Last Monday, we talked about whether we should quit social media with GRF Sara. Just as many Rose scholars pointed out, social media brings lots of pleasure for us. We share interesting videos and share memorable moments of our life. Even if we do not post too much, it is still a great platform for us to know the latest news of our friends and family far away. As an international student who lives far away from my hometown, I deeply feel the same. WeChat/Facebook is an important tool for me to get connect with family/friends for me. However, I also realize the opposite side of social media. For example, people usually post their happy moments in social media and avoid the negative side. There are some potential psychological problems caused by this phenomena. There are also some very radical and bias words spreading around the social media, which attacks others psychologically even not intentionally.
At the end, I believe that we should not abandon social media completely, but we need to be more careful about the way we use it.
I agree. Social media definitely does have good qualities and allows us all to stay connected. It even makes it easier for some businesses to grow. However, if not used with moderation, social media can also be a distraction. I guess that’s something for us to just keep in mind.
I think its really interesting how social media is evolving. For many of us it is where we get most of our news and this creates a host of problems. It is hard to discern what is real from what is fake as user on sites like twitter do such a good job of faking information and leading many to believe it. A lot of politicians use social media extensively and it will be interesting to see how the role of social media evolves down the line.