Diffusion of Innovations- Social Media

The Diffusion Theory explains how new ideas, products, or technologies are adopted and spread throughout the targeted population over time. The website describes the different stages people go through when figuring out if they want to adopt or reject an innovation that comes out. This theory explains why a new creation becomes so popular or flops. It shows how innovation gets integrated into society and affects society. The website also shows what the critical elements in diffusion research are. The research starts with innovation, then adopters, then communication channels, time, and finally, a social system.

Social media has been an innovation that keeps getting newer by the year. Hundreds of new social media platforms or anything related to social media come out yearly. It is one of society's most rapidly diffused innovations since the 2000s. I will describe the diffusion of social media through the five stages of the adoption process. First is awareness; in the 2000s, the first social media platforms that came out were SixDegress.com and MySpace. Before the booming of social media in 2004, only early adopters knew what these platforms were. In 2004 the Persuasion of Facebook became a lot more popular. Social media was becoming used more by ordinary people and was being used for talking to friends, showing photos, and learning new information. The decision stage of social media came when people started to use it more. Users began to look at the personal benefits and what they could get from it. People began to take a deeper look into how social media works and what its parameters are. During this stage, users would try to see if they could use social media in their everyday lives and how effective it was. The confirmation stage "is both intrapersonal and interpersonal, confirmation the group has made the right decision." Users want to make the right decision by embracing this innovation.

A lot of people became early adopters of social media for several factors. Some were "it was the new thing," people wanted to interact with friends more, and there was a professional side of social media. People like exciting new things, and social media was a big culture shock. People wanted to be able to look into people's' lives and connect with their friends, even from far away. Professionals saw social media as a great business opportunity to get their information and spread it fast before everyone else. Some reason people adopted late to social media was that the older generation wanted to stay the same. It is known that when an innovation comes out, some people will always want to be the same. Another reason is people did not want to have social media. Some users care enough to be updated on others' lives or to know what people do in their daily lives. Another reason I found was privacy concerns. People have been hesitant about what information to put on any platform because of their digital footprint. Some people do not want their lives spread over the internet or any information being shared about them to other people. There might be some nonadopters to social media, but very few. Some reasons might be lack of internet or lack of technology. Others might want an online presence at all. There could be many reasons one does not have social media, but usually, only in specific cases does that happen

Even though social media has been one of the most altering innovations to society, there are a lot of downsides. Some significant downsides are depression, anxiety, self-esteem, privacy, and data issues. The adverse effects social media has on mental health is tremendous. The suicide rate has significantly increased since social media has been introduced as a norm in today's society. There has been some significant loss of privacy regarding how hackers can get into your social media and find a lot of personal information. Even though social media has a lot of adverse side effects, there are still a lot of positive impacts it has on the world.

In conclusion, the diffusion theory provides helpful information and steps for understanding how social media has spread and impacted society. The diffusion theory helps explain how social media grew so fast and how you can examine any innovation using the steps I described earlier. People need to remember to use social media responsibly so that all adverse side effects do not start happening to their users.