Bentley 1
Amanda Bentley
Ms. Barott
Argument and Exposition
27 April 2016
Popularity and Social Media
Social media users span across all demographics. “As of January 2014, 74% of all online
adults use social networking sites. For adults ages 18-29, 89% of them use social networking
sites. For adults ages 30-49, 82% of them do. For adults ages 50-64, 65% of them do, and for
adults ages 65+, 49% of them use social networking sites” (“Social Media Use by Age Group”).
This shows that every aspect of society is affected by social media to some extent. Young people
are prone to be more impacted by social media because of their increasing interest as shown by
an overwhelming percentage of users in that age group as well as their impressionability as
teenagers. Particularly, “US users spend more than 121.8 billion monthly minutes on social
media” (“Number of Social Network Users Worldwide”). Not only are the majority of adults
active on social media, they use it quite heavily. All things considered, social media has made a
unique impact on society. The desire to conform to trending activities has exponentiated with the
rise of social media. Thus, social media has redefined popularity in an unprecedented manner
that has both helped and hurt society.
Social media has a variety of functions for businesses, organizations, and individuals. For
businesses and organizations a large part of their advertising effort can be done through social
media by encouraging likes, shares and follows in hopes to spread their message to as many
people as possible. For individuals the same concept of self-promoting applies. They desire
attention in terms of followers and likes and at times go to extremes to achieve this. “In a
Bentley 2
national poll of college students, 57 percent agreed that that people in their generation use social
networking sites (i.e. Facebook, Twitter and MySpace) for self-promotion, narcissism and
attention seeking. The poll also found that two-thirds agreed that their generation is more self-
promoting, narcissistic, over-confident and attention seeking than previous generations”
(Jacobs). By seeking attention online it can be seen that young people are becoming more selfish
as they desire to be seen by a large audience. Consequently, there is a link between these
institutions and individuals since both have intentions of self-promotion. As Douglas Rushkoff
explained, “For while all these clicks and keystrokes and photos and videos may be free, they
come with a price. Kids aren’t paying with money, but with their attention and their hours of
meticulous profile tweaking. They‘re paying with their likes, their favorites, and their follows.
And they get paid back with a new path to popularity or even fame.” This cycle provides
