How We Use Social Media and Its Impact Over Time

If you're an avid social media user, I bet you have an Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat to name a few.  It may seem like we don't need all these platforms, but they surprisingly satisfy different aspects of what we want to share as users.  For example, if you want to post a cool "artsy" picture of something, or a candid selfie, you'll probably post it to Instagram.  If you have something funny or witty you want to say (that's under 140 characters) you'll most likely tweet it.  An interesting video?  A link to a cool website?  Facebook it! And if you want to pass some time, you'll choose snapchat and send some ugly pics of yourself to your best friends.

The things we post sometimes cross over the different platforms, but that is only because the audience we want to reach sometimes varies.  Facebook has been around for some time now, so we'll post a status if we want to reach a mass population of friends, relatives, and other people that we feel need to know what we want to say.  The different applications allow us to have different gratifications based on the theory of "Uses and Gratifications of CMC."  The traditional mass media theory states that we use media for different reasons and that we are conscious of our media related needs.  We make choices based on personal utility; If I'm sad and want to feel happy, I'll watch a funny youtube video, thus I'll laugh and I'll feel better.

We most commonly use Facebook to socialize,entertain ourselves, exchange information, and self seek.  Similarly we use Twitter to attain these same fulfillments, however,the information we share and seek is slightly different.  However, these applications are only available efficiently to you if you own a smartphone or a computer.  Even a computer is sometimes difficult because it's not easily accessible 24/7. My first phone was the Samsung cell phone that flipped like a regular phone but also like the En-V.  I used to think it was the coolest thing!  Because I needed extra data for things like twitter and Facebook, I never used them.  I also remember, before that way back in 2004 (and for a few years after that when texting really wasn't a thing), my friends and I would use AOL Instant Messenger, or AIM.  If we weren't at our computers, we would put up witty away messages.  These away messages have become sort of the old twitter.  You could put up an away message even if you were there just to be able to broadcast something to your "buddies."  Although AIM is no longer a relevant way to contact people, Apple now has messenger, which is the same concept, but it connects to your phone number so you can text from your computer.  Now there's no way you can pretend you didn't see someone's text!

As technology changes and further satisfies what we want it to do for us as users, we will become more and more dependent on getting gratifications from it.  The amount of favorites/likes on your Instagram picture, Facebook status, or tweet doesn't define who you are and shouldn't be a defining source of enjoyment.  Rather than run our lives, these platforms should supplement our lives, because sooner or later we're going to start to wonder whether we control technology or if it controls us.