2018-07-30What influences social

Thanks. One conclusion we could drew from Ada’s presentation is Americans spent a lot of time on social media platform. Then, you may ask, what influences do social media bring to Americans’ life?

First, let’s take a look at the benefits side. 

There are two graphs on the screen. The left chart is based on a survey conducted by our group. The title is What benefits do social media bring to Americans’ life? The respondents were 28 local Americans. On the vertical axis we can find 5 different colored bars, which stand for different benefits of social media. The horizontal axis stands for numbers of respondents. 25/28 respondents believed that social media make it easier to interact with friends. 17 thought it was easier to get information by using social media. About 10 people also thought social media help to build social network and make life convenient. 

Our finding that social media make it easier to interact with friends coincides with a survey conducted by PEW research center. On the right side of the screen, the title is “Most Teens feel better connected to friends via social media”. The respondents were 789 teen social media users. The horizonal axis is the percentage of teens who use social media who say it makes them feel… to their friends’ feeling and lives. The vertical axis is the two aspects. On the upper bar, we find 20% of the teens feel a lot better connected to friends and 49% thought a little better connected. In total, 69% thought social media helped better connected to friends’’ feelings. Similarly, 83% thought social media helped to better connected to friends’ lives.

Each coin has two sides. Social media is of no exception.

On this graph, we explore the negative effects of social media. More than half respondents thought social media cause distraction from work and addiction to phones. Other concerns are less face to face communication and harm to health. 

To conclude, we find onaverage, Americans spend lots of time on social media; social media bring both benefits and negative effects. It seems that Americans has a love and hate relationship with social media. Americans would like to reduce their screen time; however, they don’t want to cut social media out of their life. Our recommendation is to find the middlegroud. One of the first step is to install a time tracking app to gather data on habit and track progress. Another important step is to choose some phone-free activities and set up the environment to make them happen. 

Social media could be time sucking temptations or tools for finding deeper fulfillment--- it all depends on how we use them.