In a world where social media Web sites spread news of engagements and breakups, job gains and losses, or even news of life and death, it's easy to become overwhelmed. Web sites such as Facebook help you keep up with friends and family, but you're realizing how easy it is to get sucked into the whirlwind of updates and data. We now live during a time when you can follow your pal's every move on his latest beach trip -- even if the only surfing you're doing is on the Web. Let's face it: Using social media can stir up many emotions, including sadness. Whether we're subconsciously comparing ourselves to friends or feeling the sting of rejection, our emotions transcend the keyboard. This is why some people have coined the term "social media depression" to informally describe the depressive thoughts associated with using social media. Despite the term's use, no formal definition or diagnosis of social media depression exists at this time. Also, the concept does not appear in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the official reference for psychiatrists and mental health experts. Even though social media depression lacks legitimacy, it's understandable why Web sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or LinkedIn, to list a few, may be under fire. Some research recognizes an association between depression and Internet use, but figuring out causation is tricky. Experts are unsure whether using social media Web sites causes depression or if people with depressive tendencies are more drawn to the digital realm. One could speculate that these trends of depression carry over to social media sites as well. On the other hand, social media certainly have benefits, too. Now that we know what social media depression might be, the question remains: Do you buy into it? Read on to learn what else is known about mental health and Internet use.
There are now several categories of what might be called fake news sites.
Even links to real articles can be misleading. It’s safe to say that most people who see a headline and link never read the whole article. Huffington Post recently published an interesting experiment that highlights this problem. In the article Bernie Sanders Could Replace President Trump With Little-Known Loophole, Matt Masur illustrated the problem of people sharing content that they didn’t bother to verify or, in many cases, even read. In the second paragraph, Masur reveals that the claim of the headline is false. Thousands of people, however, shared the article on social media without reading that far. Of course, most fake news stories don’t tell you that they’re fake. There are now several categories of what might be called fake news sites. There are satirical sites that publish parodies of news stories. The best known of these is The Onion. However, in the last few years many other sites have appeared.
Many don’t make it clear that they are satire sites, leading to confusion on the part of readers. As more and more satirical news sites crop up, it can be hard to tell whether a story is real or fake. Of course, when you actually read an article you can usually tell. The problem, however, is that on social media many people just glance at headlines and share links. Many websites publish fake news simply as clickbait. They want people to click on shocking headlines in order to get clicks so they can sell more advertising. There are also sites with a strong ideological slant. These may be extreme right wing, The 30-Day Social Media Plan [Template] left wing or conspiracy sites. Many of these sites aren’t very discerning about publishing “news” stories that back their point of view. A professor named Melissa Zimdars recently published a controversial list of fake news sites. This list mentions several categories of fake news sites that are often linked to on Facebook.
What's New With Social Media
Of course, any such list is bound to be incomplete, as new sites are constantly appearing. In some cases, there’s also a question of who is qualified to determine what is real and what is fake. Zimdar’s list has already come under criticism for being biased against conservatives. The fact remains, however, that there are now at least hundreds of fake news sites circulating false information over the internet. In some cases, false information can have a strong impact on society. During the previous election, for example, many questionable or fake news stories circulated. One example of this occurred close to the election, when a story that tied Hillary Clinton to a pedophilia and human trafficking ring was widely shared on Facebook. It turned out that this originated with a single unsubstantiated post on a conspiracy forum and was then reposted on thousands of other websites. Social media stories, whether true or not, often go viral.
The more outrageous and newsworthy something is, the more likely that many people will share it. During a highly-polarized election, people are motivated to share anything that supports their candidate or, more likely, attacks the opposing candidate. This can result in false stories widely circulating. Even if false stories are discredited and recanted, the damage is already done. By the time a retraction is published, millions of people may have already seen the story. It’s even possible that the outcome of the election was swayed by fake news stories. The Washington Post recently published an interview with Paul Horner, someone who admits to writing many fake news stories about the election that were widely circulated by Trump supporters. It’s really the widespread sharing of fake stories that causes harm on social media. If you’re a person or business that shares lots of content, perhaps with the aid of social media software, you should be extra careful. It only takes a minute or two to verify something you see on social media. Consider the source of the story. If you’ve never heard of it, Google it and see if it’s reputable. If you don’t have that much time, it’s best to ignore it, especially if it has the appearance of something that could be satire, clickbait or propaganda. By not sharing questionable material you can help to cut down on the proliferation of misinformation and fake news. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently announced plans to crack down on fake news. Google has expressed similar intentions. It remains to be seen how effective such efforts will be. Given the scale of social media today, it’s probably not possible to completely eradicate false information. It’s ultimately up to social media users to be more discerning about what they read, believe and share.
Last year, when we wrote about “When Do You Start Using Decentralized Social Media”, Minds was just starting out and migrating from the Rinkeby testnet to the Ethereum mainnet. We spoke with Faizan Khan from the Minds team recently and here is everything you need to know about what has changed and how is the project doing now. First of all, for those who don’t know about Minds, it is an open-source social network built on a foundation of privacy, internet freedom and transparency. Users are able to get rewarded in crypto for their posts, content, and contributions to the network. Minds has over 1.75M registered users so far and plans to gain much more traction within the crypto community, which shares the same values of freedom and censorship-resistance. The Minds Token fuels the entire Minds Ad Network (called “Boost”), the daily rewards system, P2P transfers, and access to premium content and subscriptions. On the ad network, 1 Minds Token is pegged to 1,000 views. Users can use up to 5 tokens per boost, which would be 5,000 views.
Why You Should Start Blogging on Minds?
Minds users can purchase and utilize tokens for all this functionality, and are also rewarded tokens for their daily activity and engagement. The goal is to align incentives across the board, for all users. Actually, Minds was doing a virtual currency-like point / rewards system years ago, long before the emergence of Ethereum and other protocols (and even before Bitcoin became popular). The move to build the existing point system ad network on Ethereum was a natural fit. This allows users to monetize content and earn, and it also provides added transparency and user control. Why You Should Start Blogging on Minds? The main differences between Minds and other crypto-centric social networks is the breadth of functionality, prioritization of reach, and the focus on allowing creators and users to earn in various ways. The Minds platform not only has newsfeed discovery and blogging, but it also has Groups, Encrypted Chat, Video Chat, P2P Tipping, Token Paywalls, and more. Creators and businesses can reserve premium content in exchange for tokens, at different pricing tiers for different content, subscriptions, crowdfunding, or services.
Social Media Pages
Minds treats all users equally regardless of token balance to maintain a fair, democratic system. 1. Go to Minds, sign up with your name, email, and password. 2. And get to blogging! 3. If you want to accelerate your reach, participation, or support the network, you can purchase the Minds Token here. 4. Users also receive rewards on a daily basis. This is based on the level of activity, contribution, and engagement. These rewards can be converted into onchain Minds Tokens. The future goals of Minds are mainly about democratizing the governance of content. A jury system is being implemented, where the users are more in control of decisions on the platform. Decentralization is a long term process and the goal is to empower more users to make decisions on the site, as well as making all data more transparent and accessible. Additionally, Minds plans to focus on enhancing the user experience, specifically with improved monetization programs and general education of blockchain technology. What do you think about Minds and what's your experience with decentralized social media platform? Let us know in comments below.
You can also become a member of their forums and chats and get critique for your work.
Whether you are an aspiring artist or an established art master without any online presence, you should start to think about promoting your art online. Founded in August 2000, DeviantArt is the largest online social network and platform for artists and art enthusiasts to exhibit, promote, and share their works. With over 38 million registered members and over 65 million unique visitors per month, it is one of the top social networks you need to start using right now to get a nice exposure for your works. DA’s members known as deviants upload over 160,000 original artworks every day, everything from painting and sculpture to digital art, pixel art, films, and anime. Join their daily drawing challenge, create incredible collections and see them showcased on DA or search for any particular art style in various categories. You can also become a member of their forums and chats and get critique for your work. Artists simply love DeviantArt because of their inclusive and supportive community. The CGSociety supports artists at every level by offering a range of services to connect, inform, educate and promote digital artists worldwide.
The Latest Social Media Sites
You can find interesting tutorials and workshops here or have a chat with some of the top professionals in the CG industry. A great place for sharing (pinning) images with your followers and following other people who share inspiring material. It works like your personal scrapbook with the difference that people can actually see what you scrapbook online. Do you love drawing but also enjoy cooking? No one will be bothered by your cooking recipes because you can pin all topics you like on Pinterest, people who want to keep a track of your art career can follow solely your art-related boards. Pinterest reports 150 million monthly users - that’s a huge number of people who can possibly look at your beautiful work, don’t you think? Behance is the leading online platform to showcase & discover creative work: the creative world updates it in one place to broadcast widely while companies explore the work and access talent on a global scale.
Social Media Analysis
Behance’s innovative platform distributes work to other online galleries, maximizing exposure for top talent on their site. Get appreciation for your art, mention companies you have worked with so far and list some past professional experience. Behance is a large online catalog where most of the page views come from non-members, so be sure to upload your finished piece and possibly get hired. Tumblr. lets you effortlessly share anything - post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos from your browser, phone, desktop, email or wherever you happen to be. You can customize everything, from colors to your theme’s HTML and make your account a nice place to visit. Tumblr hosts over 332 million blogs and gets more than 40 million posts every day, many of them focused on photography, illustrations, and drawing. So why don’t give Tumblr. For some people, Facebook’s days of glory are gone. But with approximately one billion users it is still the largest social network out there. If you have a private account and don’t want to mix your private life with the professional, start your fan page where only your art will be exposed.
What is great about Facebook is that you can join many online art groups where similar people like you post their works and questions so you actually learn a lot too! Twitter’s mission is to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers. This social network states 313 millions of active users to connect to people outside their current network. On Twitter, you can be sure that you’ll meet people you probably wouldn’t be able to reach otherwise. Great resources are being shared there every second, which may broaden your horizons and stimulates your own creative juices. As of 2015, LinkedIn had more than 460 million members in over 200 countries and territories and is the world’s largest professional network and platform for business. LinkedIn allows you to upload photos but you must keep in mind that this network is more for business talk than for showing off your work.
You may ask yourself ‘Why would I need that? ’. Well, you can make a few useful connections and meet other business professionals, who can bring you valuable resource as well as build relationships with potential customers, clients, and partners. Some of the things you can add to your profile include the basics of your resume, a summary about yourself, your contact information, links to your website and/or blog, previous employers, projects you’ve worked on, and more. Don’t forget to add a professional picture which is ‘a must’ on this pro platform. Dribbble is show and tell for artists of all kind - web designers, graphic designers, illustrators, icon artists, typographers, logo designers, and others share small screenshots (shots) that show their work, process, and current projects. Dribbble’s system is very basic: you upload a 400×300 shot (120.000 pixels), the community watches it, they like and give feedback if they want to. Your time is now. So introduce your art to the world.
There's no question that social media is the best way to communicate directly with fans, and it's not going away anytime soon. There are tons of different platforms and apps out there, and it's virtually impossible to keep up with all of them. It seems like "the kids" are into something new every day. Though I certainly don't expect you to be down with all of them, it is important that you understand them all and the value they have for promoting your music and connecting you with the people who support it. Here are eight social media sites that can provide great exposure for your music and how to best take advantage of them. Though the glory days of Myspace have come and gone, Facebook is here to stay. If you don't have a fan page yet, then you better get to it. With over 1.65 billion active users, you've got to take advantage of this vast network. Create your profile, add some music apps, create performance events, and start curating engaging content. On Facebook, people love looking through photos, sharing posts they like, and discovering great new artists and brands.
Social Media 101
Create a timeline that tells a story of all the latest and greatest happenings, things you enjoy, and start a conversation. Too busy to post? Don't fret - Facebook pages allows you to schedule out your content, too! Bonus tip: The best days to post are Thursdays and Fridays, with the most shares happening around 1:00 p.m., and the most likes happening around 3:00 p.m. Twitter has been around for quite a while now. Bonus tip: To encourage more sharing, @mention any individuals or companies mentioned in your posts, and try including "please RT" at the beginning of your posts; studies show this generates as many as four times more retweets! Should You Post the Same Content on Facebook and Twitter? Instagram has quickly risen to become one of the most relevant social media tools for artists simply by being a vehicle for photos and videos with statistically more hits and reach over text posts on Facebook and Twitter.
Use this app to capture engaging still images and intimate video footage of you living the musician life while also showing a personal side of the day-to-day grind. Make sure to learn how to hashtag your content well, too, as that's one of the best parts of the app that allows for new fan discovery and increased likes, comments, and follows. Instagram also seamlessly allows you to connect your other social media pages like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Flickr, which makes easy and consistent content sharing a breeze! Bonus tip: Instagram is one of the only social media platforms that stays very active seven days a week, with the highest post activity happening between the hours of 3:00 and 4:00 p.m. Though Snapchat used to have a primarily different purpose for the youngins, it has now grown to over 400 million "snaps" a day, with 77 percent of college students using the app daily.
Topic title: Social Network What Is It for Dummies
Topic covered: business social media sites, social media and information, social media studies, social network company, top 5 social networking sites
