Social Media is a huge part of our world today and many of us can’t picture life without it. It has done some great things for the world but it has also had many negative impacts. To fully understand some of these impacts let's look into the history and both the good and bad that came from social media’s two biggest platforms: Facebook and Instagram.
Facebook was originally founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz,and Chris Hughes. It was initially created to solve the problem of connecting people, particularly students within specific universities. Although when the first version of Facebook came out in 2003, it was called Facemash and was only at Harvard. It was used as a website that allowed male Harvard students to rate the attractiveness of the female students. This early version of the app was shut down almost immediately by the school, but it laid the origins for what Facebook would look like in the future.
In February 2004, Mark Zuckerberg and his team launched TheFacebook.com. This version was originally only available for Harvard students and they used it to post personal information, photos and even share class schedules in order to connect with potential classmates. As the site gained popularity at Harvard it expanded to other universities similar to Harvard like Yale and Stanford. Then by June 2004, only a few months since the initial launch, over 250,000 students from 34 schools had signed up.
Facebook was completely changing the way people communicate by connecting individuals from different states, universities and even globally. The app did this by allowing people to share life updates, photos, and personal experiences with friends and family now matter how far the distance. This increased global connections and completely changed how people stayed in touch since nothing like this had ever really been done before. However, although this was a great communication advancement, the creation of Facebook also introduced several negative effects that are still relevant today. These include issues like privacy violations, cyberbullying, and the spread of false information. Although, despite these issues, Facebook’s effect on how people communicate was revolutionary and opened a whole new opportunity for global communication and still to this day has completely changed lives for some people.
Now switching focus to the next biggest thing in the social media world, Instagram. This app was launched in 2010 by co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger and was created to solve the problem of not having a way to share photos and experiences. Although Facebook sort of allowed users to do this, Instagram made it so users could post life updates along with photos, which at the time, it was not common for social media apps to prioritize photos over words. Instagram quickly gained popularity due to its simple focus on image sharing and offering an easy way to enhance photos with filters, which was a very new and popular concept at the time.  |
Alix Early; Very Successful Influencer
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As Instagram grew in popularity, it became the birthplace of the “influencer” trend. These influencers were originally described as individuals who built large social media followings, used their platforms to promote products and services and transformed marketing strategies forever. This new concept completely changed the world because as we know today, influencers are still extremely popular and the ones with the most fame, have become extremely wealthy and successful.
Although, Instagram struggles with issues very similar to Facebook such as, moderating inappropriate content, misinformation, and disinformation. Additionally, studies have shown that Instagram can have very harmful effects on teen mental health, particularly influencing the self esteem and confidence of young girls. Instagram has increased the promotion of unrealistic body image and “FOMO” which are two concepts that negatively affect many young users. Despite this, just like Facebook the platform continues to grow and these issues get swept under the rug because many people believe the positives of the app outweigh the negatives.
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