Social media is the greatest and worst thing that has ever happen to a society and its because of the the ability it has to create a movement. Headlines of social media did not take place until the early 2000,s, in 2004 MySpace was the first social media site to reach a million monthly active users. This milestone was astonishing because you can look at it as almost a start to technology. People were now able to access and delivering information instantly to millions of people. The problem with social media is that anybody can post so legitimacy is always a question of thought. Information is a powerful thing and an individual or even a group can alter an opinion to seem as truth. Most of us, if not all, are active on various social media platforms and information is often given with no proof. We the users are in charge of our beliefs behind what we see, the issue is that we are easily influenced by the actions and doings of those we see as equals or idolize. I’m at fault in that case, I’ve jumped to conclusions without evidence because their was a similar opinion between my peers that I judged as truth.

Social media has created a false image on just about everything in society. Our trends are fabricated by the upper-class we see on social media, our decisions of what to wear, what to eat, what to look like, who to call friends and etc are derived through social media. The negatives of social media are infinite because of how many opinions you have to filter through before finding a reality.

Politics and social issues are two of the most recent topics that social media has inflamed the already have many controversial beliefs. We’ve seen how Donald Trump has used social media as a platform to deliver false information to the entire world. Politicians and various news networks have thrown out opinions and false accusations that have caused huge uproar by individuals and organizations. The biggest social issues that we have today in America are social injustice and police brutality of African Americans. Social media has brought that to light, people can’t hide anymore what they are doing. A video at any time can be on you and be broadcasted to the entire world as a moments notice and due to that it has shown us what is really going on in America.

Social media is not all negative. It can and has been used as a platform that brings together like minded individuals to speak on common ideas.

As the above image outlines, they’re several branches that are positives of social media. The two biggest for me are relationships and awareness. With millions of users with instant access to each other you can meet just anybody no matter their social class. Awareness is huge in social media because information is literally at the click of a finger. The entire world today is no accessible and that is great in part to social media.

Some questions for thought:

Do you use social media as your main platform for daily news and social events of the world?

Has social media given you false information that took you a long time to figure out the truth?

If not social media, how else would you know what is going on in the world?