In
2017 social media is a seemingly dynamic ubiquitous tool, a preserver of facts,
an equalizer in its own respect. For once in a history we have a social
platform almost entirely of the hands of the people. Is it intrusive? Intrusive
is a relative term but I imagine that most people including myself get
irritated with the presence of social media. One of the most obvious hindrances
of its existence is that it’s honestly just a major time waster. We all like to
think that we’re very busy people with busy lives and that’s not wrong, but
just take a second how much time you’ve spent solely on social media today
alone. Scrolling, posting or watching it doesn’t matter you’ve been staring at
your phone today. Now I want you to think about how much time you’ve spent on
social media in the past week, month or year alone.
Suddenly
it all catches up to you. Don’t get me wrong here I’m not here to lecture you
about how millennials are selfish ego-driven snowflakes or some gen x speech
just that we need to break the cycle a little bit. For example let’s just say that you all
together spend 2 hours a day on social media. Let’s practice restraint and cut
down an hour off of that, congratulations you just got 365 hours a year to
learn the guitar, write a book, go to the gym, paint or whatever you want it’s
your time.
Does
this mean that social media as a whole is bad? No, that’s a ridiculous
assertion to make, it just needs to be utilized correctly. Social media is the
voice of this generation whether we like it or not. Journalism is in no way
safe from this trend, we don’t buy newspapers we read the news online, more
specifically in (hopefully credible) sources on Facebook. In this past election
for example, the phrase “the revolution
will not be televised” made it’s come back. Only this has less to do with Gil
Scott-Heron and more to do with Bernie Sanders. More often than not news
coverage was Hillary vs. the rascally gang of interchangeable rich white guys,
Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson and the bare minimum coverage of Sanders. Yet millions of people voted for him in the
primaries, the only way many people knew about him was because of so many young
people spreading his message online. Without social media he would have never
even had a chance to winning the primaries. The future is polarizing in that
regard, the power must be returned to the public and social media is the way to
do that. If you have access to the internet there is no limit how big your
influence can be and this trend will continue. The internet will no longer stay
quiet in times of racism, sexism, trans-phobia, homophobia or islamophobia. There
will always be a way to be heard. I see more people standing out, I see more
people resisting.
