A girl browses the social networking site Facebook on July 10, 2007 in London, England.
Seventy-six percent of American adults online use social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest, as of July 2015, up from 26 percent in 2008. On social media sites like these, users may develop biographical profiles, communicate with friends and strangers, do research, and share thoughts, photos, music, links and more.

Proponents of social networking sites say that the online communities promote increased interaction with friends and family; offer teachers, librarians and students valuable access to educational support and materials; facilitate social and political change; and disseminate useful information rapidly.

Opponents of social networking say that the sites prevent face-to-face communication; waste time on frivolous activity; alter children’s brains and behavior making them more prone to ADHD; expose users to predators like pedophiles and burglars; and spread false and potentially dangerous information.

History Of Social Networking Sites

SixDegrees.com, which existed from 1997-2001, is considered the first social networking site because it allowed users to create personal spaces and connect to friends online. Friendster, created in 2002, popularized social networking in the United States but was quickly outpaced by other social networking sites such as MySpace (2003), Facebook (2004), Twitter (2006), Pinterest (2009), and Google+ (2012).

Facebook reached one billion monthly users worldwide on October 4, 2012, making it the most popular social networking site with 1 in 7 people on the planet as members. Today, Facebook reports 1.8 billion monthly users worldwide. According to Pew Research center, 79 percent of online adults in the United States used Facebook in 2016. Every day, Facebook manages 4.5 billion "Likes," 4.75 billion content shares, and over 300 million photo uploads. As of November 2016, 31 percent of online adults in the U.S. use Pinterest, 29 percent use LinkedIn, 32 percent use Instagram, and 24 percent use Twitter. Twitter has 317 million monthly active users and over 500 million tweets are sent daily.

User And Advertiser Demographics

As the sites have become increasingly popular, the user base has expanded from teenagers and young adults to include more people over the age of 50. Although Facebook began in 2004 as a site for college students with logins restricted to those with .edu e-mail addresses, in September 2006 it opened registration to everyone and as of January 15, 2014, 23.3 percent of users were 18-24 years old, 24.4 percent were 15-34 years old, 31.1 percent were 35-54, and 15.6 percent were 55 and older. According to a December 2012 Nielsen "Social Media Report," 20 percent of time spent on a home computer is on social media while 30 percent of mobile Internet time is spent on social networking sites. Total time spent on social media via mobile and home devices totaled 121 billion minutes in July 2012 (compared to 88 billion minutes in July 2011). As of February 2014, nearly two-thirds of social media users accessed sites from their computers once a day and nearly half of smartphone owners visited a social networking site every day. Two in 5 Americans have used social media at work, while 1 in 5 admits to having logged into social media while in the bathroom.

Social media's largest source of revenue is advertising. Twitter, YouTube and Facebook profit from advertising while LinkedIn profits from ads, subscribers and selling data to third parties. Social media ad revenue is expected to reach $32.9 billion by the end of 2016, an increase of 84 percent from 2014. Predictions place overall social media revenue at about $41 billion by 2017, a huge increase from $11.8 billion in 2011.

Role Of Social Networking In Politics And Social Change

Social networking sites play a large role in shaping the political landscape. In the 2016 presidential race, candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump consistently campaigned via social networks sites.

The first presidential election to be significantly affected by social media was the 2008 presidential race between Barack Obama and John McCain. More than a quarter of U.S. voters younger than 30 (including 37 percent of those 18-24 years old) reported that they obtained information about the 2008 Presidential campaign from social media. On November 3, 2008, the day before the US Presidential election, Democratic candidate Barack Obama had 2,379,102 Facebook supporters, 38 percent more than Republican candidate John McCain, who had 620,359 supporters.

On June 12, 2009, the White House announced via the White House Blog, that it was joining Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Flickr in order to "create … unprecedented opportunity to connect you to your government in order to obtain information and services and to participate in policymaking.” Joining the social media sites was part of the administration’s efforts to meet President Obama’s call to "reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent and more creative."

Twitter's then-CEO Dick Costolo dubbed the 2012 election the "Twitter election." All of the main 2012 presidential candidates had Facebook and Twitter accounts. As of September 8, 2011, 35 global heads of state had Twitter accounts; every U.S. federal Cabinet agency and 84 percent of state governors were active on Twitter; and more than 40 percent of global religious leaders like the Dalai Lama and the pope were on Twitter. The 2012 presidential election set the record for most-tweeted event with more than 327,00 tweets per minute being sent when Barack Obama was announced the winner. The image of him and his wife that Obama posted upon his reelection with "Four more years" became the most re-tweeted tweet with over 816,883 re-tweets as of November 19, 2012 (breaking Justin Beiber’s record of over 200,000 re-tweets).

The protests in Tunisia, which spawned the Arab Spring, were fueled and organized by social media, as were protests in Egypt and Iran. The governments of those countries censored and attempted to shut down the social media sites. In response to the censorship, Hillary Clinton, then the U.S. Secretary of State, said, "The United States believes passionately and strongly in the basic principle of free expression ... And it is the case that one of the means of expression, the use of Twitter is a very important one, not only to the Iranian people but now increasingly to people around the world, and most particularly to young people ... "

Loss Of Productivity And Security Concerns

Companies worldwide struggle to balance employee social network access at work for business purposes, which could raise revenue and the company image, versus employee access for personal use, which could lead to lost revenue from decreased productivity and security breaches. In 2012, 64 percent of employees reported visiting non-work related websites, with 41 percent saying they visited Facebook, 37 percent visited LinkedIn, 28 percent visited Google+, and 8 percent visited Twitter.

Two-thirds of businesses fear that social media endangers corporate security and 1 in 4 social networking site users unwittingly exposes him/herself to crime by revealing personal details. Seven million households that use Facebook reported problems in 2012, ranging from someone using a login without permission to being threatened online or in person, a 30 percent increase from 2011. Phishing, the act of attempting to acquire personal information for identity theft, increased 240 percent on social networking sites from 2008 to 2009.

A January 2015 study published in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology found that college freshmen averaged over two hours a day on Facebook, a habit that harmed their grades. Sophomores and juniors only experienced a negative impact on their GPAs when they used Facebook while studying. By senior year, students were using Facebook less and had gotten better at multi-tasking, so the time spent on social media was not affecting their grades.

Social media is now pervasive in our world with existing social networks expanding, niche social networking sites being created for educators, medical professionals and other groups, and new social media sites popping up regularly, all accessible 24 hours a day via computer, tablet, smartphone and Internet-enabled devices.

Proponents of social media cheer on the benefits and possible advances to society, while dissenters worry the dangers and wasted time far outweigh any benefit.

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