What defines social media? Is it Facebook and Twitter? Or does it encompass much more than that, like LinkedIn and Tumblr. Or do those stand alone in their own categories? These questions are the reason that social media is such a tricky subject to get a grip on. We think of social media as part of our everyday lives, something that we depend on for news, communication and even de-stressing from work and school. But to people who do not use the internet for things other than email, they find social media intrusive and self-inflated. All these things go into what defines social media.
On the one hand people feel a need to communicate, to interact, and to organize. The Occupy Wall Street movement and the various rebellions in middle eastern countries have relied heavily on twitter so that they may organize and communicate effectively. This argument shows social media as a champion for the people. But other arguments shed light on social media that seems to disgrace the tech companies. For instance Facebook has rights to all the pictures you post. They can go and sell those pictures as stock photos to advertising firms.(http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2009/07/facebook-can-use-your-pictures-for-ads-no-permission-required.html) Many feel that this is an infringement of privacy and copyright laws and are not too happy with Facebook.
There is no set definition of social media but as it continues to evolve it will continue to define itself and assert it's prominence on the web.
I definitely agree with you that social media means something different to people who use the internet differently. My family is pretty split on their uses of the internet. Half of us have a facebook page and the other half barely uses the email account they do have. So it's fun to hear the ones who don't completely understand make comments about how there is no privacy in the social media/network world. But I believe that you control you're own privacy. You need to take it upon yourself to understand what sites you are using. And it is up to you what you put out on the internet. So if you do not want all the world to know, don't post it up on facebook or tweet about it.
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