites, but I do not think so. I think that social media sites are causing us to not talk to people face to face and lead us to communicate behind a computer screen.  

In this article I found on Yahoo, it discusses how Facebook may be used to discover mental illnesses. How? A student from the University of Missouri asked about 200 college students to take a survey and regarding their personalities and social interactions, then hand in a copy of their Facebook profile with the freedom to block out any information they do not want seen. The results exposed information about participant's psychological state. For instance, the results showed that people with more information blacked out had higher levels of paranoia than people who showed more info.
This article talks about an experiment where social media was used to find mental illnesses in college students. Now with the help of social media sites, we are able to use them to find out more about people's state of minds. In the past, people would have to fill out questionnaires to figure out a diagnosis, but now people's activity behavior on the websites can help determine it.The patterns on the social media sites are far more accurate than the questionnaires. Social media sites are adapting and are becoming useful tools in the psychological field.

Hi everyone! My name is Julia and I am blogging about social media and how it relates to and affects society. I'm going to be posting articles, videos, etc. on interesting topics regarding social media such as Twitter and Facebook.