Social Media History

Great Essays
As of 2014 it is reported that roughly 75% of American adults use social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter. These results are much greater than the 2008 report of 26%.( Hampton ) If one visits any park, restaurant, or any other social gathering across the United States, they are likely to witness more than one individual using a portable electronic device, using some type of social media. People no longer congregate in groups and talk to one another, but separate themselves from actual live interactions to communicate through social media. Even when talking with people face to face, many times the conversation pertains to events from these social media sites. Many people believe that social media sites are destroying people 's social …show more content…
The internet can trace its roots back to the 1950’s, when American government contractors began research on a secure communication tool for the military and government, to be used in the event of a nuclear war. For almost two decades this communication tool was unknown to people outside of the government. In the 1970’s computer programmers started to communicate with one another using Bulletin Board Systems (BBS.) These were nothing more than computer code sent over telephone lines at a very slow speed. It could take hours for just a few lines of code to transmit.
During this time a company called Compuserve was created. Compuserve was self described as a “business oriented mainframe computer solution.” Compuserve provided internet communication capabilities to larger companies throughout the world. In the late 1980’s Compuserve expanded into the public domain offering online public communication for the first time. Compuserve allowed members to share news, events, and provided the first public emails. Compuserve also is credited for creating the first public chat
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Many companies have blocked access to these sites from their company networks, but because of the wide use of smart phones and tablets, that use data from cell signals, employees can access these sites whenever and mostly wherever they are. “In 2012, 64% of employees reported visiting non-work related websites, 41% visited Facebook, 37% visited LinkedIn, 28% visited Google Plus, and 8% visited Twitter. (Gouveia) Two-thirds of businesses fear that social media endangers corporate security and one in four social networking site users unwittingly exposes themselves to identity theft by revealing personal details. Seven million households that use Facebook reported problems in 2012, ranging from someone using a log-in without permission to being bullied online or in person, a 30% increase from 2011. Phishing, the act of attempting to acquire personal information for identity theft, increased 240% on social networking sites from 2008 to 2009.

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