Social great influenced on how individuals interact

            Social media has expanded and
increased in usage in the recent past. Social media means the web-based
communication tools that enable people to interact with each other through
creation and exchange of information and ideas. Moreover, social media has
changed our world delivering advanced ways and technological developments
through which news, updates and entertainment are delivered.  Popular social media sites include Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram, and snap chat (Chaffey, 2017).  Social media has a great influenced on how
individuals interact both positively and negatively. This paper argues that the
government should have the right to control or monitor social media.

            The world has witnessed an increase
in the usage of social media due to a widespread increase in technology. There
has been a steady rise in the usage among various sites and demographic groups.
Perrin (2015) states that more than half of adult populations have joined
social media today with an increase in the number of young adults. The most
worrying thing is the number of children who are at a higher risk of being
negatively influenced by social media. Social media platforms such Facebook and
Instagram are currently the most popular and influential communication tools
today. Many people have found it difficult to live their lives without the
influence of social media.

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            The constant increase in the usage
of social media has impacted individual well-being and social behaviour in both
positive and negative ways (Bajpai, 2016). Ainin and Naqshbandi 2014) claims
that there has been an increased social networking and connections since the
invention of social media. This has resulted in an expanded base of
relationships, and people are able to meet new friends. Social behaviour and
individual well-being have since been strengthened because people are able to
exchange ideas and information. Conversely, families and relationships have
negatively been affected because people spend too much time chatting with
strangers as opposed to real friends. It has also contributed to depression and
loss of well being (Ainin and Naqshbandi, 2014). Despite its negative impacts,
social media remains the most popular and influential platform that has greatly
changed how people interact (Kaya & Bicen, 2016).

            Social media should be controlled
and monitored; however, it is not clear who should do that. It has contributed
to the current rot witnessed in the society today due to lack of adequate
measures and policies in place to monitor individual’s activities. Governments
should be granted the absolute right to monitor social media with the objective
of regulating the contents of what people post (Khan, 2017). This is because it
has widely been used to spread fake news, coordinate illegal activities,
cyber-bullying, and to influence teenagers negatively (Khan, 2017). However,
some commentators are of the contrary opinion that such a move by the
government will interfere with the rights and freedom of expression (Morivic,

            Morivic (2017) further asserts that
giving the government right to control and monitor social media can assist in
achieving the global goal of developing a socially upright society. However,
the government cannot achieve this alone; it must be supported by other
stakeholders, such as the providers and the individual social media users. The
social media providers should be responsible for ensuring that they put strict
measures in place to identify fake news and ensure that social media users’
profiles contain true and verifiable information. Social media users can also
take control by limiting the time they spend on social media and striking a
balance between online and offline life (Brooks, 2015). Furthermore, Flynn
(2012) states that users should take self-responsibility by ensuring that they
only pick and post the right information on the social media.

            There is a steady rise in the usage
and popularity of social media (Chaffey 2017; Perrin, 2015). It is generally
agreed that it has affected individual well-being and social behaviour and also
how people interact in both positive and negative ways. It is increasingly
becoming important for individuals to control their own influences and actions
on social media in order to make it easy for government and providers to
monitor social media effectively (Brooks, 2015). Although some people criticize
the idea of governments taking charge to control and monitor social media, such
action is widely viewed as worth taking before it completely gets out of
control (Khan, 2017). More importantly, the social media providers should have
measures that ensure that information is filtered before they go public and will
be very helpful.