I
constantly hear that my generation is going to be socially stunted because of our incessant use of social media. I feel as though I am frequently listening to people tell me that we won’t be able to pick up on social cues or react in real world situations because we have become socialized in a cyber-world. However, I’m not convinced that social media and this new age of technology are wholly detrimental to social development. As with anything, there are obvious positives and negatives.
There is a huge issue with cyberbullying. It’s much easier to sit back behind a computer screen and type a derogatory comment than it is to bully in person. However, the effects of the cyber-bullying are just as detrimental as any type of bullying to the victim.
In a similar vein, at the end of almost every online article, I’m appalled by how vicious the comments are. Oftentimes, the comments not only attack the content of the article, but also the writing of the author or other commentators. I believe a lot of that willingness to comment so strongly comes from the ability to write behind a username as well as a computer screen. Of course that’s not always the case, but I think it contributes to it.
Additionally, social media sites obviously open up our lives to the public and to the hundreds of people that we allow to be our friends. This often creates an obsessive desire within us to have our lives look as cool and as fun as possible by picking the right profile picture, uploading the right pictures or making an appearance on others’ pages. Social media has caused us to become more self-conscious.
Similarly, we are also much too open on social media sites. My biggest problem with Facebook right now is that I don’t care about the majority of posted status updates. Users are posting useless information that would most likely seem irrelevant if they were telling a group of hundreds of people in person rather than over the Internet.
Undoubtedly, social media is a time-waster for many of its users. I know plenty of individuals who delete their Facebook or Twitter accounts during finals week, just to ensure that they don’t end up spending hours sucked into a site they can’t afford to spend time on.
However, with all those negatives aside, there are some enormous benefits to social media use. For example, and most importantly, communication is becoming much easier for my generation.
Although I attend a different university than most of my high school friends, it’s incredibly easy to check up on them, to see their posts on my newsfeed, to write on their Facebook wall or to send them a chat. I understand that many people are worried about kids’ ability to interact face-to-face and pick up on different social cues. However, I think that the way we communicate through this new-found technology and social media can absolutely relay our personalities; it’s simply in a different manner. We are talented at deciphering the writing styles of our friends. It’s easy for us to tell when a friend is upset over Facebook or text simply by the way they use punctuation or by their word choice. We post videos, pictures and statuses that we think our friends will like. It’s very personal communication; it’s just not face to face.
The role of news on social media is critical. The most important news stories are inescapable to most social media users simply because the information will be tweeted or shared multiple times. With social media’s huge audience, it’s easy to keep up with the most popular current events.
Social media is also ideal for organization. Students use Facebook groups for class projects, for extracurricular activities and as an entire class resource site. Organizations use social media to post important information about their service or product. Artists are constantly using social media to publicize their work and gain support.
Finally, I think there is a way to handle this technological age while becoming perfectly socially adept. The vast majority of people still prefer in-person contact to technological contact, and of course kids are still learning important social cues by being together in person. However, social media allows us to keep in contact with friends and family who we can’t see face-to-face. I think the technological age has major advantages, and of course some issues that need to be worked through. But, I can’t agree with those who think the world is undoubtedly moving to become too technologically based.
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