ABSTRACT
Social media technology has created a tectonic shift—or a “techtonic” shift—in how people receive information and communicate with others. This chapter provides an analysis of how social media works. It reviews 12 unique characteristics of social media. Compared to legacy media, social media has increased the speed, scale, scope, speech freedom, sticker price, searchability, types of spaces, secrecy, simplicity and swiftness in technological developments. Information on social media can be more easily surveilled by governments and corporations and false information shared on social media carries increased influence because of the social confidence conveyed when friends and family share information with each other. Major social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter design their platforms and the algorithms that run the platforms with the goal of keeping people on the platform longer. False, extremist and emotional content travels faster on social media that true content. This chapter describes the economics of social media and defines terms such as surveillance capitalism, the attention economy and algorithmic extremism. Unlike other forms of communication, social media is not neutral. Social media algorithms tend to exacerbate addiction, extremist views and information disorders.
