Social Media: Society's Greatest Force

When social media was in its infancy, I also was in my infancy. I remember it being either fully embraced or completely rejected. Life become easier especially for younger folk who felt the need to express themselves in a different outlet. Gone are the days where people only felt seen on a bathroom stall. Now the entire world was our audience. Entire personalities were built and it wasn’t weird because everyone participated. But like every obsession it has drawbacks.

            Social media is a force so powerful that even world leaders have fallen prey. Positions of power that were once respected have become celebrities roles. Government officials have begun participating in twitter feuds. Needless to say, social media has become a place to claim fame but possibly lose all integrity doing it. For instance, awhile back a mass shooting took place inside a mosque in New Zealand. The shooter clearly deranged decided to live stream his action for the world to see. Facebook feeds were filled with videos of the gruesome killings. The shooter's actions alone were horrifying, but what amplifies them is that he knew he would become world news. Social media has given us a way to connect to the world effortlessly and people will tune if it's interesting enough. But that's a price that comes with the relative freedom social media provides. 

But the trick about social media is that it’s really inviting. Adults would constantly nag children to get off their phones. Growing up we always knew how our parents felt about social media. How they would sit us down to explain all the dangers of the internet, just so that we could ignore those warnings completely. Now social media has become an epicenter of everyone’s attention. My mother was always against social media. Long after flip phones she still kept hers because it didn't have “extra stuff.” Five years ago though she made a facebook with a friend and now she’s always posting. This happened to many critical adults. Sooner or later they all became slaves to our adopted world. My point is that the future of social media can only get more enticing. I see the immediate future of social media as irreplaceable. Rather than trying to disconnect, the world will connect more resources to it. We’ve already trusted social media to control our transit, daily communication, and even personal information. Social media will become immortal because in the long run it’ll be the only place we feel a spark. From the moment we wake up till we fall asleep we are constantly glued to our phones. That’s how wrapped in social media we’ve become. It's the first and last thing we do and we’ve accepted it. I even find myself itching for my phone when I haven’t used it in a while. But it even then I can’t completely criticize social media without being hypocritical. It's a place where I’ve built identity. Although it’s flawed, social media is the greatest invention known to man.