Is social media stressing you out?
by Marco Tapia
in advisory-training,productivity,
January 11, 2021
In the last 15 years or so millions of people have started to incorporate social media into their lives. In 2020 almost 3.8 Billion people used some forms of social media, whether it be to communicate with friends or plan events with family we both know that social media holds a key part in the modern and tech-savvy world we live in, but there is one problem… Do we use Social media, too much? In this world we live in, why instead of using just a few platforms to communicate with people we decide to use hundreds of apps and websites to plan, talk and share?
First comes the issue of organisation, if you’re receiving messages from multiple social media applications that are all for the same event, how are you meant to organize these pieces of important information in one place? Say you’re going to a party or meeting and you get a Whatsapp message to be there at 10am but then you get a facebook message to be there at 12pm, you could obviously just ask what is the correct time; but what if you received more conflicting information? There is no way to start a group chat because different people are using different services, this is a massive organizational issue that can easily be resolved by arranging an application to be used for communication before organizing the event.
The next problem is an efficiency based one, you want to share information to all your friends, family, clients or employers quickly-but you have to post on each of your social media to get them the message. For example, if you go on holidays to a beautiful island and you want to share photos but you don’t have the time to share them to all your friends and family on different social media outlets like Instagram or Snapchat- you could waste hours editing and posting photos. This can be fixed with a solution to eliminate the problem from its roots, using only 1 social media outlet. Make sure all your friends and family have one Social media application in common and use that to share your information. You may want to use a different application depending on which information you are sending out, Snapchat for short videos or Linkedin for business information.
The last issue is confusion, if you are getting messages from a person on Facebook Messenger and then the next day they use Snapchat- you won’t know which platform to text them on or what they are going to use next, for some this may not be a big problem but for others it can confuse them and make them nervous. A way to fix this is by agreeing to use one social media app instead of many.
I believe to make all our lives easier we should make sure everybody you communicate with understands which apps to use. Some Social Media are useful for somethings and some aren’t, so here is a list to show which social media are good for what.
Facebook is known for its communication capabilities, where you can communicate with friends and family. Facebook has recently gone under fire for selling data to advertisers, which has caused Millions to lose trust in Facebook.. Facebook is a massive company, with more than 2.5 billion active users per month, Facebook also owns other Social Media platforms such as Instagram, Whatsapp and Messenger. To go along with this, Facebook is an American company, and the Data is all stored at Data Centers within the USA, apart from a few in Sweden and Singapore.
Twitter is primarily used for sharing your ideas, opinions and suggestions. Many important people use the App and website, such as famous politicians, Actors and many more types of people. Twitter is known for only allowing short posts, meaning that a large majority of modern quotes come from twitter posts. There is a security concern about Twitter messages not being encrypted after 2 years though, which may upset some audiences. Twitter is much smaller than Facebook though, with only 321 Million users, Twitter is an American company with its Data Centers within the US.
Snapchat is a great place to share photos and short clips with wacky and fun filters, designed for younger audiences like teenagers. Snapchat is very secure- because after messages are read they are instantly deleted from Snapchat’s servers; this feature can be good or bad depending on what your using the application for, if it’s just to chat to a friend it’s fine, but if you’re making plans it is troublesome as you cannot just go back and check if you forget where you need to be or what time you need to be there.
Instagram is a place to share photos, with an on-app camera you can take photos of your meals, holidays and more! Instagram is owned by Facebook, and is home to many influencers that have Millions of followers. These people take photos of their exciting everyday lives (often using or wearing sponsored products) and post them to the world. Since Instagram is owned by Facebook it has all its Data stored in centers across the US.
Linkedin is an amazing place for business people to communicate- it can be used to share ideas and find employers! It is used by most people working in the business industry, it has a very diverse group of employers; from IT companies to accounting, you can be sure to make an amazing network on this social media platform.
Whatsapp is used by many- it is designed for texting and is popular for its group chat features, this is a great platform if you need a large group communicating, Whatsapp is owned by Facebook meaning that almost all their data centers are within the United States. Whatsapp is liked and disliked by different people, some say it is much better than texting, while others hate it for a multitude of reasons.
Gmail is a very basic form of communication, but great for formal letters and it has group chat capabilities- many use it for school work or professional letters. On Gmail you have the ability to effectively sort through your emails by categorising them in separate sections, like promotional emails, spam emails and more. Gmail is made by google, and all their data centers are stored in The United States of America.
With these app suggestions, hopefully you can live a more organized and efficient life with social media!
authors: Isaac and Marco Tapia
January 2021