I believe social media over all has been a good thing. I talked about this in my last blog but I think it mostly gets a bad wrap. There of course are down sides but I think the upsides balance it out.

To start with the negatives- the biggest one being an increase in bully. It easy to hide behind a screen and say whatever you want but it’s still words out there in the world for others to read. What I also remember is having to watch the movie “Cyberbully” in health class about the effects of online bullying. It showed what was actually happening when social media was becoming more prevalent in life. The movie goes through what man kids went through in America at the time, of course – spoiler alert- the main career does live through the movie but brings up the important fact that there are kids out there that don’t make it.

Another negative is body image that young kids are being exposed too. There has been a spike in kids and young adults having body dysmorphia because of what they see others looking like online. Our society likes certain body types over others and those are the ones that are most shown over social media.

While those are awful and we should all work on changing social media also provides positives in connecting the world. I think it’s super important to travel outside the bubble you grew up in but traveling is very expensive and outside the realm of possibility for people. With social media one can experience different cultures and learn different ways of life without having to leave their day to day job. They can also connect with people like them no matter where they are in the world. This can give people a sense of comfort especially if where they are isn’t accepting of who they are.

Facebook:

Facebook is in a weird position, they started in the myspace era of social media where there weren’t many rules but now have survived till now which there are lots of restrictions on social media. Facebook has had to adapt but they are still behind compared to other forms of social media. We all know Facebook listens to us and sells the information which is wrong and they should put better regulation on, but at the end of the day it’s on the user. We know Facebook does this and if the user continues to use the site then they can’t be upset when they get targeted ads.

My question to the class: what social medias do you have? Is there a reason you use them? (like for me I only use facebook so my older family can see pictures of me at horse shows and bigger events in my life) What’s your favorite social media and why so?