Did you know what social media is?Hmm probably the word would sound foreign to your ears. But what about Facebook, Twitter, Skype, flickr and foursquare huh? Not so foreign anymore right? So basically social media IS Facebook, Twitter, flickr and foursquare; those sites that you couldn’t live a day without. 
Now, let me ask you some questions. Do you still remember how back in those days we communicate with other people using snail-mail? Wow, those days seems so faraway now with the existence of Internet. What century was that anyway, the 18th? Heck, I didn’t even think I had ever sent a snail-mail before.
Social media did wonders in improving our life, but don’t you think we spend too much time and rely too much on social media? When the last time you refer to a book if you didn’t know something? I couldn’t remember, because I only used Google if I feel clueless.
I could spend hours doing nothing but staring people’s pictures onFacebook. With that said, my times that supposed to be precious doing assignments and hanging out with family and friends are just wasted doing absolutely nothing beneficiary or productive at all.
See the differences? Uh-huh.
Honestly, I would feel very…empty if I have not logged in into any of those social media in a day. I would feel left behind, I would feel lost if I did not do so. It’s pretty much an addiction. I tried once deactivating my Facebook account for a week but I feel so lost because even puny things like assignments are discussed through Facebook, how would I continue on living if I deactivate my Facebook forever?
Social media is taking away the pleasure of communicating and meeting in person as everything could be done virtually. Dating, flirting, working, eating, playing – you name it. Everything could be done virtually. Remember Wall –E? The side effects of humans relying way too much on technology, it ain’t a pretty sight – if you know what I mean.
You want to be like this? Really?
Information spreads faster as well on social media. There are good sides of this (in times of natural disasters like earthquake) since the Internet is basically unfiltered unlike broadcast and printed media where details are filtered and manipulated for some purposes. BUT with this rumours could also spread faster, faster than you could say ‘fast’. C’mon, tell me, how many times have you read faked death news of a celebrity on social media?
I have lost count on how many times Justin Bieber died.
With social media too, people generally have become meaner due to the anonymousity of the Internet. People could say that they have the right to comment on anything as they like but really, in real life, would you dare too? It’s a good thing that people have become more outspoken (albeit, online) but I feel the need to stress the line of being mean/troll or just speaking out their thoughts.
Say for example, let’s take Rebecca Black. She debuted on Youtube with Friday. Yeah, you know, that horrendous catchy song “Friday, Friday getting down on Friday”. So, she’s only 13 or 14 but the comments on the video saying that she should just die and everything is just…”wait, a second, you didn’t even know this girl and you telling her to go die just because of a song, don’t you think it’s…mean?”
Imagine if Ms. Black in front of you, do you have the guts to tell her that? I don’t think so.
It didn’t help that Ms. Black’s horrendously catchy song had become an internet meme, that in my opinion is worse than school bullying. You can say meme is a part of internet pop culture and stuff but really, if you were in poor little Rebecca’s shoes, would you say the same as well?
Well, so that’s my take on how social media affects the society.To conclude this post, social media is just like drugs. It could be good or bad based on how you handled it. Too bad there's no rehab for social media addicts :(
I extremely agreed with Ain. Twitter's timeline has become my newspaper or bulletin board. I know everything from Twitter. From rumors till the truth. Sometimes i feel like I'm missing something and i feel restless just because I can't tweet. Social media can makes you addict towards it. If you're going separate social media from teenagers, it's just like you're creating trouble with an alcoholic. I even get a followers whom is younger than my brother. Imagine that you're 12 years old girl tweeting with someone that 10 years older than her. It may cause negative influences towards her studies. The world changed and it will keep changing and the kids will be in a massive trouble.
ReplyDeletehaha.. Wall-E is such a great example! with technologies and social networking going on, we just need to sit there, bring all the supplies we need and put it beside us,grab when we need and do not need to make a single move at all! slowly we'll become lazy and obese and all sorts of sickness coming out. As yasmin says, twitter timeline is our electronic newspaper, facebook is to socialize and so on. thanks to iphone and others. It does make our life easier go on twitter and facebook but thats kinda bad for people because everywhere u go, u dont see people talking. even they sit beside each other, they text each other and not talking at all. there's pros n cons for these social networking. we should be smart . think and do wisely =D
ReplyDeletethe idea of what the artist plan to do for the animation (wall-e) is really funny. I always look back at myself. One day if I am too lazy to move around I would be the same as the wall-e’s movie. Yeah it’s sound impossible but this might comes true. Nowadays, everything uses technology and people always want more and demanding to make life much easier. They can get anything at the tip of their fingers. When i think about it back, social media really scared me in a way that we live in a world, completely difference than we used to.
ReplyDeleteI almost agree about "I could spend hours doing nothing but staring people’s pictures on Facebook. With that said, my times that supposed to be precious doing assignments .... " for me, the social media has made me a lazy person to do things like solve the assignment given by the lecturer. In fact, the work was given a week ago. I personally willing to postpone the work. My life would be chaos. I always do the assignments at the last minute.
ReplyDeleteTruthfully, I used to be terrified of what Social Media can do but as for now I need Social Media to feed me with news and info about this world with only by using tapping on my keyboard. I'm too relying on the technologies for my everyday life but I'm just hoping I will not end up like those people in Wall-E. Being anonymous is fine for me though but I don't like when it come to the extend of bullying people in internet by using fake names. But most important things of all, I agree with Ain :)
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