From my point of view, social media is like a pencil. It is one of the most common and widely adapted tools in the world, and to the average person it works well for just jotting down ideas and sharing little insights. Some people, however, pick up a pencil and are able to write down vivid stories or draw small worlds of amazing detail. Social media works in the same way. While most people use it as a way to pass their time, some are able to use it in a powerful and meaningful way. One example of that would be when social media is used to bring people together and work towards a shared outcome. When using social media correctly, people can come together and bring aid to places which have been effected by terrible disasters. When using social media correctly people can be informed on various political issues and weigh in their opinion. When using social media correctly we can see, and learn, and communicate more easily than we have ever been able to.
Social media is incredibly powerful because of its size and universal acceptance, but its size and acceptance also proves to be its biggest problem. Social media is a tool, and like any tool you need to use it correctly for it to work as it was designed to. The biggest issue with social media is people don't know how to correctly use it. People have stopped treating it as a tool that inspires others, allows them to share their opinions, and spread meaningful stories and have become too worried about keeping an image that may not suit who they are. Social media was created to be a forum that allows people to open themselves up to friends and acquaintances in a safe and simple environment, but has slowly become a place where people only care about how others see them, and appearances are more important than opinions. The incredibly powerful abilities social media has to bring people together has begun to drive people apart. People become too competitive trying to show those around them how perfect their life is, and fail to show the important things they believe and have the desire to share, in fear of looking bad.
I hate to say that I am a very stereotypical social media user. Especially during high school, I would share things that I thought would show people how interesting my life was, but wouldn’t share what I thought about anything, and failed to put stories behind my posts to give them meaning or relevance. Recently I have realized how powerful social media can be as a tool and as a way to express myself, so I will be working on figuring out how I can make the most of such a powerful thing we are lucky to have.
I figure I should also introduce myself here… I am Ben Enbom, a freshman Economics (BS) major and math minor who came from San Anselmo, California (in Marin County on the non SF side of the Golden Gate). Although I have grown up in the Bay Area, I spend my summers on the Puget Sound, so I can sort of consider myself both a Californian and Washingtonian. I am also both an American and Canadian citizen, which further complicates my “who I am and where am I from” issue. In my free time I do a lot of photography, filmmaking, mountaineering, wake boarding, skiing, and I am a big cyclist. I raced MTB and road throughout high school and plan on continuing to do so. I am excited for this semester’s english class!
@benbom