Measuring the Impacts of Social Media on Daily Life from Millennials to Generation Alpha

Abstract

The intensification and the progressive development and evolution of social media over the last decade have radically changed the way in which we live, interact with others, purchase and advertise products, and it even alters people’s sense and vocabulary, making certain concepts and words popular, or better said, viral. Social media have the undeniable merit of breaking down barriers and distances, enabling immediate interaction between individuals who are physically far apart. Furthermore, social media are the most frequented virtual place in the world, considering that there are now 5 billion active users, approximately 60% of the global population, which according to official UN estimates, has recently surpassed 8 billion people. These impressive statistics were shared by Sky TG24, which published studies by monitoring companies Meltwater and the agency “We Are Social”. Social media are no longer used solely to bring people closer or to provide futile entertainment. It is obvious that they are changing our habits, as they take up a significant portion of our time and are increasingly used by companies and business owners to advertise goods and services. Social media have also given rise to full-time jobs such as Social Media Managers, and the so-called “Influencers”, “Instagrammers” and “Content creators”, Bloggers, Copywriters, and it has also given birth to the social porn industry, which has optimized profits through self-made content. Of course, social media also present significant challenges, copyright violations of online content, privacy violations, identity theft, the spread of defamatory and violent comments on “feed, home” etc. With the awareness that there is no turning back, this study aims to analyse the advantages and disadvantages of using social media, and to investigate user preferences regarding the consumption of content shared online across various platforms, with particular attention to TikTok, which is currently the most used social media by young people. This study seeks to provide a preliminary understanding of the phenomenon, by examining data from the initial responses to a questionnaire shared online via the Google Form platform, especially through “bottom-up” responses regarding the preferences of a sample of young users aged from 11 to 30. Clearly, there is no claim to provide absolute results. Measuring the impacts that consider the improvement/implementation of services offered to digital content consumers allows to assess the relationship between creators and users through specially designed evaluations, such as Conjoint Analysis, which uses questionnaires administered to a random sample of users.