Final Post Social Media

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The economic principle I researched  is how people generally respond to incentives in predictable ways. My research question to help me study this economic principle is: How do social media companies design apps to incentivize people to use them longer? What effect does this have on individuals, society, and business?

Through the article published in Vice Media titled “Your Addiction to Social Media is No Accident,” I found that social media companies use specific tactics like the like button, read receipts, typing dots, notifications, Snapchat streaks, and the moment delay it takes to refresh the feed in order to incentivize people to continue as loyal users of their app. MySpace is an example of a social media site that failed to incentivize users long term. Ultimately Myspace became unorganized, visually unappealing, and couldn’t keep up with the changing technology, according to “Myspace Collapse: How The Social Network Fell Apart.”

Because of the use of social media in daily life, companies have been forced to use it as a tool. Social media has influenced how businesses are run in today’s society, as I read in the article, “The Importance of Social Media in Business.” People can post through social media about a business, whether it be good or bad, so businesses are held to a higher standard and also must hire people to respond to customers who have questions, concerns, or complaints via media. Online advertising, hashtags, and more have all contributed to the using social media to business’ advantage. For individuals, there are both positive and negative impacts from the daily use of social media. In young adults especially, social networking sites actually promote growth and identity development, explains “Online Social Networking in Adolescence: Associations With Development, Well-Being and Internet Addictive Behaviors.” At the same time, addiction can occur and is more prone to those with certain personality types like some forms of introverts and extroverts.

All in all, the constant use of social media is exactly what these companies wanted and has led to impacts for the good and bad on our society and in business.