Social media platforms such as the Internet, email, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have played an important role in connecting people from all over the world. It opened an immediate and sometimes intimate connection between people of all cultures, classes and nations. Social media has removed the distances, boundaries, and differences that previously separated people (Sawyer, 2011). The ability to communicate and share information at a moment's notice has changed the way we interact with each other. Social media has also provided employers with a new, faster way to find and train employees and solicit and use employee ideas and innovations to benefit the company. In her research paper Rebecca Sawyer (201l) highlighted some of the reasons why we like to use social media. First, we all have a desire to be together and we naturally have a need to feel connected to each other. Second, we need relationships to experience a sense of belonging, communication, and interaction with others. Third, he writes that we use the knowledge we have discovered through social media to interact with others and compare opinions and perspectives on issues, topics and events occurring anywhere in the world. Social media offers these opportunities through online communities and social websites. (Sawyer, 2011). One of the most used social media platforms is Facebook. It helped create access for people to exchange all types of information with others anywhere in the world in seconds. Research conducted by Facebook found that eighty to ninety percent of the world's population is covered by 2G or 3G networks. Cost is the primary barrier to using social media in remote parts of the......middle of paper......another and from the shared experiences and opportunities that social media offers to our cultures and to our countries.ReferencesChapter 2 - The Social Studies Topics. (n.d.). Retrieved March 28, 2014, from NationalCurriculum Standards for Social Studies: www.socialstudies.org/standards/strandsFacebook News Room, March 28. (2014, March 28). Retrieved March 28, 2014, from Facebook:newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/03/connecting-the-world-from-the-skyGhafoor, M., & Martin, T. (2012, January). Six ways social media technologies can accelerate large-scale change. Retrieved March 28, 2014, from Accenture: http://www.accenture.com/us-en/outlook/Pages/outlook-online-2012-social-media-technologies-accelerate-large-scale-change.aspxSawyer, R ( 2011, May). University of Rhode Island. Retrieved March 28, 2014, from DigitalCommons at URI: http://digitalcommons.uri.edu