Proposal and Annotated Bibliography

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Student Name

RHET 1302

Dr. Riley

Date

The Rising of Social Media

The topic I am choosing to research and discuss in this paper is the invention of social

media. I will talk about its creation and, with a transition on how we know social media today, I

will present recent research on both the positive and negative effects of social media on children

development and general mental health.

Humans, as a social species, have the need to communicate and create new relationships

with others. Over the last centuries, communicating over long distances was especially hard and

people could only rely on written letters that took days, weeks, or even months to deliver. The

telegraph was later invented which made this communication over long distances a lot easier.

Telephones and radios were newer important discoveries made in the 1800s which also

contributed to this relay of information between people. From there, inventions such as

computers in the 1940s, internet in the 1960s, and the first forms of emails in the 1970s, all

played roles as pieces to render human communication as easy as possible. It is only 22 years

ago that humans, with this thirst toward facilitating social communications and building social

connection, invented social media (Henricks, 2013).

Social media, which is defined by a History Cooperative writer as “the different forms

of online communication used by people to create networks, communities, and collectives to

share information, ideas, messages, and other content, such as videos,” was originally created in

1997 by Andrew Weinreich with a social media site called “Six Degrees” (Keith, 2019). “Six

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Degrees” users were able to create a profile as well as connect and form new friendships with a

variety of other users for the first time. With the launching of this site, social media as we know

it today was born.

Social media affects society in a huge way today, we see it everywhere. The newer

generations in particular spend a lot of time on social media whether it is updating their profile or

using it for mere communication with their friends. Although some aspects of social media

appear to be positive for the new generations, there is very recent research in the field of

psychology that suggests a strong negative influence that social media has on the development of

children such that some government regulations and privacy laws might be enforced in the next

few years (The Lancet, 2019).

Other recent research looks at the general health within the social media era (Abroms,

2019) which will wrap up my paper on the rising of social media.

Abroms, Lorien C. “Public Health in the Era of Social Media.” American journal of public

health 109.S2 (2019): S130–S131. Web.

This academic source, an article written by Abroms in 2019 and published in the American

journal of public health, describes some recent research concerning the general health outcomes

within the social media era in which we live in. This source talks about why it is important to use

the social media we have and check daily as a measure of promoting positive health outcomes

rather than letting it exploit our health in a negative way. I could use the information in the paper

as a transition from the body of my paper to my conclusion in order to make my audience

wonder on where social media is going and how we could use it in a better and more health

promoting way.

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Hendricks, Drew. “Complete History of Social Media: Then And Now.” Small Business

Trends, 6 May 2013, smallbiztrends.com/2013/05/the-complete-history-of-social-

media-infographic.html.

This popular source, an article written by Drew Hendricks and published in an online journal

called Small Business Trends, is interesting because it gives a lot of background information on

social media and a timeline of how it evolved from the debuts of the first social media platform,

“Six Degrees,” to where we stand with social media today. This source will be valuable for the

intro of my research paper as it also briefly talks about the inventions and discoveries that led to

social media. I want to use this information to create a base of what I’m talking about and how

social media got to where it is today.

Keith. “The History of Social Media: Social Networking Evolution!” History Cooperative,

14 Feb. 2019, historycooperative.org/the-history-of-social-media/.

This article, a popular source, also covers the history of social media which makes it more of a

backup source and will strengthen the ethos of my paper. The author of this source, Keith,

decides to start defining what social media is as we know it today. The definition he provides is

well supported throughout his article which develops credibility for this source. I will use the

definition presented of social media in my paper and develop my ideas and further research

based on it. I believe that if I talk about the defining factors of social media, my audience and I

will be on the same page for the rest of my paper. Additionally, this paper is more recent than the

first which also adds on to the overall credibility of the paper.

The Lancet. “Social Media, Screen Time, and Young People’s Mental Health.” Elsevier

Science Direct 393.10172 (2019): 611–611. Web.

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This academic source, an article written by The Lancet and published in Elsevier Science Direct

in 2019, underlines the danger the social media has on our society. The article mentions deaths

by suicide and other mental health risks that social media brings to the table. The author also

describes how society has tried to prevent mental health issues related to social media (in

particular relating it back to an attempt Facebook made in 2017) but that more persistent efforts

need to be made. This research can also be including later on in my paper when talking about the

negative health aspects that social media has.

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Works Cited

Abroms, Lorien C. “Public Health in the Era of Social Media.” American journal of public

health 109.S2 (2019): S130–S131. Web.

Hendricks, Drew. “Complete History of Social Media: Then And Now.” Small Business Trends,

6 May 2013, smallbiztrends.com/2013/05/the-complete-history-of-social-media-

infographic.html.

Keith. “The History of Social Media: Social Networking Evolution!” History Cooperative, 14

Feb. 2019, historycooperative.org/the-history-of-social-media/.

The Lancet. “Social Media, Screen Time, and Young People’s Mental Health.” The

Lancet 393.10172 (2019): 611–611. Web.