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Introduction

Human communication and interaction have been practiced for ages. The earliest known

form of communication is by written messages delivered by hand from one person to another or

also known as letters. The earliest form of postal service dates back to 550 B.C. which became

widespread in the future (Hendricks, 2013). An agency in the U.S. Department of Defense which

is called Pentagon’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) builds a project about

building a network that could allow scientists at different locations to share information and

work together on scientific projects and could function even if part of the network were disabled

or destroyed by a disaster such as a nuclear attack. The original ARPANET, a network, consisted

of four main computers, one each located at the University of California at Santa Barbara,

University of California at Los Angeles, the Stanford Research Institute, and the University of

Utah. Each of these computers worked as a server on the network. According to the journal

entitled "The Internet and World Wide Web"; by 1984, ARPANET had more than 1,000

individual computers linked as hosts or servers. Today, more than 550 million hosts connect to

the Internet. The Internet is a widely used research tool, providing society with access to global

information and instant communications. It is a worldwide collection of networks that links

millions of individuals, industries, political agencies, and educational institutions. Each of the

networks on the Internet provides resources that add to the great number of goods, services, and

information accessible via the Internet.

The creation of the World Wide Web and the increase in instantaneous connectivity of

the Internet is considered as the starting period of social media. The rise of the Internet would

open up many possibilities and uses that can be developed in the future. If we go back in the ‘70s

and ‘80s, CompuServe presented an instantaneous communication with people living miles

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away. Individuals on CompuServe could only send and receive text messages, which were

known as emails although the speed of the connection before is much slower than today (Das,

2016). As the world became rapidly connected, in the 1990s, personal computers had grown in

popularity in developed nations, and people started realizing the potential that a connected world

may have.

Social media or social networking is an online platform for people to share, discuss or

publish their issues, interest, and opinions. It also serves to connect users with their friends,

family, and acquaintances. Social media is used to share or exchange information, ideas, images,

videos, and audio through a particular network. The first successful social medium called

Classmates.com was founded in 1995. The website worked in the form of providing virtual

reunions of classmates from years ago (Das, 2016). After several years, the online marketplace

and search engines become popular. Back in the 90s, Yahoo! was the most used search engine

and its popularized email services. In addition, it also gave rise to the chat service called Yahoo

Messenger. It promoted casual chatting and the concept of ‘chat rooms. However, unlike today,

chatting was not quite popular in the early 2000s because not all people have access to the

internet. Friendster was formed in 2002 and became popular in its starting period. The

fundamentals of it lay in providing ‘Circles’, or common interests where users with common

interests could join, share, discuss and make friends. Some unexpected reasons like flawed

management practices led to its notable downfall. This was soon followed by a social medium,

LinkedIn. It was formed in 2003 and was aimed particularly at business users to form

professional networks and business connections. Several years later, Facebook, Twitter, and even

YouTube took social media further. With millions of users around the globe, connecting with

people, expressing emotions, sharing ideas and discovering information was never been so easy.

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However, despite the popularity of these social media platforms, it affects the daily life of a

person and changes the culture or norms in society. Being connected online reduces your time to

be physically contacted to your family or friends. These changes brought a difference in the

culture then and now.

This paper will discuss what is global social media and how it can affect our culture.

2. Discussion

The emergence of wireless links and knowledge to computer and technology opened a

global platform for communication to exist nationally and even internationally among nations

further widening globalization.

2.1 Social media sites

Governments use social media to expand their influence and reach to new and diverse

audiences to present their agenda. Also, social media allows its audience to reach and comment

making for the government easy to observe their people's thoughts and needs. These online

platforms amass millions of users as of today and each of them has a specific target of an

audience and that reduces the competition between them. Social Networking Sites (SNS) are

basically internet-based tools that facilitate communication and content exchange in multiple

ways.

2.1.1 Facebook

Facebook is a social networking site that enables you to share announcements, requests

for feedback, questions, and links with an interested community that also gives people a place to

share information. It was founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommate and

fellow Harvard University student Eduardo Saverin. This network was extended beyond

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educational institutions to anyone with a registered email address. The site remains free to join

and makes a profit through advertising revenue (Phillips, 2007). The site's features have

continued to develop during 2007. Users can now give gifts to friends, post free classified

advertisements and even develop their applications. After some new improvements and

development, Facebook, nowadays, becomes a norm in the society that for a person to be

connected, he/she should have a Facebook account. As of 2019, it has 2.41 billion monthly

active users (Clement, 2019).

2.1.2. Twitter

Twitter is a microblogging service. it was launch in 2006. By the beginning of 2013, the

platform claims to have more than 200 million active users, who post over 400 million tweets per

day (Twitter, 2013). Twitter is a free social media site that allows people to share information, in

the real-time news feed. Users can post their experiences and thoughts called "tweets", which are

limited to 280 characters. Twitter allows the free exchange of ideas nationally and globally,

between people interested in similar areas of expertise, as well as providing the opportunity to

engage in critical debate. Nowadays, Twitter is more popular for its trending posts. People use a

hashtag before a word or a phrase so that people interested in the topic can seek related post

about it by clicking it.

2.1.3. YouTube

YouTube is the largest video content provider in the world. (Zhu, 2012). It was founded

in 2005. As of 2019, it has around 2 billion active users. According to public statistics, more than

48 hours of video content is uploaded every minute and 3 billion views are generated every day.

Also, YouTube connects with major online social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and

Google+. YouTube serves as a popular social network on its own, connecting registered users

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through subscriptions that notify subscribers of the social and content updates of content

providers (Zhu, 2012). YouTube can also identify what's the popular video right now. YouTube

is commonly known for its music provider because artists or singers upload their work on it to

gain popularity. These videos on YouTube can be converted into audio by some video converter

sites so you can be able to download the audio format of your favorite music.

2.1.4 Instagram

Instagram is a social networking site used to share photos, videos, and messages. It was

launched in 2010. People use Instagram to celebrate big events, share everyday moments, keep

in touch with friends and family, build communities of support and meet others who share

similar passions and interests. Instagram allows users to capture photos or videos anywhere they

are at any time and share it with their followers globally. There are almost 500 million users can

access the app daily. Through Instagram, marketers, and businessmen can interact with their

customers by sharing photos and videos and leaving comments as a way of sharing information;

receiving comments and likes as a way of gaining feedback from customers. It has been used as a

marketing tool by many global business companies (Lim & Yazdanifard, 2014). Therefore, the

social networking site that best fits the marketing strategy is Instagram.

These social media sites are the product of growing technology and also modernization.

Nowadays, usage of social media has been an important part of one’s daily life from shopping to

electronic mails, education and business tool. Social media plays an essential role in changing

people’s lifestyles. However, social media can abuse society by invading people’s privacy, it can

also provide false information that can mislead people. Proper use of social is beneficial but

should be in a limited way.

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2.2. Number of People using Social Media

Global digital growth shows no sign of slowing, with a million new people around the

world coming online every day. Currently, 45 percent of the world’s population are now social

media users, which is about 3.5 billion people.

Figure 1. Top countries based on number of Facebook users as of July 2019 (in millions)

In the graph shown above, millions of people use Facebook, especially in India and

United States, where the population is dense. Philippines is also among the top countries with 68

million Facebook users.

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 Figure 2. Facebook users in the United States as of August 2019, by age group and gender

As of August 2019, female users aged 25 to 34 years were the biggest group of Facebook

users in the United States, accounting for 12.4 percent of the social network's user base. Men of

the same age group accounted for 11.8 percent of Facebook users in the United States (Clement,

2019). Facebook is more popular in women in every age group.

Figure 3. Number of social network users worldwide from 2010 to 2021 (in billions)

According to Statista 2019, the estimated number of people using social media is 2.65

billion in 2018 and it will increase to 2.96 billion by 2020. It shows that people are gradually

exposed to the virtual world at an earlier age.

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Figure 4. Popular social networks worldwide as of July 2019, ranked by number of active users
(in millions)
Facebook was the first social network to surpass 1 billion registered accounts and

currently sits at almost 2.38 billion monthly active users. Sixth-ranked photo-sharing app

Instagram had 1 billion monthly active accounts. It seems that Facebook and YouTube are more

popular among the internet users around the world.

2.2.1 Time Spent on Social Networking

As of 2018, the average daily social media usage of internet users worldwide estimated to

136 minutes per day, up from 135 minutes in the previous year. Currently, the country with the

most time spent on social media per day is the Philippines, with online users spending an average

of four hours and one minute on social media each day. On the other hand, the daily time spent

with social media in the U.S. was just one hour and 57 minutes.

During a global online user survey in February 2019, a share of respondents stated that

social media had increased their access to information, ease of communication, and freedom of

expression.

2.3. Impact of Social Media in our Culture

Social media is an important part of our life because it promotes the connection and

relationship of our culturally diverse world. Social media links people around the world

regardless of diversity and geographical boundaries thus bringing people from different cultures

together in the “global village.” Online networking, entertainment, and journalism and opinion

writing have become a part of everyday life. Through the power of social media, organizations

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and individuals can reach audiences in large numbers not previously accessible through

traditional media channels. Social media has become impossible to ignore in today’s

technological society.

2.3.1 Education

Traditionally, we are learning through textbooks or printed materials either borrowed

from school or library. The emergence of technology enables us to use social networking sites

that improve our communication and information gathering. The use of social networks

complements and enhances teaching in traditional classrooms. For example, YouTube,

Facebook, wikis, and blogs provide a huge amount of material on a wide range of subjects. Even

textbooks or e-books, and research materials are uploaded and available online for easier access.

Users can have many social media tools at their fingertips by using their computers and mobile

devices, and these tools have become quite widespread. They have changed the way of learning

through providing free courses on their websites and, furthermore, they allow students to interact

with instructors and other students to gain and share their knowledge. For example, you can find

tutorials on YouTube for free about any subject you want if ever you didn't understand the lesson

from your teacher. In data gathering, you can provide an online survey for your respondents from

social media. That way, you can gather much more data than meeting them personally which

takes a lot of time. Learning nowadays is much easier compared to before. Students are more

dependent on online materials because they can be found easily, just a click from Google. The

culture of our education is reshaping and changing depending on the influence of globalization

and technology.

2.3.2 Entertainment

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 Mass Media activities have been significant at any point of time of history in informing,

educating or entertaining the people all over the world. Every media had their share of effects on

society and has been responsible in their way for changes in socio-economic and cultural aspects.

The new media technologies include the Internet, multi-media, mobile phones, gaming &

animation, and many others. Back then, without the internet, the only entertainment of people in

society is watching TV, texting, playing outdoor games which are popular with the kids, or

anything not related to the computer. Young people are also active outdoors but since the internet

was introduced and different social media applications have appeared, they tend to stay indoors

and use gadgets like mobile phones and computers. Mobile phones occupy an almost

indispensable place in young people's lives, not as a means of social differentiation but as a

necessary part of social communication through the maintenance of key social networks (Ravi,

2012). Also, most people tend to post their daily activities such as eating or walking outside.

They also capture it and post it on Instagram so if you notice, in some restaurants, some people

take photos of their food first before eating it unlike before. In terms of music, music genres are

widely diverse unlike before wherein the popular genres are love song and ballad. Now, there are

hip-hop, pop, and Asian countries like Korea and Japan have develop their music and entered the

world chart of music. Gaming is also developed in the virtual world and its influence is

increasing. Teens are the most active audience in this part and this is one of the reasons why

most kids stay indoor instead of going out.

3. Conclusion

Since the emergence of technology and globalization, social media became an essential

part of the world. Social media is an online interaction or communication of people around the

globe wherein they can share thoughts, experiences, ideas, information, videos, audio and images

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on the World Wide Web. Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and

Instagram aim to serve as a platform for people to share, discuss or publish their issues, interest,

and opinions. It also serves to connect users with their friends, family, and acquaintances in real-

time. Currently, about half of the population is active on these social media sites and still

increasing every year. This means that being connected online is already a part of the daily life of

a person. Even in education, students and teachers are using social media sites for homework and

lecture materials. In business, social networks are already an effective platform for

advertisements, announcements or promotion of the products and services. Users can give

feedback in real-time and companies can use it to improve their services. The online market is

already emerging and people see it as beneficial and convenient. Also, social media is available

globally so if you use it, think carefully because your audience is the whole world.

Convenience and easier connections are some of the advantages of social media. These

things also improve and develop over the years. Technology has a great impact on our culture

that some things are already replaced and buried in the past. For example, in our education, some

teachers use materials that are available on the internet unlike before where teachers and students

use an old textbook. Students are also staying in library to borrow books and finish their

homework or research. Now, books in printed form are also available in soft copy uploaded

online so anybody can access it. In terms of entertainment, before social media, children like to

play outside with their friends. Now, most children at an early age stay indoor to play online

games. Some of them are being addicted to it which is harmful to its health. If privacy is such a

big issue before, now people like to talk and share their daily activities online. Some of them do

this to gain followers and become famous online. Social media has its own merits and demerits,

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if properly use, you can benefit from it. The culture is reshaping as the world changes and adapts

to the products of technology.

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