Social media has been part of our everyday lives. To date, more and more people are signing up for social media accounts in which they can use in variety of ways. From being a tool for establishing communications and connections with people who are miles away from us, social media have developed and evolved into a more useful and beneficial instrument which caters convenience and ease to its users. Nowadays, social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr emerge as the most popular websites instruments for communication, but also as tool for news reporting, broadcasting, marketing and advertising.
Tracing the history of social media sites, it can be recalled that in the 1978, the Bulletin Board System or BBS was created. This social networking site allows a user to exchange data and information with other users by means of phone lines connected to a personal computer host. Come 1994, BBS was then taken over by Geocities, the first internationally-recognized social media account. Geocities allows web users to create a venue for groups where members can communicate and hold a conference online. A few years later, AOL Instant messenger and SixDegrees.com were launched. These instant messaging social media site gave its users to create their own personal profiles and accounts which they can use to chat with their friends and loved ones. Apparently, the invention of AOL Instant messenger and SixDegrees.com paved the way for the development of Friendster, which over time was replaced by more comprehensive and user-friendly social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr.
In this modern time, majority of people use social networking sites as channels to connect to their friends and loved ones who are apart from them. As Anne Osterrieder stated in her article “The Value and Use of Social Media as Communication Tool in the Plant Sciences,” “Websites like Facebook, Twitter or YouTube make it easy to keep in touch with family and...