Bob Collins Dietel-McLaughlin Multimedia Writing and Rhetoric 12/10/13 Social Media is The Future Social Media has

been a highly contemplated and debated topic throughout the last ten years ever since the forming of Facebook in 2004. Being the largest social media site, Facebook has grown to include over 1.1 billion users worldwide. Starting with only one million users in 2005, it has been the fastest growing form of communication and technology in history (Henrikson). The users on Facebook population as a whole would make up the third largest country, and this is without China which has plans to lift its ban in the near future. Mark Zuckerburgs final plan is to, create a business empire that touches virtually every computer in the world (Hempel 7). With lofty goals such as this and so much growth in such little time, controversy is bound to arise. Many people believe that Social Media as a whole does not have a place in business. Also, some believe that it brings along a negative presence, distracting what should. Although there is the belief in individuals globally, the potential for the future of social media is far more important as a global social technology that could benefit communication, business, and research. Global Social Technologies is a new phenomenon for the future of social media. This platform will integrate social media into business, research, and communications in an effort to

increase efficiency of research, business, and education globally. The main idea behind this is that everyone will essentially have access to all research and communications online. It is a forum to share your ideas and work to the world. This allows research to be much more simplified as all research, past and present, is in one centralized location. Also, for communication instead of email, people can connect through social media. This eliminates the one to one communication and instead allows for many to many communication. This way, everyone is on board with each other at all times. Another important aspect is it serving as a medium to conduct business transactions, whether it is online shopping, advertising, or sales and trading. The idea is a very interesting one, and can be in the near future. With this central social platform, anyone within a group can access and consume content or information (Chui 5). With all of this information in a central location as well as quick and easy communication, the average worker could increase production twenty to twenty five percent. With this spread across the global workforce, between $900 billion and 1.3$ trillion could be added to the economy (Chui 4). This is obviously a large number, as this would represent if businesses and consumers would use this social media platform to its full potential. Most of this would come from the improved communications and collaborations between companies which would increase productivity by a great deal. I will explain the benefits that lead to this in the following. A key component in the conversation of why social media should not be a part of our daily lives is the effect some perceive it has on the growing generation of children. There have been a lot of mixed reviews, but a few claims have become prevalent and generally accepted.

The first of which is that Facebook can negatively impact the learning of a student. Obviously, Social Media is as a distraction from work as students find it hard to focus on studies when they can be interacting with friends online. In a study of teenage study habits conducted by Dr. Larry Rosen, it was found that students who checked social media at least once in a fifteen minute study period averaged well below those who resisted this temptation (Nauert 2). This is definitely a problem that comes along with social media, especially with children and teens who are easily distracted from studies. This problem can easily be turned around to benefit education. The solution lies within integrating social media into both education and research. Teachers should be keeping up with the technologies of today, and social media is definitely an important one. Currently, it may be tough to utilize social media in elementary level education. For now, the utilization lies within higher education, such as undergraduate and graduate schools, and high school level education. A great example of this that could be used before was conducted at Davidson University in North Carolina. A professor at the University of Berkeley conducted an interactive lecture using Skype in which there was interaction between the students and the professor, making it remarkably similar to a regular lecture. When asked about it, professor Rheingold said, As radical as it was for me personally, my Skype lecture was just part of the rapidly expanding universe of social media in higher education. Interactive, community focused online tools- think of programs like Skype, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogs, Wikis, and the educational software blackboard- are becoming so dominant in the classroom that it's hard to imagine any professor or student making it through a week (or even a day) without them (Blankenship 2). This shows the future social media has in technology. With a global social platform, this would only increase as all these

different social media platforms would be united into one unit that all would be able to access easily. In college students, as they are more mature and experienced, the use of social media is not associated with negative tendencies in education. As most would think the use of social media is a distractor for studies so social media use and academic performance should be inversely related. A study was conducted at the University Of Windsor in which 94% of the student body had a Facebook (Ross 578). Essentially, this showed Facebook was a major asset to this University. The students were polled on Facebook use as well as studied and interviewed for level of motivation in studies. The findings were interesting as, Those in the high motivation group typically checked their wall once daily, while those in the low motivation group typically checked their wall approximately once monthly. Motivation was not related to communicative features of Facebook use. (Ross 581). It is interesting to see this, as the students who were more motivated in studies also were very actively involved in Facebook. This study shows motivation for studies is not related to more Facebook use. Instead, those who are less motivated to check their Facebook page are also less inclined to put effort and time into studies. Notre Dame has realized the potential for Social Media and its place in the educational world as a means of sharing important research; a global social media platform will only enable this more. Spelled out in the directory, the Notre Dame Office of Communication states, Social media also allows for easy sharing and re-purposing of existing content, thereby expanding the reach of your work and enabling others to share it with their friends and networks (Notre Dame). This truly represents the role a global social media platform can have with research. Higher learning and research institutions across the world could share the information they have

found out in all subjects. Through this, information could be shared easily and efficiently on top of the line technologies and studies in all fields. With everyone working together and sharing their findings, possibilities are endless. This could especially help out in the medical field, where universities and research institutions are constantly trying to develop cures and vaccines for major health problems. Social Technologies can help share their findings, so no one is wasting time looking for cures or treatments in the wrong places where people have already tested over and over again. The global social platform also would heavily help the business world in a number of ways. First off, the potential economic value of business advertising through Social Media business is astounding, mainly due to the high population participating and the information available. This would only increase with a global social platform. Facebook has the plan to, turn into the planets standardized communication and marketing platform, as ubiquitous and intuitive as the telephone, but far more interactive (Hempel 2). Facebook is such a valuable asset to advertising and marketing companies as it has an extremely vast user base with over one billion users worldwide. On top of this, Facebook knows the interests, hobbies, and basic information for each user. This is an absolute magnet for any advertising agency or company. They can finally curtail each ad specifically for a group of people with common interests. Facebook and Social Media Websites have enormous potential with this, as $102 billion was spent on online advertising throughout 2012 (Hof). This is only expected to grow with a social media platform. Businesses are realizing the potential and need to advertise through social media in order to keep up with the modern world.

Facebook has put a lot of thought into advertisements and their impact. At least for the time being, Facebook is attempting to limit the marketing in an attempt to make it not obtrusive, and users can control what kind of advertising they see (Hempel 5). This is essential in keeping users coming back. If they were bombarded with several random ads, many would think less of Facebook and some may choose not to come back. Users can still enjoy the Social Media tools without being overloaded. This is one of the keys of Facebook; people dont mind the small apps that are there, mainly because each one of the ads are curtailed specifically for them. For example, on my Facebook there are ads that interest me specifically. I see many about lacrosse and Notre Dame, which cause me to click and see what else is there a lot of the time. This will only continue and strengthen and grow with a global media platform, as more people and businesses will be spending more time and resources on it. Businesses are already using social media to advance their companies, utilizing it for advertisements and sales. Already, 70% of companies using social media to advance their business and 90% of which report business benefit from the use of social media (Chui 2). This is already a large proportion of businesses utilizing the benefits of social media. Although businesses are using social media, this does not mean they are utilizing everything social media has to offer. The possibilities for the future are limitless; Mark Zuckerburg dreams of, turning Facebook into the planets standardized communication and marketing platform (CNN/Hempel 2). This is essentially the social media platform, and it is a dream of Facebooks CEO Mark Zuckerburg. If any social media website were to accomplish such a thing in the near future, it would be Facebook as it definitely has the largest population of users as well as the most technology behind it.

A perfect example of Social Media becoming a part of business and interconnecting the two is occurring at Stryker. Stryker is a medical technology company with over 22,000 employees over 15 global divisions (stryker). Needless to say, with so many employees communication and productivity is sometimes hard to maintain. Because of this, they saw the potential of creating a social media platform for their employees to communicate through. They have definitely reaped benefits from the social media website. Employees each have a profile to show what they are currently working on and their position. Through this profile, they can follow various projects and their progress. When following these projects, they consistently get updated on how projects are going. On top of this, they can add their input or any potential changes or suggestions they have. This utilizes the idea of one to many communication that social media is perfect for. It also has a directory for simple and easy communication. Finally, this benefits research as all their product research and market research are also provided on Stryker Connect. This is essentially very important because it is progress. It may not be one global social platform, but it is a platform for communication, research, and business within Stryker. It is a smaller model of what the global social media platform could be. Although there are a ton of benefits from the global social media platform, it would need to be a global project with a ton of participants. Some key functionalities that need to accompany the use of a global social media platform for research is collaboration and participation. As Howard Rheingold, the Virtual Communities and Social Media teacher at Stanford and UCBerkeley discusses, social media would be pointless to assist research without them. As for participation, he says, This is a question of being a good participant of knowing how and when to comment and post your input that is helpful and appropriate (Blankenship 2). Social media

cannot function without the continuous participation of all those involved. A global social media platform for communication could not function if there was no communication occurring. This has not been a problem thus far, with sites such as Wikipedia getting all their information through participants posting their knowledge. This would just need to continue and grow with one social media platform. Participation is a must. Another key factor Rheingold discusses is collaboration, saying, Online communities are designed to thrive via collaboration and that lone wolves refusing to listen to other people are going to slow down or derail progress. People need to embrace each other's contributions, and therefore, users need to become literate in the skills of collaboration, both online and in the actual world (Blankenship 2). This just reiterates the idea that the social technology will be an online community and because of this it will need to be one community effort in bettering it. In order to be a global community, a lot of input is necessary. Essentially the whole business world would be connected within one Social Media platform, saving both time and effort in research, communication, and sales. This one conjoined Social Media platform may not be in the near future, but it is definitely in site. The economic and communication benefits of such technology are immeasurable. Currently, one in five online hours is spent on social networking, only growing via mobile devices (Chui 3). Many people and businesses need to realize the importance of this as the use of Social Media is not even ten years old. It is the fastest growing form of communication ever and will only grow from here. A global social media platform is not that far off in the future, with Stryker Connect being a perfect example of this. It will have unprecedented benefits for business, communication, and research when it does eventually

become a part of our daily lives. Watching the progress in these fields due to the integration of social media, and maybe even a social media platform in the future will be astounding.

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"Social Media Guidelines." Social Media Guidelines. University of Notre Dame. University of Notre Dame Office of Public Affairs and Communications, n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2013.