Because the Internet

 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.