Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media

Question: Discuss about the Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media. Answer: Introduction Internet and social media has been revolutionized changing and impacting every individuals life. Social media and communicating websites are used extensively for building relationships and maintaining them. The study pertains to the research question, How has social media altered the concept of friendship? Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp and other prominent social media platforms is changing the way friendship as it used to be a decade back. Earlier people with whom they spent their childhood or school and college days used to be called as friends. But now due to availability of large platform, individuals are making friends with others from across the globe. People who have not met or are not acquaintances also is getting friends, chatting online and sharing common topics of discussions. The scope of this essay is to analyze the research question, conduct an interview with a questionnaire set to 8 people and then analyze findings from such interview results. The aim of the study is to understand how has definition of friendship changed over the years with introduction of Facebook and other popular social media sites. The central research question of the study is, How has social media altered the concept of friendship?. Sample Methodology Research methodology pertains to the research design prepared for conducting the study. Further, Research Approach for this study was selected to be deductive method. Research approach provides direction to the study and helps scholar reach the aim. In deductive approach, scholar tests results up means of hypothesis. Then Research strategy for data collection is chosen, which involves accessing and analyzing qualitative data. Scholar in any study needs to adopt and approve a data collection procedure, such that precise data can be collected and appropriate results can be reached. Primary data collected by way of interview and survey. 8 individuals from shopping mall area in Russell Street, Singapore were asked questions from the sample questionnaire. The set of questions is provided in Appendix 1 attached below. For primary data collection sampling method was used as it is nearly impossible to collect large amounts of data and analyze them. Secondary data collection procedure was als o used for the study. Secondary data sources included journals, company magazines for other smartphone application software, internet, articles, and books and so on. The scholar through progress of his research determined data validity and reliability. Sample data was collected mostly from people of young age to middle age between 17 to 35. Both male and female were interviewed for relevant data collection and most of them were students or working professionals in banks, MNCs and other private companies. Participants from interview mostly belonged to Singapore and some were immigrants from Malaysia, Indonesia, Bali and other neighboring countries who were on work visas. The interview was mostly conducted within the shopping mall area in Russell Street and the setting of the interview included Saturday evening, where people were out with their friends and family to shop or spend time together. Reflection of methodology: The research conducted has a few limitations as it was conducted on a mass of 8 people only. The study has been undertaken in Singapore and hence cannot be applied world over. It is also a theoretical study with unanimousity in approach. Findings Analysis Data collection from interviews and surveys reflect a lot of relevant information regarding the research. The information collected and analyzed is mostly consistent with similar studies in relevant field. Other studies conducted in journals also depict that social media platforms have significantly altered and influenced concept of friendship. Hence data collected in the interview is generalizable. The data collected pertained to finding various information regarding individuals and their reasons for using social networking platforms. The research contained information regarding individuals gender, status, education and reasons for opting social media websites. Most people responded that they mostly go to social media platforms for making friends and they often accept strangers friend requests. This is in sharp contrast to the traditional idea of friendship which was to make friends on basis of personal interests. This data collected when analyzed provided useful and helpful insights into the relevant concept of friendship as it is seen today. Post collection of data it was found that majority of people uses smartphones. Almost all of them have Facebook and its messenger devise or other similar social networking sites. All agreed that they have a minimum of ten friends on Facebook who they do not know personally. Findings from other research indicates that people opt for online friends as they like having conversation with unknown people, where they can share their thoughts. Findings of the study were in consistent with those results as most indicated that they like to be online for making new friends and chatting with unknown persons. Results from previous studies indicate that social networking sites have a lot of people in the age group 16 to 35. Findings from the study shows similar patterns, that those in this age group have greater affinity towards using of social networking sites. Individuals generally have accounts of more than one social networking sites to find their interests or people whom they can associate with. The research also demonstrates that each person has at least two or more accounts of social media sites. Most people describe that they have faced unique experience online while in social networking sites. This research also indicates that people have enjoyable and memorable experience at some time or other in social networking sites. People select a social networking site based on reference received from their friends or colleagues. This study also reflects that individual made their selection to be present in a social networking site based on a friends or colleagues suggestion. In case any person meets another individual who is a Facebook or other social media friend then there is a high probability that the other person might not recognize that person. Thus, the concept of friendship has undergone tremendous revolution ever since its social media sites have been using tags as friends and friend lists. Conclusion Social media has greatly changed concepts of human beings and their perspectives regarding a lot of things. One of the most popular impacts of social media websites is friendship. Research and findings from the above study concludes that friendship on a social media website is a popular concept and used by many to increase their social circle. Though they refer to these acquaintances online as friends, they do not have any relevant personal ideas regarding these people. Friendship earlier used to be referred to as a special bonding between two individuals which have now completely changed to accommodate newer themes and concepts. Bibliography Cline, R. R. "Data collection methods. ." Introduction to the Pharmacy Business Administration Series., 2011. Kaplan, Andreas M., and Michael Haenlein. " "Users of the world, unite! 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