Hope our new article is an interesting read for you. It’s a little longer but provides absolutely interesting data insights. Also, I have a little bit of #Black Mirror and #Connected – two very intriguing Netflix TV Shows – on my mind while penning this down (Clearly, there’s too much of Netflix I guess!). So here’s a question for you, we all would agree to get intrigued about our digital privacy on social platforms, websites (by trying not to ‘agree’ with the cookie follow etc.), or mobile/web apps (games, dating, wedding, location apps etc.) by large, but then do we get affected by it at all? Do we discontinue using them anyway?

We might get scared and think about it for a while, maybe discontinue using a few of the platforms/
apps/ websites as well, but then if need be, we would always re-install them or use them less frequently, but we might not shun them altogether, not always. Why do we do that? Let’s discuss some of the positive and negative aspects of social media that does instill a sense of scare in us but we still go ahead and take that risk. Let’s find out why.

Laying down some of the major positive bullets of digital/social networking for you first,

  1. Target Audience: It has become immensely important for both – (i). an individual for personal uses and (ii). an organization for professional agendas – to communicate over social media through content/detailed information (like the one am writing right now as well!), personal chats, and profile/ other casual/specific/occasional images etc. – in order to make oneself heard, seen or most importantly better understood.
  2. World perspective: With an average of daily time spent on social networking from 90 minutes in 2012 to 153 minutes in 2020 per day, it is predicted that more than half of all smartphone users will engage with voice technology on their device by the end of 2020. Forecasts also suggest that by 2023 the number of digital voice assistants will reach around eight billion units – a number higher than the world’s entire population!
    Let’s concentrate on India at the moment in this article; kindly keep following the page for
    some very interesting World Statistics in our forthcoming articles.
  3. So, India Stats: With India’s current digital population as approximately 688 million and around 376 million people indulging in some form of social media today, India was ranked as the second largest online market worldwide for 2019, after China. The number of internet users was estimated to increase in both urban as well as rural regions, indicating a dynamic growth in access to internet.
    • This figure is projected to grow to over 974 million users by 2025, indicating a big market potential in internet services for India. This makes the social media a digital platform to pull traffic equivalent or greater to the likes of DLF CyberHub Gurgaon, and even Times Square New York or Silicon Valley California combined (mentioning big names so that I get more people to continue reading it – see this is what companies do to you!! Ok please don’t stop reading LOL!).
    • Digital Footprint: So on a serious note, trust me this means humongous amounts of consumer data to market ones’ products and services, by engaging them on social media platforms, in order to build a rapport with their existing, new or prospective clients/customers. Because of this, social media has become a crowded and complex but a unique platform for any business – small, medium or big. A digital footprint is important, because sustainability is marked by social media presence today. And it has been like this way before Corona hit.
    • But despite the large number of internet users in the country, the internet penetration levels took longer to catch up – because of 2 major reasons –
      • Number of women who have access to internet is much lower than men in the country, and the bias is even more evident in rural India
      • Internet usage is lower among older adults in the country due to internet literacy and technological know-how.
    • So, by leveraging all socio economic segments which includes all age groups and genders, across all geographic locations, India’s digital footprint has still a lot of room to grow.
    • Mobile Connectivity: Along with understanding of the importance of Telecommunication and Technology by the Indian Government, thereby providing with apt schemes, and by making an endless ocean of brands such as Xiaomi and Realme, Vivo, Oppo and Oneplus etc., availability of cheaper mobile data, and the utility value of smartphones being greater than those of desktops/laptops/tablets are some of the factors contributing to the mobile heavy internet access in India. The smartphone user base in the country has crossed 500 million by December 2019, which means over 77% of Indians are now accessing wireless broadband through their smartphones.
      • Another reason for growing Mobile Networking is when Reliance Jio entered the Indian market in 2016 promising cheap 4G, high speed data plans along with free voice calling; after just six months of its launch, it was indeed labelled as the “market disruptor”, making other established telecom operators drive down their prices considerably, thereby leading Jio to a cumulative growth in mobile internet accessibility as well as affordability.
  4. The Importance and Pressure of it all:
    • As on April 2020 and basis the time spent on an app, Facebook comes down as the most popular app worldwide with 19% of users and with around 280 million users in India making it the top most app used in the country
    • As of the third quarter of 2019, YouTube (82%) and Facebook (76%) accounted for the largest social media penetration.
    • What do you think has been a very big reason for increase of digital footprints on Facebook and Twitter during the past few years? Networking? Business Expertise? Nope. It’s Cricket and IPL folks! The Indian Premier League (which even a yet-to-be born kid know), is an international cricket tournament conducted in major cities of the country to boost cricket culture. Out of all the cricket tournaments, fans from across the globe follow IPL very religiously. This leads to carefully following repeat telecasts, missed matches and watching daily updates of their favourite sports personalities and teams online, thereby increasing the digital footprints since the onset of IPL in 2008.
      • The IPL teams registered over 59 million likes on Facebook alone and more than 81 million followers on Twitter
      • Most of the Facebook usage came from the younger generation, aged between 18-24 years, with over 97 million users in 2018
    • And what do you think about the YouTube? The idea of this medium has been to easily find and share videos in your network. According to one of its founders, YouTube was largely inspired by two events –
      • One was the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004.
      • And the other, as we know it, the IPL!! Love for cricket in India is not a myth guys!! It exists. And to such an extent that it has led to the emergence of digital extravaganza in the entire nation! With over two billion views per day, YouTube consumption in India sky-rocketed with the Indian Premier League’s match streaming in 2010. And then there was no looking back, as this figure doubled with each season thereafter.
    • Furthermore, watching music videos has been another popular means to be on YouTube in the country. The evidence lies in the subscription growth of the music record label T-Series’ YouTube channel.
  5. The End Debate: SOCIAL MEDIA. Digital Disruption. HEALTHY JOUNALISM. Trolls. DATA SECURITY. Data abundance. Although as we read a lot of background and positivity circulating the social media platforms, we all are well aware that the more of data available, the more nuances of privacy leaking. We read all the above points thinking about WOW! What a great concept this digital development has brought in our lives.

But let me lay down some of the major negative bullets of digital/social networking for you, Despite knowing that we are continuously under a lens by the corporations and governments, whether we like it or not or whether we give consent or not. In this increasing social media landscape, and living at a verge of cyber security information leak – where a simple discussion of having Domino’s Pizza with a friend leads to Domino’s ads in every app we open, or thinking about changing our mobile subscriber network leads us to receive text messages stating that they have erected more towers near our area, for the next few days, and so on and so forth. We bet you all also have an endless list of such examples; we keep uploading and sharing new personal content through these social media channels; we know that we need to stop sending that selfie on WhatsApp or stop uploading that image on Facebook or Instagram, but we still do it (I myself recently uploaded my wedding pictures and here I am thinking about it!) because we are so dependent on social media today.

We know we need to read those T&Cs, or think about accepting those website cookies – the idea of being under the microscope is too scary – yet we still do it without reading most of the times, while downloading an app, visiting a website or checking an important document. And there might be a time, who knows, that we – the human race – won’t be able to handle the increasing technology, which might or might not lead to the end of the world!

There can’t be an answer here, we can just be more careful and take more precautions, but why can’t we just get ourselves to quit social media. We are in such a position that we are well aware of what might be happening to our data. Maybe all our data is not getting all the negative attention all the time, maybe it’s just getting saved generally, along with a millions other peoples’ data, but when it comes to the idea of personal data leak, we creep out! But we can’t afford to quit maybe because we are in it too deep, or maybe because we like networking now to such an extent that we enjoy it despite all the hue and cry about privacy leaks, or about being cyber bullied (with those trolls here and there, or being a recipient of
cybercrimes) as well.

This recent Social Media Consumer Survey throws light on an alarming rate of how data is just being dumped on social media by everyone,

  • 96% of the surveyed people view social media positively (which makes most of us), making it to only a 4% who treat it as negatively
  • 98% of the people use at least 4 social media platforms daily
  • 83% of the surveyed people post their own content on social media.
    • Almost 87% of the people tend to post or engage with personal photos on their social media handles. Visuals are easy to consume, perceive, and identify with; it helps in a better connection with people.
      o About 49% of the surveyed people engage with videos on social media. Videos have become the new addiction for internet users, with technology that has made it easier to not only capture but also make it more entertaining.
  • While 74% of users like to interact with other people by the way of liking, sharing, commenting, chatting, or subscribing, approximately 70% of the users still use text messages as the prime medium to communicate with others.
  • Mostly used for entertainment and humorous purposes, engaging in memes on social media covers around 42% of users.
  • Other popular social media contents include Life Updates (25.62%), Live Streams (5.37%), VR Content (4.75%) and others (4.34%) including news, quotes, etc.

The idea of this article is to make you more aware of what an ocean of networking (both positive and negative) we have all around is. Let’s make the most of it, in the best way we can and protect ourselves and others around us in case of a crisis.

All this data could be laid out to you because of a thorough market research consultancy that our company offers. Please keep following our company page for more interesting and thought provoking insights!