Digital Statshot 002 Report

Back in the old days, people had to travel to a local hot spot to meet new people and make new friends. Today, connecting with friends can be instantly accomplished with just a few clicks a la social media. Apps such as Twitter give people instant access to friends and news worldwide. Further evidence of social media's omnipresent influence comes from We Are Social's "Digital Statshot 002" report, which reveals that there are currently about two billion active social media accounts worldwide, equaling 28 percent of the planet's population, with about roughly 1.6 billion of these accounts active via mobile. Of these users, 72 percent are currently active on social media, and 93 percent of marketers use social media for business (Martin). Social

People use social media to network at in-person events and get to know people before personal, business, and other meetings. Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project found that messaging on social media leads to face-to-face interactions when plans are made on the sites. Social media users also messaged close friends an average of 39 days each year while seeing close friends in person 210 days each year (ProCon.org). It is clear that Twitter can improve social life and bring people closer to friends and family. The world famous app is great for networking at social events as well as business meetings. Twitter allows people to improve their relationships and make new friends. Seventy percent of adult social networking users visit the sites to connect with friends and family, and increased online communication strengthens relationships. Fifty-two percent of teens using social media report that using the sites has helped their relationships with friends, 88 percent report that social media helps them stay in touch with friends they cannot see on a regular basis, 69 percent report getting to know students at their school that they had not previously known, and 57 percent make new friends altogether (ProCon.org). Twitter has proven time and time again its ability to bring people

Real tweets have the power to end careers, cause diplomatic tensions, fuel a revolution and even find a kidney! Fake tweets can have the same ripple effects, and damage control is difficult. There is no way to edit or append a correction to a tweet, and once it has been retweeted, the tweet takes on a life of its own (Kelly). Retweeting is when a user likes the original post and then reposts it under his own profile. The Library of Congress has been archiving all public tweets from Twitter's March 2006 inception forward. Information about an affair posted on Twitter, for example, can lead to and be used against someone in divorce proceedings because the information, once posted, can never be completely deleted. Using social media can harm students' chances for college admission. College administrators scan Twitter and Facebook profiles for evidence of illegal behavior by students. A 2014 Kaplan Test Prep survey found that 35 percent of college admissions officers checked an applicant's social media to learn more about them, up from ten percent in 2008(ProCon.org). Sixteen percent of admissions officers discovered information that negatively impacted prospective students' admission chances. Only three percent of students surveyed believed the content of their social media presence could hurt their prospects of admission. There are all kinds of repercussions that can