HARROLD BABON, M.
A Political Science : International Politics and International Law
WRITING SAMPLE
TOPIC: SOCIAL MEDIA
INTODUCTION
We live in an era where social media is mentioned on daily bases. Nowadays, as electronic mobile
devices and internet are within reach, the proliferation of different social medias is conspicuous.
As such, private and public structures rely much on those medias for a variety of reasons. President
Donald Trump’s political-purposed tweets and private family conversations between separate
members in Canada and Cameroon illustrate the high and the low spheres in which social media is
being utilized. The main aims of social media could be summarized in communication, advertising
and creating awareness. From the 19th century so far, social media has become the most popular
computer-based technology in the world (Statista Research Department, 2021). Some users might
spend as much as 144 minutes per day on social media. It is believed that by 2025, around 4.41
billion people will become involved in social media. Most compelling evidence, more and more
“people rely on their phones to make payments, store boarding passes, manage finances” (Mendes,
2020). Forthwith, the “social media players to blend social and financial functionalities into one
platform is growing”. This gives an insight an extent of dependence on social media in
contemporary world. Therefore, this essay will briefly outline the catalyzers and the consequences
of social media enhancement from the 19th century until now. We argue that novel COVID-19
pandemic has been one of the main imbue to the hook-on social media so far in the 20th century.
This paper will be structured in a dyad. On one hand, (A) it will examine three main triggers of
social media in the 19th and 20th century. On the other hand, (B) it will scrutinize three
consequences of this social fact.
A. STIMULI TOWARDS SOCIAL MEDIA
The First and foremost contemporary stimulus of social media is the quarantine measures taken to
prevent COVID-19 pandemic’s propagation. The outbreak of COVID-19 let to “ghost towns” and
“stay at home” policies. This led people from governmental services, firms, schools, and
nonessential services to conduct their activities from home. Consequently, most people who had
access to the internet, through their mobile devices, got more than bonded to them for several
reasons. Two of those reasons might be getting the global news on the pandemic and the need to
stay in touch with siblings and relatives. Additionally, the share of feelings – through social media
- about the lockdown caused by the pandemic, further explains how COVID-19 pushed some users
to a certain addiction. Some of those medias are Tik-tok, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. As
such, COVID-19 could be considered as a real leverage to increased use of social media in our
time.
Another essential point that accounts for the growing use of social media, is accessibility to
internet. Ancient communication methods (letter writing, smoke signals etc.) have been replaced
by electronic methods (E-mails, Television and Cell phones). Nevertheless, these electronic
methods were not accessible to many individuals. Thus, most of them could not use social media
as today. In developing countries for instance, people do have more access to better internet
connection that gives them the easy access to social networking. In this vein, Kamdem (2021)
examines how the overview internet use in Cameroon is annually increasing by 16.3%. This could
serve as a second catalyzer to social media boost.
Equally important, it would be wrong not to mention the appropriation of social media as essential
tools for modern commercial exchanges. In this respect, some firms such as Amazon or Ali Baba,
use social media to facilitate the marketing and purchasing of the products they sell. Retailers also
benefit a lot from the sales made through social networks. This factor adds value to the justification
for the widespread use of social networks.
The growth in the use of social media is not without any consequences to society. In this
connection, the following will analyse the different impacts of this increase.
B. IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA’S OVERGROWTH
The first consequence of social media enhancement is the facilitation in communication and the
creation of awareness. Increasingly, government officials, companies’ advertisements, traditional
medias, and individuals use social media essentially for communication purposes. As a result, the
message they try to spread finds a wider audience. In the same way, various people are being
influenced through social media in various aspects of life in society. For instance, it is quite easy
to sensibilize multitude of people on the dangers of drug abuse, sexual assault, and other gangrenes
of the society. Arguably, it is a positive impact of social media to some extent.
In a distinct perspective, social media proliferation could accentuate misinformation. Considering
the point on the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect, it could be seen that social media has been a vector
of misinformation on certain sensible topics, notably, the death toll per day, the number of COVID-
19 cases, conspiracies behind the origin of COVID-19 and its vaccine etc. Misinformation usually
caused many individuals to develop anti-social feelings, paranoia, and psychosis. To illustrate that,
cities like Montreal witnessed tough scrambling for toilette tissue by some customers at the break-
out of the pandemic in Canada. It is alleged that most of the scramblers followed up a tendency
seen from social media. This is a negative consequence of social media in the COVID-19 pandemic
era.
Lastly, the social media enhancement has an influence on some types of psychological illness. The
sacrosanct positive factors could easily spark off salvatory considerations on social media.
Notwithstanding, its proliferation generates a virtual sphere that manufactures some degree of
insecurity in some users. As some hibernate their lifestyle in social medias, they tend to be
completely infeudated by what other users (influencers) set down as standards. As a result, failure
to cope with those standards tends to generate jealousy, envy and deep emotional desiccation which
could lead to suicidal intention. The latest could equally be a result of online bullying. This is one
of the main deleterious effects of social media enhancement.
CONCLUSION
It has been shown that the contemporary social media enhancement could be explained by the
COVID-19 pandemic, the accessibility to internet and commercial purposes. In this regard,
different users have become more and more geared towards a dependence of these medias in their
routine. That aside, the ease in communication, misinformation and the risk of psychological
diseases embody some of the impacts of that proliferation. As every other phenomenon, there is
another side of the coin which balances and re-equilibrates eventual addictions on social media.
By means of conclusion, one can say that social media is an almost indispensable networking assert
nowadays which needs to be used rationally and wisely by individuals.
