For many consumers, spending too much time on social media often happens subconsciously. We pick up our phones, and before long, hours have passed.

While many of us think nothing of the extra time spent scrolling on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, a new study conducted by researchers from Michigan State University found that too much time on social media can lead to bad decision-making.

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This past year, many people deleted their social media accounts following revelations about privacy violations on social media platforms and other concerns related to hate speech.

As people adopt their resolutions for the year, it is likely that many more will reconsider their social media use.
However, as a scholar of social media and religion, I'd argue that rather than just stop using social media, people could use it to improve their overall well-being. Here are three ways to do so.

1. Be active
Studies have shown that there is a big difference between passive social media use and active use. Scrolling through a newsfeed and merely looking at what others have posted is considered passive social media use.

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Global social media and technology giants are gearing up to fight sweeping new rules proposed by the Indian government that would require them to actively regulate content in one of the world’s biggest Internet markets, sources close to the matter told Reuters.

The rules, proposed by the Information Technology ministry on Christmas Eve, would compel platforms such as Facebook, its messaging service WhatsApp and Twitter to remove unlawful content, such as anything that affected the sovereignty and integrity of India. This had to be done within 24 hours, the rules propose.

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Excessive social media use has negative consequences that include the kind of risky decision-making associated with drug and gambling addicts, new research shows.  

Researchers at Michigan State University had 71 study participants take a survey gauging their Facebook dependence; it included questions about users feelings when unable to access the website, the influence Facebook has had on a users job or education, and attempts to quit.  

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We have all thought about it. Maybe it's time to flick Facebook. Terminate Twitter. Silence social for good, and just be a person again.

Sadly, if this dream of going off the grid is about reclaiming your lost privacy, that might not actually be possible, according to new research.

A new study by researchers at the University of Vermont shows that social media posts by people you're connected with can actually be used to predict your own future posts – and even more accurately than if your own previous posts were being mined for insights.

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I say social media engagement metrics, what comes to your mind first?

Most likely it will be likes, comments, and shares.

While these certainly are high-level indicators of content engagement, and (presumably) the effectiveness of your social media efforts, they are far from the only metrics you should consider.

This section will help you understand the full spectrum of metrics available to you for evaluating your content and social media marketing, the meaning and importance of each, and how to use and improve them.

Few will need to keep track of all these metrics, so choose the mix that gives you the most valuable information.

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We have been hearing more and more about loneliness, and the loneliness epidemic, in recent years, as research has stared to lay out both its causes and effects. There are likely many reasons for this increasing psychological/societal issue, but one that is almost certainly involved is our dependence on screens, and in particular social media. And a new study from the University of Pittsburgh and West Virginia University finds that social media use—or at least negative experiences on social—is linked to more feelings of social isolation, a.k.a. loneliness.

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I am blessed to say that I get to wake up and live out my dreams each day, says social media influencer, comedian and actress Lala Milan. She creates content for many platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, as well as various apps, doing almost all of the writing, filming, directing, and editing herself. This career has enabled her to generate a six-figure annual income and secured her celebrity bookings at events. Recently, it landed her a role on Boomerang, a TV series coming to BET in February 2019.

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Just because you are not on Facebook or Twitter does not mean your data is safe from the social media giants or their prying algorithms. A study from the University of Vermont adds yet more evidence to the argument that your privacy is no longer in your hands, even if you abstain from social media.

Researchers from UVM's Department of Mathematics and Statistics published a paper in this week’s issue of the journal Nature Human Behaviour demonstrating that social media users not only generate substantial behavioral data about themselves but also about members of their social circle.

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As social medias influence over politics and elections has risen, so too has our collective anxiety about it. Over the last three years in particular, the use of megaplatforms like Facebook and Twitter as vectors for misinformation has been the subject of congressional hearings and not a few columns on the websites of some of our finer magazines. And as we gear up for elections in 2019 — and, assuming we make it through this year, in 2020 — the anxiety is gearing up, too. On Monday, in anticipation of the European Parliamentary elections in May, the Mozilla Foundation, an influential internet-advocacy non-profit, released an open letter to Facebook, co-signed by 32 civil rights and transparency groups, demanding that the social network implement measures designed to increase transparency, facilitate research, and combat misinformation.

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It happens here and there - Facebook goes down, Instagram goes down, then everyone runs to Twitter to figure out what the heck is going on. Last week, we experienced this again, with both Instagram and Facebook going down for 10+ hours, and sparking panic among many brands and influencers who now rely on these platforms to generate income.

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Are you looking for ways to measure the success of your social media marketing efforts? Want to know if your social media campaigns are worth your time and effort?

The team from Social Success Marketing share the metrics you can, and should, track in this infographic.

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Traditional sales tactics have begun to shift thanks to social media networks. Social selling leverages social networks and gives salespeople the ability to connect directly with customers. In 2016, LinkedIn found that 90% of top-performing salespeople use social media as part of their sales strategy.

Social selling relies on having robust, well-built social networks, which is why social media marketing is a crucial aspect of social selling. Since these two concepts are so similar, many people confuse the two.

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While the social media landscape is always changing, the fundamental building blocks of an effective strategy remain the same. Without them, you're likely wasting your time - or at the least, you're not seeing optimal results from your efforts to connect and engage with your online audience.

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In todays climate of hyper-competitive technologies, the ways that technology is sold often has much more to do with how a brand is perceived and the cultural relationships that this brand has to an imaginary field of power much more than how good a brand actually is. Where social influencers have far more sway with younger consumers than celebrity endorsements, how do they fit into the greater social fabric that necessitates that not only items are bought and sold, but which nurtures a cultural connection between the object and a deeper ethos that speaks to us as individuals? In essence, what makes the social influencer integral to new tech culture today and what are the indicators of their value or, according to some critics, that their time is up?

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Social media plays a vital role in our daily life. Websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are the most common social channels used to connect with our loved ones. With over 2.77 billion social media users today, such social media websites make a perfect platform for identity thefts. With huge user database of private information, it is the responsibility of social media platforms to keep personal information safe.

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Turn on the news, scroll through Twitter or chat with a friend these days, and you are likely to hear about yet another brand or individual suffering yet another social media-induced crisis of some kind.

It seems that every day, every hour, theres some other social media disaster. Does this mean that brands are suddenly behaving more poorly, or is this the state of how we live now?

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There is no questioning the influence of social media in modern society, and our broader interactive process. But still, many businesses remain unsure whether it's right for them, whether they actually need to have a social media presence.

To be fair, it may not be for everyone - if, for example, you sell products aimed specifically at an older sector of the market, it could be that you would be wasting your time posting to a Facebook Page that no one's likely to read.

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Social media offers the chance to carefully curate a public image and, while some choose to broadcast their professional success or vacations, others are keen to make a show of their moral worth.

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The great promise of social media was that by giving voice to ordinary people all across the world, their collective experiences and expertise would help society reach a higher consciousness. Much as the web was bringing together the world of knowledge, social media would bring together our diverse perspectives and especially the vast wealth of uncodified human knowledge. The reality, as we all know, has been quite the opposite: a toxic cesspool of hate and stupidity, where the loudest and most obnoxious one wins and enlightened insight is overwhelmed by emotional sarcasm and toxicity. Is there any hope for a social future?

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Businesses have spent years diligently amassing followings and figuring out the best way to connect with users.

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RSS Feeds for StreamingMedia.com

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One of the biggest challenges in implementing an effective social media marketing strategy is time.

When I ask people about their social media strategy for their business, I often get responses like:

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Social media is where a lot of us spend a lot time. Sometimes minutes, but more likely hours, a day. Whether your platform of choice is Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, much of our daily life seems to be spent checking out what others are doing.

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Perhaps the most remarkable but little-remembered story of Facebooks rise to social behemoth is that from 2009 to 2012 it was actually a democracy. Facebook’s users could vocalize the issues affecting them the most and issues that attracted sufficient number of users could actually be placed to a formal vote, with the results legally binding on Facebook itself. While the reality was slightly less utopian, with limits on the kinds of issues that could be brought to a vote, the process was overall a genuine form of democratic representation by Facebook’s users in the sites governance.

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With an undoubtedly scrappy beginning, content is now a serious player in a variety of brand communications, ranging from demand generation to PR, and on to sales enablement. Especially as search becomes more competitive, it’s important to look beyond a single point of activation in order to make the most of your content. Integrating social media publishing with your larger content marketing vision can help you do that, engaging your audience and maximizing your content marketing ROI.

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According to a 2014 survey by the United States Office of Minority Health, only 9.4% of non-Hispanic black adults received mental health treatment or counseling, compared to 18.8% of non-Hispanic white adults.

Clemons explained that one of the many reasons there is a stigma around mental health in the black community is that if someone can not deal with issues in church then the thought is that you don't have enough faith or you are not giving it over to the church enough.

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In  the summer of 2016, I gave a talk at a small tedx conference in northern Virginia. I began by admitting that I have never had a social-media account; I then outlined arguments for why other people should consider eliminating social media from their lives. The event organizers uploaded the video of my talk to YouTube, where it languished for a few months. Then, for unknowable reasons, it entered the viral slipstream. It was shared repeatedly on Facebook and Instagram and, eventually, viewed more than five million times. I was both pleased and chagrined by the irony of the fact that my anti-social-media talk had found such a large audience on social media.

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The Facebook Cambridge Analytica revelations changed the way people in the US think about online privacy. And it should come as no surprise that many have grown wary over the mishandling of personal information.

Nearly a year later, a majority of US internet users said that Facebook sharing data with Cambridge Analytica raised some level of concern over how their information is used online, per survey findings from text message marketing company SlickText.

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The way young people use social networks is changing rapidly, partly in response to networks that threaten to take over their lives, that they see as fake, the opposite of social. A while back, it looked like they were abandoning Facebook because it had been taken over by the old folks, but it now turns out they’re just leaving anyway, and not just Facebook, but the whole social media concept.

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Let's see if she leaves a lasting impression, says Namrata Thakker.

'Rashami was crying continuously when I was leaving, and that made it evident that it was more than friendship.'

IMDB released its list of the Top 10 Stars of Indian Cinema and Television, determined by data from the IMDbPro STARmeter rankings. The data is based on the actual page views of the more than 200 million monthly IMDb visitors.

'I was like a scattered necklace; Indian Idol put the pieces together.'

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Dewey Library - HF5415.1265.S5334 2017

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Dewey Library - HF5718.T43 2019

India’s post-pandemic life is riddled with unhappy economic choices