May 30, 2018

By: John Galbraith Jr

 

            For the amount of time we as a society spend on social media, it sure gets a bad stick. “Live your own life, stop living through hers”, or, “you’ve been in your phone all day.” Let’s be honest, we’ve all heard it before. Yes, kids are less probable to be hanging outside with their buddies. Yes, kids are mesmerized by Greg’s sick new kicks that are popping up on their Instagram feed. We get you are disappointed that your kid isn’t the kid you once were, but times are changing and so are we.

            It’s 2018, and the wave of social media is at high tide. Social media has begun to expand. It is no longer solely for the reason of gossip or drama. Instead, social media has presented us with one of the single greatest opportunities to express our first amendment right (freedom of speech). Before us sits multimedia platforms that, in almost all cases, are free. These different platforms present an opportunity for expressing views to millions, even billions of people you will never make physical contact with. Whether it be politics, religion, or laurel Vs. yanny, social media presents the largest social stage possible for you to express yourself. 

            Content online spreads like wildfire. Let’s say, in a theoretical situation, I just posted a tweet on twitter. For adding purposes, we will say that I have 500 followers. Although 500 does not seem like a lot, I opportunely received a retweet from a follower. Now, not only did my 500 followers just view my tweet, but since someone else retweeted it, my tweet was exposed to over a thousand people. Although this is a very basic and simple example of social media exposure, it shows how quickly what you are saying is being broadcasted to others. All it takes now a day is the click of a button. 

            What I have come to realize is that we have the power at our disposal, simply just sitting in our pocket. Social media is going to be a major factor in all aspects of life in the future. Whether that effect will be positive or negative, however, is all up to us. So, let’s make the world a better place and start using social media the way it was meant to be, before it gets the better of us.