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Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Social Media: (But Were Too Afraid to Ask)

Social Media Examples and Privacy Settings

The things that come to mind when thinking ‘social media’ are mainly the apps themselves– Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, etc. With them come limitations on what people can and cannot do, but because of that each site is beneficial depending on the purpose each person chooses to use it for. Majority of society who are familiar with the social medias are accustomed to know where to look in order to find the desired material. With this in mind, there are multiple ways media can be used due to the many media sites that are used today.

Think Privacy

When signing up for any social media account there will be a step asking if you want to make the new account private or public to the rest of the world. Depending on whatever the choice will determine how much information will be open.
Different social medias have different privacy rules though.

Instagram

For example has a button that when moved to private makes only your profile name, picture, biography and number of followers open to the public. No personal pictures can be shown unless followers are approved to view them manually.
For example, artists can make a public account that shows pictures and descriptions of all his/her work. The artist can benefit from Instagram’s audience by putting contact information on the bio for people interested in buying.

Snapchat

Unlike using Instagram to sell and showcase products a completely different type of social media called Snapchat isn’t used to do such things. Instead what Snapchat does is let a person take a picture with or without filters and send it to someone else to view for ten seconds maximum.
Privacy setting on Snapchat is custom. There is choice on which “friends” get to see your story. There is a choice if you want to add a person back who has added you first. Snapchat even has an area where you and a person can have a conversation and after leaving that area the convo will disappear unless saved.
Privacy has become a huge problem for Snapchat users considering the amount of people who use it to send nudes. “With more teens sharing nudes than ever before, the law has redefined what “sexting” is” (Conners & Okocha 2016).

Facebook

Facebook is a social media that isn’t as popular is it used to be. More popular among parents and grandparents Facebook can be used in a lot of different ways than teens think today.
In my experience, the way my sorority communicates is through private Facebook groups. Currently there are nine pages I am apart of. Other than checking those pages I rarely use Facebook as much as I should.
This type of media is open to a lot of opportunity. People join pages that sell new/used clothing, cars, art, etc. For students there are pages that list current internship opportunities within their area or around the world. Businesses even benefit from Facebook by uploading their current information for the public to view.

Social media today has become overly popular. People rely on it for their social, educational, and business needs. Whether an account is public or private depends on the intentions of the user. Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram are only a few of the medias used out there today, but each is used in a different and specific way.

Work Cites
Conners, Siobhan, & Okocha, Olivia. (2016, March 22). SHINE. Snapchat Can Cause Issues When Teens Send Nude Pictures. Retrieved from http://themash.com/blog/shine-2/2016/03/22/snapchat-can-cause-issues-teens-send-nude-pictures/

Lauren Campanella

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