Social media is a complex beast. My own experience with it began about 8 or 9 years ago, when my friends started talking about Myspace. Even then, people spent a lot of their time customizing their pages, making sure the song that perfectly described their life played when you visited their page. Facebook was pretty new and at the time, it was more for college kids… oh how times have changed.
Nowadays, everyone has a Facebook. Getting into trouble at work because of stuff you posted is a thing. It’s not even funny how so so so many people have gotten into trouble because of Twitter (Ok, so it’s a little funny). Who would have thought that posting the first thought that comes into your head would ever get anybody in trouble…
In the end though, social media is just a tool. It’s definitely got far reaching effects, but the social media that people see and interact with every day is created by other people – people with good intentions and some with bad. Social media gives everyone a voice, but some voices are definitely louder than others, and echoed far more frequently.
It’s hard to say if social media really brings people together. On a personal level, I’ve seen that it can be used as a very convenient way to share views and connect with likeminded individuals. But on the flip side, I feel like there’s this weird diluting effect going on. When people are exposed to so much, naturally they’ll rank things in order of importance, whether consciously or unconsciously. Our brains do this all the time, ignoring the stuff that’s not important and focusing on what might be crucial to our survival. So when people are exposed to the world 24/7, that’s going to affect how people process all this information.
Louis C.K. has a rant on YouTube where he says “everything is awesome and nobody is happy”. I think that’s so true, which is why I try to stay on the path of moderation. People spend hours on social media, constantly checking their phones and thinking about so many things besides the present moment. Maybe if people disconnected every once in a while, they’d see that life is possible without social media, and it’s actually still pretty awesome (some would say better). And you can never really appreciate what you have till it’s gone, so when you return to using social media, you might appreciate the power of having the world at your fingertips just a little bit more.
Nowadays, everyone has a Facebook. Getting into trouble at work because of stuff you posted is a thing. It’s not even funny how so so so many people have gotten into trouble because of Twitter (Ok, so it’s a little funny). Who would have thought that posting the first thought that comes into your head would ever get anybody in trouble…
In the end though, social media is just a tool. It’s definitely got far reaching effects, but the social media that people see and interact with every day is created by other people – people with good intentions and some with bad. Social media gives everyone a voice, but some voices are definitely louder than others, and echoed far more frequently.
It’s hard to say if social media really brings people together. On a personal level, I’ve seen that it can be used as a very convenient way to share views and connect with likeminded individuals. But on the flip side, I feel like there’s this weird diluting effect going on. When people are exposed to so much, naturally they’ll rank things in order of importance, whether consciously or unconsciously. Our brains do this all the time, ignoring the stuff that’s not important and focusing on what might be crucial to our survival. So when people are exposed to the world 24/7, that’s going to affect how people process all this information.
Louis C.K. has a rant on YouTube where he says “everything is awesome and nobody is happy”. I think that’s so true, which is why I try to stay on the path of moderation. People spend hours on social media, constantly checking their phones and thinking about so many things besides the present moment. Maybe if people disconnected every once in a while, they’d see that life is possible without social media, and it’s actually still pretty awesome (some would say better). And you can never really appreciate what you have till it’s gone, so when you return to using social media, you might appreciate the power of having the world at your fingertips just a little bit more.
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