Social media drastically evolved with the creation of
Myspace then later Facebook and Twitter. For me, social media began a long time
before those social media networks. When I was young my first experience was
with AOL or other known as AIM. You were able to access large amount of news
and information talk and socialize with friends and family. Also, email, chat
rooms and "away messages" allowed for you to learn more about your
friends and what they were doing with their free time. As I went through my
teenage years the creation of Myspace, Facebook and Twitter took AIM and AOL to
a more evolved level. It has taken over people’s daily lives and become a
resource for not only to connect people but to connect people to organizations,
media and movements.
Like everything else
social media has its positive and negative effects. It can become very
intrusive and can be harmful to people whether it's cyber bullying or just by
making people anti-social in real life environments. I prefer to look at the
positive side effects though. For example, last year a group created an
"ice bucket challenge" to raise money for a disease called ALS. It
instantly became an internet sensation from celebrities and to everyday people
challenging their friends. The challenge informed millions of people about the
disease and helped raise an unreal amount of money for research. Without social
media, the ice bucket challenge would of most likely never of reached the level
of popularity that it did. It allowed for this small group of people to expose
the disease to people all over the world and even inspired athletes,
celebrities and people with great power in this world to help make a
contribution. Social media is a very powerful tool in our world but with
everything there is a responsibility to people to use it in a positive way.
Social media was created to help connect the world. It is our responsibility to
make sure we show respect to people of all cultures and ideas. Social media
allows people of all walks of life a voice and allows all of us the power to
police people who want to us it in a harmful way.
It is fair to say that social media is now a major aspect of
the way we live our lives.
Many people once believed that social media was a fad and
eventually would fade away. There is reason to believe that social media will
just continue to evolve. I believe in the future we will see it become even
easier to access and also contain more abilities then we are able to access
now. We will be able to do our everyday lives without even lifting a finger.
Social media has already evolved so much in just the last 15 years. People will
continue to push the limits on the levels of why we use social media. I believe
that social media will continue to help connect the world.
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