Impact of social media on the society
As we are progressing towards the future, the internet is becoming more and more essential in our daily lives. Nowadays, we rely on the internet so much that we use it for almost every little thing, and the most thing that is used on the internet is social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and many more. We use social media to show the world what we are doing and where we are going, etc. The use of social media and things like this comes with advantages and disadvantages. For example, people almost share everything on social media that someone can steal your information and can do something very bad with that information, or on the other hand, it helps us unite on one issue that is affecting someone or our community. As social media has some disadvantages, but I think it is mostly used for good things like helping us unite in a situation or finding the solution for it, that's why I think social media is used for good things mostly.
A growing social media is becoming an essential part of our lives, it is being used for everything nowadays, for example; for advertisement, to take polls, to talk on an issue and more importantly for politics because it can help us in fair and free elections. Social media is being used a lot for politics in this distinctive future like in the 2020 elections in the US. In 2020, most of the campaigns for the election were run on social media especially on Twitter, as it is the most popular social media platform for celebrities, politicians and other world leaders. Most of the campaign happened on social media because of the Coronavirus disease, so it was safe for everyone to not get together at the same place. One more great example of politics on social media comes from Nigeria. "As one group called Enough Is Enough (EIE) in Nigeria, used one of the first social media platforms, Facebook, for fair and free elections. Their goal is to mobilize their young people, from Facebook, to pressure their government for free, fair, and credible elections, something Nigeria has never had despite more than 10 years of civilian rule" (Gale in Context). This source talks about how one group in Nigeria was able to mobilize their young people to pressure the government for free and fair elections. They used the power of social media to attract their youngsters to pressure for fair elections which Nigeria have not had in more than 10 years.
Nowadays with the growing technology, we have computers in our hands in the form of smartphones on which we can use social media wherever we are and we can use it all around the world. As social media is growing, it has become the main platform to discuss or talk about any issue we or our community are facing. One of the biggest examples of it you can get is the George Floyd case in which an African American man was brutally murdered by a cop in Minneapolis. This event caused the spark for the Black Lives Matter movement on social media. This issue was so much discussed and talked about that it went worldwide and everyone around the world stood with George Floyd's family and friends during their sad times. Twitter has become a powerful tool for activists, as it is helping knit together real-time responses and collaboration across all kinds of political issues and campaigns. For example, "In about three weeks, an all-volunteer, loosely linked network of coders, political activists and journalists came together to popularize the #votereport hashtag, get all the voter-protection groups to add it to their Election Day reporting systems, created robust reporting tools and visualization systems" (Gale in Context). By the use of Twitter, they were able to popularize the hashtag all around the country with just the use of Twitter, that's why I think social media is bringing us together and making us collaborate and talk on specific topics or issues.
Social media is not just the home of advantages, it also comes with some disadvantages. Social media has also become the place of fake news which is highly affecting our society as they tend to believe in them so easily. The fake news problem has grown so much that they are affecting public health by spreading fake remedies and cures on social media. In the recent events of the Covid-19 pandemic, the social media has spread a lot of fake news about the spread of Coronavirus disease, "The consequences of disinformation overload are the spread of uncertainty, fear, anxiety and racism on a scale not seen in previous epidemics, such as SARS, MERS and Zika" (ProQuest central). The fake news and disinformation that was spread on social media have impacted society physically and mentally. Due to fake news, a lot of racism was recorded against Chinese and Chinese-Americans because it was believed that this disease originated in China. The spread of fake news also spread the fear and anxiety that people bought everything for the quarantine and that markets ran out of things like toilet paper, hand sanitiser, masks etc. The spread of fake news can be very deadly because it can affect people very badly and that can cause some negative effects on a person's mental health.
I believe that social media is mostly used for the benefit of the people because it can help you know stuff that you didn't know and can help you understand the problem or issue that our country or planet is facing. Social media has also become a tool that empowers people and makes them change their perspectives and point of view. This can be counted as both advantage and disadvantage because with the use of social media, we can change people's bad perspectives or points of view to good or we can change their good perspectives or point of view too bad. This is happening more than you can imagine in our society, it is affecting us positively and negatively. According to the source from Gale in Context, "social media provides a complex and deep infrastructure perfect for the activist processes of social transformation" (Gale in Context). This quote means that social media can cause social transformation which can divide people into different groups and it can also cause a lot of hate between these groups or this can make people come close to each other due to their same perspective and point of view.
To sum up my argument, I want to say that social media mostly benefits people in this society and it is helping people with getting close to each other when there is an issue in our society. Everything has faults in it, it is never perfect; same for social media, has advantages but it also has a few disadvantages. I think social media have brought us closer and together to each other during this time of pandemic which has affected social gatherings a lot and because of the quarantine people have been isolated and caught up by anxiety and depression but I think social media did relieve us from this anxiety and depression by keeping us connected to the society and people. Social media has become an essential part of our lives that it is really hard for us to live without. It is everywhere nowadays; you can use social media almost on every device like mobiles, laptops, computers, tablets etc. Social media is helping us get together in many different ways like by collaborating or discussing an issue on social media, especially Twitter as it is the main platform for discussing and talking on an issue. I think social media has become an integral part of our lives and I don't think it is going anywhere in this couple of decades unless something else similar to this is introduced to us.
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