Since I am a 22 year old
college student, naturally I use social media every single day. If I’m not
posting something myself, I’m scrolling through the news feed seeing what others
thought was worthy to be put on the internet. As I have reflected on the past
when social media wasn’t nearly as prevalent as it is today, I came to a pretty
concrete conclusion: social media has significantly altered the way that we
communicate in today’s society. Our ability to interact with other people has
become so much easier and faster since the start of the social media trend. We
are now better able to keep in contact and maintain relationships with people.
For instance, most people don’t stay in constant contact with friends who have
either moved away or even just moved on to a different stage in life (like me
with my high school friends); social media makes it possible to see what’s
going on in the lives of people that you care about when they are away from
you, which I think is one of the best benefits of social media sites. The
change in communication that I find the most interesting is the fact that we
now have the opportunity to interact with people that we wouldn’t have been
able to meet in our normal, everyday lives. Millenial
CEO wrote a great article describing how at our fingertips, we can
communicate with people that we would never have even known existed without
social media; someone in Laramie, Wyoming can easily communicate with someone
in Melbourne, Australia within seconds. We also have the means to communicate
with people that otherwise wouldn’t be able to hear our opinion; for instance,
we can tweet a talk show host like Jimmy Fallon on our view of a certain topic
or Justin Bieber about his latest concert. Now, whether they would read or
listen to what we have to say is a different story. An event that I found
particularly interesting happened in 2014 when the riots in Ferguson, Missouri broke
out after Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer. During this
event, many people were shocked when people all the way from Palestine were
tweeting to the rioters in Ferguson, using the hashtag Ferguson, about different
strategies of protection from tear gas. This proves just how easy and fast the
spread of information and communication is via social media. Now, whether you
think that social media has effected communication for the better or worse is
up to you, but one thing is for sure: communication is not the same.
Kal, I really enjoyed reading your thoughts about social media's impact on our daily lives. Its so interesting to think of how our communication will be effected 10 years from now. We are already seeing this huge shift in how we communicate through social media outlets. However, with this shift I definitely think it comes with pros and cons that we have to weigh.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading this blog post! I especially enjoyed when you discussed the events in Ferguson and how people in Palestine were tweeting to them about how to protect themselves from tear gas, because I too, was shocked at this occurring. I was amazed that such an event could bring together a very uncommon discussion between two groups of people that you would never guess would interact (people from Missouri receiving tweets from people in Palestine). Although the situation in which they were communicating under was terrible, it goes to show how people from around the world are now able to communicate because of social media. Many people do say that social media is changing how we communicate for the worse, however I think you did an excellent job at showing the benefits of social media today.
ReplyDeleteI really loved that this was a positive one. I think that so many people think that the shift in how we use social media is bad, instead of just different. I also really enjoyed that you pointed out that social media is key for social movements! It creates a whole knew dynamics that just wasn't possible before, as well as create negatives too like "clicktivism, or slacktivism." Overall, I think that it has made social movements and activism a lot easier and fluid, but it also normalizes many things as well. Great job and I agree that it is so useful and has many positive aspects.
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