Social media is naturally still an important part of a business’ marketing plan. It helps raise a company’s profile and brings in sales. Recent research by Reboot Online suggested that a proportion of people would ideally like to quit social media for good but even taking these searches into account, it is still a very small number of active social media users. There is, however, an increased risk of being vulnerable to a cybersecurity attack on social media, as revealed recently by Kaspersky.
Social media, for many of us, has become an essential part of our daily lives. While social media has many positive attributes, it can be a very toxic environment at times.
Reboot Online utilised online analytics tool, Ahrefs, to establish in which countries the citizens are most likely to quit social media, based on key online searches indicating their clear intention to quit social media.
Reboot Online classified and grouped consistently recurring Google searches by individuals on quitting social media such as; ‘How to delete social media?’, ‘How to delete Facebook?’, ‘How to delete Instagram?’, ‘How to delete Tumblr?’, ‘How to delete TikTok?’, ‘How to delete Twitter?’ and ‘How to delete Snapchat?’ as online searches which most signify users’ desire to quit social media.
Reboot Online found that Americans are the most likely to quit social media with an average 1,134,400 online searches per month indicating their intention to leave social media for good. The equivalent of 36,594 online searches each day. When put into context of how many active internet users there are in America (312,320,000), this equates to 0.363% of American internet users wishing to quit social media.
In second position is India as there is an average 497,940 online searches a month by Indians signalling their desire to quit social media.
The United Kingdom is in third place as there is an of average 308,850 online searches every month from Brits demonstrating their desire to exit social media permanently. When considering the amount of active internet users in the United Kingdom (65,001,016), 0.475% of British internet users are keen to quit social media each month.
Canada (109,120 online searches) and Australia (97,060 online searches) are among the other countries where there are more than 90,000 online searches per month from citizens indicating their ambition to quit social media for the foreseeable future, respectively ranking fourth and fifth.
At the other end in 20th spot is Spain with an average 3,330 online searches a month from Spanish citizens showcasing their aspiration to leave social media for good. When put into context of how many active internet users there are in Spain (42,400,756), 0.008% of Spanish internet users want to quit social media on a monthly basis.
According to a Kaspersky survey, 68% of South African respondents highlighted that they or their loved ones suffered from criminals via social networks. In most cases fraudsters pretended to be familiar to potential victims: the manipulation scheme presented a request for help from a friend (59%).
Users may not recognise immediately who the person on the other side of the screen is. Though the majority of respondents mentioned that they or their loved ones identified the scammers immediately (63), 30% still needed to start a dialogue for doing this.
“Social media is highly integrated in our daily life and scammers just cannot miss the opportunity to reach users directly through all the popular platforms. The fraudsters may find your personal data in your social media account and use it, for example with social engineering methods. In this case, we shouldn’t forget about basic security rules. For example, it’s better to hide private data and double-check your interlocutor if he urgently asks to transfer money or open a suspicious link,” said Maher Yamout, Senior Security Researcher at Kaspersky.
People also try to stay safe from scammers through special apps and programs. According to the survey, at least 49% of local respondents use special security solutions (antivirus) to protect themselves against online scams, 45% installed Caller ID and 31% apply built-in phone functions (blacklist and etc.) against phone fraud.
Kaspersky’s basic security rules include:
• Do not click on suspicious links in emails and messages in chats
• If you have found out about a particular promotion and want to participate, check the official website or official social media accounts to reassure that this company or brand is holding it
• Install a reliable security solution with up-to-date databases of phishing sites, scam and spam, such as Kaspersky Total Security
• Never share confidential information with third parties, including a one-time code from an SMS or push notification
• Install a solution that detects phone numbers of spammers and fraudsters
• Remember: If an offer on the Internet sounds too tempting to be true, then most likely it is fake
A recent study by The University of York has revealed that our social media accounts have the potential to completely change the way we feel about our memories, with their value for many being measured through ‘likes’ and external validation. Yet with a recent report by the BBC revealing that social media could be linked to poor mental health, Instagram is now allowing users to hide their ‘likes’, in a bid to reduce pressure. Similarly, a new regulation from Norway’s Ministry of Children and Family Affairs has been brought in to try and fight unrealistic standards, by requiring influencers who are making money from their content to label when an image has been retouched.
Our social media accounts are often bombarded with an array of idealised images, from ‘ideal’ lifestyles and relationships to the ‘perfect’ career. As such, an emerging social media trend to counter such negative effects has made influencers show the drastic impact that ‘lighting and tensing’ can have on images, with many now sharing both ‘perfect and relaxed poses’ to ‘normalise’ all body types. Similarly, there has also been a rise in ‘Instagram versus reality’ to bring awareness to the fact that our social media platforms are rarely a reflection of reality.
Wouter Staatsen, CEO of PastBook, discusses the value of governments and platforms making social media a representative facet of everyday life: “Social media has had an increasingly bad reputation for unrealistic standards and an idealised version of each user’s life. There has, however, been a recent shift and desire to make social media accounts more realistic and true to real life.
“Whether it be regulation on filters or making the number of likes each post on Instagram gets invisible, both governments and platforms are making social media more representative of every facet of life.”
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