+ The Future of Social Media By Abigail Boghurst

+ Social Medias Today Social media is a big part of our lives, one average person spends 18% of their time online on social networks. Three very popular social media networks are Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Instagram is a photo sharing app, but also a social network. It can easily be ccompared with twitter, but you can share photos too Facebook is not as popular as it once was with young people, but does not seem to be as popular nowadays. More than one billion viewers view Youtube videos each month!

+ Importance & Impact What impact do Social media sites have on young people today? Social media is most commonly used by young people. Social media is used to communicate with people close or far, it is easier and cheaper than a telephone call. One hundred hours of video is uploaded to Youtube every minute! Easy to stay in touch with each other. Social media is also important for businesses and job hunting. Yet there are so many, and it can be difficult to navigate through all of them!

+ Development & History Pinterest has become very popular recently,, with huge growth and transformations happening over the past year. The last time UK user stats were taken, they were tiny, at around 200,000 users – these figures from 2011/2012. Recent information shows the number at over two million, in July Facebook started February 4 th 2004 and over the past ten years, it has grown immensely! It was originally called thefacebook, and was limited to Harvard University students, but later expanded to other universities too. But eventually Facebook became IPO to anyone 13+ in May Now Facebook has over 1.23 billion active monthly users!

+ Development & History WhatsApp is a text/image version of Skype; it uses an internet connection to send and receive texts, images and video messages which would otherwise be chargeable on a smartphone. Unlike Snapchat, only those in the user’s Contacts can view profiles, and communication is only one-to- one; there is also no “follower” option which allows strangers to view content not directly intended for them, so really it is a messaging rather than social media. Instagram started in October It gained popularity quickly, with 100 million users by April Instagram only added hashtags in early 2011! Instagram still continues to grow, with 150 million users in 2013, an increase of 15% in just two months, and the introduction of a video option could threaten the ongoing growth of Twitter.

+ What are the Advantages of Social Media? Advantages Social media means it is easier to keep in contact with old friends, and also an open door to meeting new ones. It also makes looking for certain buisnesses as they usually have some sort of social networking page where they answer customers questions. Many Social media sites are free! An easy way to keep up with the latest trends and activities, so no one feels left out.

+ What are the Dangers of Social Media? Disadvantages A large amount of people do not know how to use social networking sites, so they find it hard to find out the information they need. Many people post private information which they later regret, and with a lot of sites, e.g Twitter, there is not an option to delete posts. One of the main problems with social media sites is that they waste so much time! It is hard not to get side-tracked when you see one your friends post and then you comment or post and see another one of your friends commented or liked and you then check out their account where you see another one of your friends etc…

+ The Future! How will Social Media have changed in the future? In the future, I think social media will be easier to stay on task. One of the biggest problems is being side-tracked, so it might have an option to block all unrelated posts to the current activity. Millions more people will use it, it will be more popular than posting letters. Campaigns will spread across the networks and it will replace the need for leaflets which come through your door. It will be easier to search using hashtags.