Evolution of social media

Letter October 24, 2018
Concerns have been raised about its detrimental impact over one’s mental health

KARACHI: Today the use of social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat etc have become the cornerstone of modern communication and connecting with others as it allows users to create a sense of belonging and redefine their way of being. Yet concerns have been raised about its detrimental impact over one’s mental health and being over excessive use of social media. In the past few years, social media too has evolved massively, not that now only the political campaigns are actively run on social media, people overly rely on it as a source of information.

Among the top six social media destinations, only those three saw an increase in usage in the past year, with Instagram moving from 34 per cent to 36 percent, Pinterest moving from 30 percent to 31 percent, and Snapchat moving from 29 percent to 31 percent.

The more text and opinion-oriented platforms (Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter) were either flat or experienced a decline in usage, indicating that many now rely on pictures and graphic illustrations to express their thoughts and opinions.

Dua Fasih

Published in The Express Tribune, October 24th, 2018.

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