Introduction
Today we are living in a world that is dominated by digital communications whereas the mobile devices have become integrated in the life of every human being. It has become almost impossible to notice any person nowadays that does not have a mobile device, connected to the internet and is involved in a way or another on social media platforms. Thus, this phenomenon has infiltrated into all societies crossing all boundaries of races, genders, age, nationalities, religions, social classes… With the fact that people are social creatures, it has been coined by Aristotle since 350 BC saying: “Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god.” While the Dalai Lama XIV in the twentieth century described human communication and relationships as follows: “We human beings are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others’ actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others’ activities. For this reason, it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others.”
Therefore, since the inception of the human kind, people were and still living in small groups that consist of the society whereby human relations through communication has been evolving through ages from oral communication to written communication, later to visual communication which paved the way nowadays to a more efficient and convenient way of communication; the digital communication. Digital communication has literally re-invented and restructured the ground rules of all previous methods. Nowadays, nobody can escape the fact of being missed out as throughout our daily lives we are bombarded by a wide variety of tools that keep us in the loop of the digital communication circle. According to Statista (2017) there are more 4.68 billion mobile phone users worldwide in 2019, while there are 2.77 million social media users. These numbers show the massive impact of digital technologies and its integration in the lives of the world’s population. Consequently, the average time spent daily on social media by individuals worldwide is 135 minutes as per Statista 2017 whereas if we compare the results of the youth (16–24 years old) average usage per region we can conclude that Africa Middle East and South America score more than 3 hours daily while North America and Asia/Australia score approximately close to 2 hours while the least social media time spent is from Europe and Northern Asia is less than 2 hours daily (Table 1.1, GlobalWebIndex 2012–2018). We can conclude that the more we move south and the less countries are developed and the hotter the weather, we can notice a higher time on social media spending and the more we go north and the more countries are developed and the colder the weather, the less the youth spend time on social media.
Table 1.1
Social media time spent by youth per different regions worldwide—Question: Roughly how many hours you spend engaging with/connected to social networks or service during a typical day?
Continent/region | Hours spent on social media per day |
|---|---|
North America | 2.06 |
South America | 3.29 |
Europe and Northern Asia | 1.53 |
Africa-Middle East and Gulf | 3.10 |
South East Asia and Australia | 2.16 |
Rise and Evolution of Social Media
Interacting with family and friends across long distances has always been a concern for humans over the centuries, but nowadays with rise of digital technologies and more importantly the internet, communication has become fast easy and convenient for all people around the globe.
The root of social media goes deep in time since what we see today such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube are the outcomes of many centuries of social media development. It all started with old writings carved on stone pillars communicated very well through the centuries, thereafter a more convenient portable writing material was used: the papyrus. Before the sixth century BC sending written messages was an important feature of government in ancient civilizations. Sending a message and receiving (from the ruler/kingdom to the troops fighting) it quicker than the rivals present a humongous advantage and competitive advantage to the rulers in order to secure success and set out effective strategies in their battles.
Postal service used for communications can be traced back to almost 550 BC which started a quick and widespread evolution in the future centuries. In 522, Darius developed a network of roads across the Persian empire over a distance of 3200 km, he created posting stations at intervals of a day’s ride where new men and fresh horses are available to carry a document on through the next day’s journey. By this method the message could travel the whole distance of the empire in 10 days at a speed of around 320 km/day!! In the second century speeding up the communication relied fast riders, good roads and well provisioned post as developed by the Roman empire. Since the eleventh century domesticated pigeons were used to carry small written messages on paper that are attached to their feet. In the fifteenth century with the appearance of the Guttenberg press took the communication to another level with the printing that continued to the seventeenth century with the introduction of newspapers and development of printing, people became eager to read information about the latest events on a timely basis. There were major technological breakthroughs in the late 1800s such as the Morse code and the telegraph that carried over to the invention of the telephone in 1900s followed by the radio and television. In the 1970s the internet was born paving the way for the World Wide Web followed by the evolution of smartphones and tablets which made the internet accessible in a user-friendly way to everyone at any place in the world. Thus, Internet became more common and affordable as of the twenty-first century and people began to view portable electronic devices as an easy and convenient way to access the web and to communicate with other people who are connected at the same time to the internet. Nowadays, 74% of the adults worldwide use the internet while 85% own a cell phone and 46% use social networks. For instance, Facebook reached a stunning 2.27 billion users in the 3rd quarter of 2018 according to statista.com (Statista 2019), consisting of almost 30% of the world’s population. One of the major reasons for the widespread and virality of Facebook, is that it presented an opportunity to reconnect with childhood friends, schoolmates and lost friends around the planet. It created a tool to reconnect the bond with people whom we lost connection with them over time and to follow up on their news, activities and social events.
Generally, it was estimated in 2016 that the world’s digital economy is growing at 10% per year. In this context, digital transformation has a high impact on business, as is being used to change customer relationships, internal processes and the value propositions are delivered (Westerman et al. 2014). While Jager (2017) states that mobile technology and digitization is affecting all industries, the public sector and society as a whole. “… digital isn’t just this added thing. It’s not just one more channel. It’s different. It’s about changing the way you’re operating, because it is about using data, faster cycle times and more interactivity with more empowered customers as David Edelman, from McKinsey Digital states” (Edelman 2014).
Social media platforms work on the psychological aspect of human nature that has become very addictive for many different reasons stated below:
- All social media platforms have mobile applications which users can directly use on their mobiles when are connected to the internet.
- It’s user friendly platform and ease of use allowed children as well as elderly to learn to use it.
- Social media provokes the curiosity to follow up on their friends and non-friends’ activities and news.
- Social media has become people’s favorite pass-time as it includes videos, news, pictures, texting and calling that has almost replaced the habits of books or following up the news on newspapers or even watching television programs.
- People share on it sharing news or important knowledge (articles, blogs etc.,) promoting businesses, products.
- Social media had become a replacement tool for different elements that we use in our daily lives such as LinkedIn replaced the Curriculum Vitae, Facebook Albums replaced the family albums, WhatsApp Call replaced the regular phone.
- It can be used to fuel the ego of users through posting their stories, achievements and activities.
According to IPG Magna: Global Advertising Revenue Forecasts Spring Update (2016) below is a list that shows how digital media evolution made its way through in 2016 and 2017 based on realistic measurements and criteria:
- In 2016, digital advertising sales grew at 15%; traditional media advertising grew at 1% in the same period.
- By end 2017, digital media advert...