Week1 B: Social Media Use Today

  I have a lot of conflicting thoughts on social media. I think it’s partly a tool, meaning our experience on it is somewhat up to us, but there’s no denying that social media platforms tailor their algorithms so that we interact in certain ways. Some of the ways social media shapes our interactions can be good, like talking to old friends. Another good thing is that social media has given voices to marginalized groups. I don’t think the Black Lives Matter movement would exist much at all if it weren’t for social media. Millions of people marching to end police brutality was pretty inspiring. I also think the Arab Spring, even though it ended in tragedy in many places, was a great glimpse at what could be possible in the future due to social media.

There definitely is a dark side to social media, that I think can be solved in many instances with more robust moderation, but companies often don’t do enough due to fears of looking political.  I don’t think that there should be a safe space on social media for hate speech or vaccine misinformation. Social media platforms that do allow these things often become cesspools where hate groups radicalize people and it often has deadly consequences.

Some platforms are definitely better at some things than others. I think Facebook is a great place to see what old friends are doing, but not a great place to get your news. Twitter is essentially the opposite of this. It’s not a great place to keep tabs on friends but is more about the thoughts of verified users. The character limit also makes it more of a place to post humorous jokes or share news articles. Reddit is great for finding people with common interests. There are, of course, exceptions to all of these generalizations. Sometimes, entrepreneurs and creators, have their work go viral on Twitter or Reddit and that will lead to a job, rather than a resume on a site like LinkedIn. A ton of people also get their news from Facebook (I’d just argue Twitter is a better place to get it from).

I mostly use social media for news and fun right now. Social media has allowed me to connect to other people that share my interests. I’ve learned a lot of stuff about games, movies, and books and from Reddit. I’ve recently moved on to reading more professional critics for recommendations, but Reddit gave me a great place to start to find good art. I’ve gotten the same sort of benefit regarding news on Twitter. It’s loaded with good commentary from experts and news from journalists. I get to read a bunch of great articles I never would have found had I just stuck to reading my newspaper.  I also just scroll on social media looking at memes, which is good fun.