This article casts a critical eye over the use of social networking platforms, particularly their use to construct and present a socially desirable online self. The many advantages of social media sites are discussed, but the second part of the article looks at some concerns regarding the ways in which the extreme use of social media can be dysfunctional.
Until the digital revolution of the 1990s, social networks generally involved people — friends, family or work colleagues — making the effort to meet face-to-face, or to write letters, or to talk regularly on the telephone. However, arguably, digital technology, particularly the rapid global spread of social media platforms such as Facebook, Tumblr, Reddit, Twitter and Flickr, together with apps such as Snapchat, WhatsApp and Instagram, have radically transformed the ways in which we communicate and interact with one another.
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