Social Media in Our Lives

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The economic principle I am exploring 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? The article published in Proquest Research Library Prep titled, “Online Social Networking in Adolescence: Associations With Development, Well-Being and Internet Addictive Behaviors,” demonstrates this economic principle by arguing how social networking sites have helped teens meet developmental needs, but also how it has caused a negative impact.

Social media is an integral part in our lives today, especially those of adolescents and young adults. These social networking sites promote growth and identity development by “providing a training ground for exercising independence, for developing social skills and for experimenting with one's identity - all of which constitute core adolescent developmental tasks.” Profile making, privacy settings, friending, commenting, and more all contributes to allowing people to express and explore a person’s identity and creativity.

Despite this, social media addiction is real, and also impacted society negatively. Research evidence regarding social media addiction is limited because it is so recent, but there are four types of addiction regarding social media: computer addiction, information overload, cybersexual addiction; and cyber-relationship addiction. Certain types of personalities are more likely to become addicted. As the article states, “extroverts may be involved in excessive use in order to enhance their social networks, while introverts in order to compensate for the lack real life social networks.”

Overall, there are pros and cons to the constant use of social media in our society today.