IndexLocalNationalGlobalProblems and SolutionsConclusionThe reason I chose the topic “How does the use of social media communication shape our communication skills?” it's because my friends and I use social media more often than usual. I speculated whether, in the future, we would communicate only through social media; thus being unable to remember how to speak and communicate with other people. Nowadays, people are using social media more than ever. In most cases, people communicate using their mobile devices rather than meeting face to face. I hope to discover through exploring this question whether the world relies too much on social media and whether this diminishes our face-to-face communication abilities. Statistics tell us that over a third of the world's population uses one form or another of social media to communicate with each other. Before social media existed, we had no means of communicating with other people over great distances, which limited our interaction with people we only knew and who were close to us. Now, thanks to the development of technology, we are not only able to talk to friends and family all over the world, but we also communicate with people we have never interacted with face to face! Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original EssayLocal According to a Gulf News article, dated October 16, 2018 and titled “Dubai uses social media to measure happiness,” Dubai has implemented a measure called the “Social Happiness Index.” It uses seven different dimensions to measure happiness: life, economy, environment, people, mobility, governance and digital services. According to Hessa Al Beloushi, director of Smart Services at Smart Dubai, the initiative is going strong. The government of Dubai thinks it can become the happiest country in the world by 2020, i.e. in a year. Citing statistics on social media usage in Dubai, the total population is 3,137 million and of the total population about 33 Percent of the population actively uses social media. The calculated average that each person spends using social media daily is 2 hours and 56 minutes. The average growth of mobile social users is 6%, or approximately 500,000. In Dubai there are 12 main social media platforms used most frequently: Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google plus, Pinterest, WhatsApp, Messenger, Skype, Snapchat and We Chat. Of all twelve platforms, Facebook and WhatsApp are the most used in Dubai. About 82% of the population uses Facebook and WhatsApp. National On July 4, 2018, an article was published in the Gulf News newspaper that said, “Explained: How fake WhatsApp messages led to mob killings in India.” From the title we can see how social media can be used to foment conflict, protests and other acts of violence. In this case it was a serious accident that led to murders and great social unrest in the country. According to the news, the fake WhatsApp message was a rumor spread about child kidnappers, thieves and sexual predators. In reaction to this message, the general public took matters into their own hands and killed 27 people in a vigilante-style killing; suspecting that the 27 involved were child traffickers. WhatsApp is one of India's largest social media platforms after Facebook and hence this rumor has spread like wildfire. It doesn't help especially when people's social and cultural mentality is already biased against the justice system and therefore mass lynchings are quite common. Social mediamedia is a dangerous platform that allows people to say whatever they want. Unfortunately, the consequences of these actions are not always weighed. Global social media in Japan was not widely used until the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011. As a result, people realized that social media could be used to stay in touch with friends and family even in the event of a disaster. Media communication can benefit people in these situations. Some disadvantages are that through social media there have been reductions in restrictions on speech that people abuse, causing incidents to other people in the world, such as cyberbullying. Reports published in Gulf News say that social media is affecting relationships between families. People in the UAE now communicate less with their loved ones face to face as they have "social media" to see them. Through social media communications, our emotions cannot be shown, which often leads to misinterpretations. Recently, a new app called “Absher” was introduced in Saudi Arabia. It is an integrated electronic platform through which men can track their wives, daughters and employees wherever they go. Men will be able to see if their wives are trying to leave the country. Fathers may track down their daughters, and disgruntled employees may no longer be able to vanish into the night. Absher is an app available in both the Google Play Store and Apple Store on iOS devices, for KSA only. This has caused conflicts between men and women in the country. The women call it a violation of their privacy; abusing them. A new citizen control and monitoring system called the "Social Credit System" has been put in place in China. China's social credit system is a rating system that monitors the behavior of individuals living in the country. It was first established in 2014 but is expected to be fully operational nationwide in 2020. The points system increases and decreases based on your behavior. Examples of bad behavior include bad driving, smoking in non-smoking areas, buying too many video games, posting fake news online, etc. This social media platform has already prevented many people from traveling, having good internet speed, checking which school your child is in is fine (if your score is too low your child will not be able to go to good schools) and many other disadvantages. This is a good example to show how social media is changing the way we all communicate with each other, allowing us not to connect with each other but to monitor each other. Problems and Solutions One of the most common problems of communication on social media is that it takes time . The only solution is for a person to limit their social media usage time, but this rarely solves the problem as we are too dependent on our devices, which is another problem we face. With our phones at our fingertips, we'll always be clicking to open our social media apps. Excessive use of social media affects our daily lives. Sometimes we are too caught up in social media to ignore our daily responsibilities. Social media can be seen as a factor that could influence our grades in school. Relationships can be affected by the time we spend on social media. We may spend less time with our families and spend more time with our online friends, some of whom we don't know personally. What do people do when they're always on the phone? The answer to this question is another problem, which mainly affects people.