I-Media-tly Get Social or Not

Social media is here and who cares if you do not like it! Over the last 30-years, the digital landscape in the world has jumped rapidly. Leaving many behind during the days of DOS and PASCAL program languages, to dropping others off at the advent of the color screen and QWERTY keyboard.

However, no other development in those 30-years has had a greater impact as “social media.” According to PC Magazine, social media in part is defined as, “The online forms of communication that individuals and companies use to share information with interested parties (friends, colleagues, customers, etc.).” Where children used to “go outside to play” with their peers, they now “play” with others on a “digital playground” and all ages can “play” with no consequence of being labeled as a “child.” There is no denying the importance of social media. In a 2013 article written by Gareth Cook in Scientific American titled “Why We Are Wired to Connect” based on work done by scientist Matthew Lieberman.

Matthew Lieberman

Mr. Cook says, “Across many studies of mammals, from the smallest rodents all the way to us humans, the data suggests that we are profoundly shaped by our social environment and that we suffer greatly when our social bonds are threatened or severed.” Reading the entire article and that statement opened my mind up to The New York Times article “Found on Facebook: Empathy written by Teddy Wayne. Although I felt that, the article was an Opinion Piece filled with bits of conflicting “research,” it does illustrate in its own way that there are no hard rules or absolute statistics on the impact of social media. I do believe that social media as a whole, has an impact that each individual user and non-user alike feels. The user is allowed to determine what the use of social media means to them. There are those that use it for strictly keeping up with relatives, like the loving grandmother who lives out of state and desires to participate (looking at pictures) in the growth and life happenings posted of the grandchildren. And the joy that is obtained by digitally being a part of their lives.  There are also those that do not use social media because they believe that it is too intrusive into their lives and they desire digital anonymity. By not using the different platforms, it makes them virtually “invisible” in a world filled with people. In the video titled: “How Social Media can Make History” presented by Clay Shirky. He demonstrated in various ways how social media has been used to empower people due to the dynamic that “groups that see or hear or watch or listen to something, can now gather around and talk to each other as well.” This has changed the way news is disseminated across our planet, changed how connections are made and had altered the ability of a single entity to control any one bit of information that is publicly available. Social media is here to stay and everyone should like it…or not.