Why You Shouldn't See Social Media as a Bad Thing

It seems that as time goes on, social media gets more and more of a bad wrap for itself. More and more people are seeing social media as a virus or a threat and its becoming a problem. As a relatively moderate user of social media, I feel like that the fears come from the irrational things that are reported by the news and what not, and to be frank that's what the news does; report irregularities.

Often times people see a lot of things about harassment or cyber bullying, however when they think about it little do they realize that this isn't too different than the real world. People get bullied and harassed, and yet in the real world there is no mute or ignore or block button. In the real world, there are no admins that we can report inappropriate behaviors to.

So now might be the part where you say 'well if it's so great, than what about it makes it great?' Well, let me start it off with this; without social media, would you know what other places in the world were like? Would you know about the riots in Hong Kong? Or how about where you wanted to plan your next vacation to? Social media is one of the biggest sources of information that we have now, and even though you may not think that, you absorb so much information from social media all the time. Even if it's just how your friends are doing, that's still something that you wouldn't have known through a Google search.

Another amazing thing is it makes everyone connected in the world. With a world that was so sparse with everyone really only knowing people they've met in person, that sort of connectivity was exactly what we needed. I can talk to people from China, Australia, California, Germany, all from the comfort of my New Hampshire home.

Now, this is man with an opinion that directly contrasts my point. In this Ted Talk, Cal Newport goes on to say that he believes you should quit social media for an array of reasons, however I feel like he contradicts his point almost immediately in the beginning as he says that he has never had a social media account. Now the reason why this is a problem for his point and topic is the fact that he makes the argument of all of these different topics of sort of addicting issues with social media, and yet knows nothing of the great things about it.

Social media is, from a business stand point, a source of mass media entertainment. It's made to be engaging, just like a movie or TV shows. The fact that it's almost addicting shows that social media does a really good job of being a source of entertainment. It's the reason why I don't like the argument of that it's bad because it's addicting. In fact, for us as a society it's quite the opposite: If it's that addicting of a social media, than realistically it's a good thing for us as it satiates our constant need for entertainment, especially because it's very easily accessible.

So as a take away, I want you to think about how you use social media; maybe to talk to friends, maybe to learn new things, or maybe to find other places of the world you didn't know about. Either way, you are purely a consumer of it's entertainment, and you shouldn't be angry about it. It's all addicting as it activates your brain with the things you want to see, and what's so bad about that?

Citations
Social Media Icons. Word Stream, www.wordstream.com/social-media-marketing.
     Accessed 25 Nov. 2019.
Newport, Cal. "Why You Should Quit Social Media." TED, TED Conferences, June
     2016, www.ted.com/talks/cal_newport_why_you_should_quit_social_media.
     Accessed 25 Nov. 2019.