The Good and Bad of Social Media

jbrownnolan

This year my daughter is doing her Genius Hour Project on the Good and Bad of Social Media in Today’s Society. I am reaching out to my Social Media connections to ask for your opinions, thoughts, experiences (whether they be personal or observed), examples, observations, etc. on this subject (again looking for the Good AND the Bad, keeping in mind this is for a 14 yr. olds eyes).

Some things you may be able to answer are questions like: How do you remember socially interacting 20+ years ago vs. today? How do you feel Social Media is affecting our youth? How do you feel it affects you as an adult? Do you think your life would have been any different growing up if you would have had the tools available today 20+ years ago? Where do you feel that social media is going to take us into the future?, etc.

My daughter would love all of your opinions and input on this subject (please try to keep the language clean though). Any information provided will be submitted as anonymously as you choose, just let me know that you want your name to be private in her presentation.

Thank you for your help on this

Followingsea

Social media can be both a good thing and a bad thing. I'm in my early thirties, and so when I was in my teens there was no Facebook or Twitter, and social media was limited to instant messaging clients and early early chat rooms (I remember Yahoo chat rooms in HTML where you'd have to refresh constantly to see what other people were saying!)

The good side of social media is that it allows you to maintain communication - if not contact - with people in your lives you might not otherwise be able to. An example in my own life: I had dinner last night with an old high school friend who moved to England maybe ten years ago. She was back in town for a week, and we coordinated the meetup through Facebook. We have both changed numbers and addresses several times since the last time we saw each other; without social media, we likely would not have been able to do that.

The downside is that it is so accessible. When tempers flare, or in a bad judgment call, it's easy to broadcast something you would later regret to an audience you'd rather not. I am glad that Twitter and Facebook weren't around when I was a young teen - I have online diaries from that time period I preserve for whenever I need a good ego bruising.

jbrownnolan

Thanks you for your message. It is hugely appreciated

rowlandsw

I'm in my mid 30s and I see only slight good coming from social media. The downside is that it has sped up the loss of civility in this country, and maybe the world, as everyone suddenly thinks they're right and there are no consequences to what you do online. you can be as vile and evil as you want and get away with it and as they grow used to doing that it moves on into the real world, just watch the news and you see how vile the younger generations can be. It leads to a lack of empathy and or even an apparent sense of right or wrong.

It wouldn't have been much different if the net had been around when we were kids, we'd have grown up like kids these days thinking that we could say or do anything online. There would be the loss of letter writing etiquette we see now and the rise of text speak and the loss of people and work skills. There is a lot of good online social media such as forums for hobbies but even these are full of the vile people mentioned above who aren't above harassing each other.

Social media needs a giant overhaul to stop the online bullying but it will never happen as we've become apathetic and callous as a society with the internet spurring it on as we think there is nothing we can do to change it.
Personally I'd be happy if facebook and sites like it would vanish as i have yet to see anything good come out of that end of social media other than creepy folks and vapid idiots posting every bit of their personal life as if anyone cares or as if it was safe to do so. In the end i'm not sure the good of social media outweighs the bad. The internet has sort of become what it was meant to be: a tool for education and information exchange but at the same time it has become a babysitter for kids just like the TV became for our generation as parents let their kids go wild.

jbrownnolan

Thank you for your response rowlandsw