随着互联网和科学技术的日益发展，社交媒体逐渐融入了人们的社会网络，以它为媒介彼此之间进行分享意见、见解、经验和观点的工具与平台，在这个网络平台上，无数的信息被网络中的节点（人）过滤并传播着，由此形成了新的网络媒介空间，用户之间彼此生产并转发信息，在互联网中相互连结，沟通，形成新型的社交方式。本文旨在文献分析的基础上研究社交媒体的定义、形态、属性，并梳理其发展脉络，预测发展趋势。Web 2.0的时代，社交媒体具有的社交媒体具备关系性、个体性、分享性、聚集性等诸多特性，使得用户成为信息的生产和传播者，本文运用传播效果理论，针对北京大学生群体进行调研，统计北京大学生群体对于社交媒体的使用情况，分析这一群体对于社交媒体的认识和使用能力，发现在大学生中对社交媒体普遍存在一定程度的媒介依赖，不在信息爆炸时代，对于信息的甄别、筛选和处理的能力上需要进一步提高，也需要媒介实施更有效的信息整合，提升媒介平台的综合服务指标。同时，本研究还重点考察了社交媒体在网络购物和人际网络构建与维护中对北京大学生群体产生的不同程度的影响，数据显示，北京大学生群体普遍认为社交媒体有利于朋友的交流，但并不喜欢运用社交媒体同父母交流，对于品牌的网络推广存在一定的抵触情绪。最后，本文对于大学生个人媒介素养的提升以及社交媒体发展的整合升级给予了意见和建议。

With the development of Internet and technology, social media has become an indispensable element in social network，which offers a platform to allow people to share opinions, experiences and ideas. An enormous amount of information is filtered and transmitted by innumerous nodes (people) in this network, which creates a new network media space. Messages are created and forwarded among users who are connected by the Internet and a new way for social networking has been shaped. This essay, based on the analysis of literature, aims to study the definition, form and attribution of social media, and to summarize its development process and forecast its developing tendency. In the era of Web 2.0, social media possess relevancy, individuality, sharing, aggregation and other characteristics, which make users become the producers and disseminators of the information. By employing communication effect theory, this essay focuses on college students in Beijing and analyzes their understanding and use of the social media according to statistics on their utilization. It has been discovered that college students in general are social media-dependent to some extent. They need some improvements on distinguishing, discriminating and processing information. Media at the same time should more effectively integrate information and advance the aggregative indicators of their platform. Besides, this study has also investigated the influence of social media on online shopping and human network construction among college students in Beijing. Statistics show that college students in Beijing generally regard social media helpful for communication among friends as opposed to with their parents, and they often feel resistant to online brand promotion. In the last part of this essay, comments and suggestions have been given on the media literacy improvement of college students as well as the integration upgrade of social media development.