Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites all share a common ground - to connect people through an online platform from all over the world. However, in everyday use each social networking site may serve as a different use for every individual user. Four social networking sites that I will discuss today will be Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. These are the four top social media platforms that I use in my everyday life.

Facebook is a social media platform used to connect with family, friends and various different acquaintances around the world. It can be used to share videos and pictures with family who live on the other side of the world or one can use it to share events that are occurring at one's school. People use it to stay up to date on several people's lives or to keep up to date with what's going on in your school or club - if you have a group page made just for those specific instances. I tend to also get a lot of ads as Facebook is makes a lot of it's revenue from ad marketing services. However, recently in the news Facebook is said to move towards private sharing so it'll be interesting to see how that will change the content of our messages and the content that individuals share.

Twitter is a platform where individuals can update and interact with each other with tweets. However, with the word count limit it keeps most updates concise and to the point. This can be helpful for someone who wants to get a brief recap of a news event (and can click a link to get the full story) or if you have some free time on your hands to mindlessly scroll through your favorite artists twitter updates or see what your friends are up to. I barely use the social media platform, however as it tends to be too distracting because you can end up mindlessly scrolling the app and wasting a lot of time. I already do this with my other social media sites so I don't need twitter as an added distraction.

Instagram is a platform where people edit & share photos and videos with friends and family. If I had to choose out of the four platforms, I would say I use Instagram the most. This social networking site focuses on something millennials usually look for - instant gratification. Visual media is an example of  this as if something looks nice and is visually appealing to the eye - people can just double tap and move on. Of course there are captions (which have no word limit) that can explain the picture further but I find that most people scroll through their friends or a celebrities photos and move on. Usually if a caption has an important message or witty that's how people get comments on said photo. Personally I use the discover page of Instagram the most - its adjusted to my specific preferences whether it be to my favorite music artists, what kind of style I like, or the type of scenery I'm into. This platform also has a lot of targeted ads as well.

Snapchat is a social media platform dedicated to connecting individuals with video/ photo messages that can disappear after a certain amount of time. They were the pioneer of the "stories" feature in which one can see a glimpse of what someone is doing that day in forms of supposed short videos or pictures. Individuals can not only view live stories from their friends but also from around the world - especially during holidays and big events you can get a snapshot of an individual's actions during that moment in time. What is attractive about this platform is most likely due to the fleeting nature of these photos and videos - it's supposed to represent one "living in the moment". However, most times I forget what I message my friends as I'm not on the platform very often.