Thursday, April 28, 2016

Social Media is a Distraction From the Real World

In the world of today, we are invariably looking down on our phones, almost on the diurnal. We are becoming imperceptive from the world in front of us. Echo Staff’s article states, “social networking creates distraction, nuisance among students.” The article also mentions 68 percent of American students own smartphones. Moreover, whenever we are in need of an answer to something, the first place we go to is our phones.

It is astonishing how the creation of Internet has changed people’s lives. It allocates communication and accessibility at all times with just one click. What makes the media an efficient resource is that it is reachable at any time. However, sometimes we tend to misuse and abuse the privilege that is given to us.


Students are constantly checking their statuses online, wherever they are. In class, or at home, they’re always on their laptops or smartphones passing time checking their “home page” and disregard the lecture that the teacher is giving. In the Time Magazine (US Edition) and article called Wired for Distraction: Kids and Social Media, written by Dalton Conley, states, “Students and people that are heavily involved in social media have continuous partial attention.” This means that most people have an inability to concentrate on people or things around them; they will always be involved in another action, which may be on their phones.

You might be wondering how social media helps when you need the answer to a homework question or how it ruins our society. Well as you can see, children are the future generation. Giving them the easy way out as a child will be no help to them in the future. They will believe that everything in life will be as easy as finding the answers online. If you think about it, every subject or topic answer is somewhere on the Internet. People have the ability to just pull it up on their phones and copy the information down. The problem with this is that we are not learning anything from copying our answers from someone else that happened to post it online for the rest of us. Looking from a future perspective, if a student wanted to become an engineer, that career requires math. However if the students had looked up every topic in math instead of taking the time to learn it themselves, they wouldn’t know how to do the calculations. Just like that, the opportunity to do something that they’ve always wanted will slip from their hands.

In conclusion, how we choose to use social media will have a large affect on how life will be for us in the years to come. If we let all the technology we have keep us from paying attention to things that are important in life, it will mess up our chances and possibly our dreams.


Conley, Dalton. "Wired for Distraction: Kids and Social Media." Time. Time Inc., 2011. Web. 28 Apr. 2016.
"Social Networking Creates Distractions, Nuisance among Students." The Echo. 2014. Web. 28 Apr. 2016.


Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Social Media and Racism

http://www.stopracism.ca/content/racism-and-media

Continuing off of the theme of my blogs, the media plays a critical role in the lives of almost everyone in the world, whether you have social media or not. The reasoning behind this is: when someone says something online, it usually affects an audience bigger then just the other person who is receiving the statement. A very suitable example of this is racism.

In the article “Racism and the Media,” written by Yasmin Jiwani, it is stated that, “any difference was constructed as a negative sign and imbued with connotations of threat, invasion, pollution and the like.” The meaning of this quote is that people who are different or not normal, are referred to as just simply “others.” “They” were criminals; “they” were dirty; “they” caused trouble and disease; “they” had to be segregated from “civilized” society. However, we let the color of peoples skin get in the way of many things. Skin color should never be judged or ultimately stop anyone from becoming what they truly want to be in life.

Most people wonder, how is Racism Evident in our Country? Racism has been going on in our society ever since we can remember. It is evident in our society today through social media. Racial slurs are thrown around on social media everyday whether we notice it or not.

I remember the day that the Ferguson Decision broke out, and though this didn't start on social media, however it still ended up on the web. When the decision was made there were so many people tweeting and instagraming how the right decision was made and how it was the "white" cop did the right thing to the "black guy." One can only imagine how the race of the “black guy” feels.... They were probably ANGRY because the stories of injustice that have been passed down for generations that seem to be continuing over the years. They must also have been FRUSTRATED because pop culture, music, and movies glorify these types of police citizen altercations and promote an invincible attitude that continues to get young men killed in real life, away from safety movie sets and music studios. They must have been FEARFUL because in the back of their minds they know that although they are law abiding citizen, they can still be looked upon as a "threat" even to those who don’t really know them. They must also feel  EMBARRASSED because the looting, violent protest, and law breaking only confirm, and in the minds of  many, validate, the stereotypes and thus the inferior treatment. Lastly it is right to say there must have been SADNESS in their hearts because another young life was lost from his family, thus the racial divide has widened, a community is in hurt and hatred, and we may never know the truth about what happened that day. 


"Racism and the Media." Stop Racism and Hate Collective. Web. 27 Apr. 2016.







Friday, April 22, 2016

Social Media Affecting Human Interaction

http://thoughtcatalog.com/jessica-serra/2014/09/social-media-is-destroying-quality-human-interaction/

After taking the time to do thorough research on social media, I settled on making a break down of different categories and perspectives on how social media has ravaged society. The first conclusion I have come to is that it is slowly slackening human interactions. According to Sherry Turkle, a professor at MIT, “social media is just a metaphor for real life.” What this means is that most people believe that communications such as the Internet will bring an endless amount of joy after a very lengthened day but in actuality, it makes our lives more arduous, not effortless. One thing that we lose with having our faces buried in our devices is our skills and capabilities to verbally speak to a person. As a result, you wont find many garrulous people in this world. 

         People are becoming too absorbed with the cyber world. Instead of living in reality they take the form of living on the Internet. Most people may not realize it but this could cause additional, unnecessary stress to their lives; they have tension about what their appearance to the outside world is. Overall, social media is taking away the precious moments that should be spent with family or friends. We are missing out on the greater thing in life because we are constantly replying to messages or checking our feed. However humanity is to blame for the invention of technology; we are also evolving because of technological advances. This should not mean we depend on technology for everything and use it as an escape from this real, beautiful world.
Social Media basically gives everyone his or her own little audience. People become so self absorbed with it, that life itself eventually becomes nothing but an ongoing performance; to the point that they simply go through life looking for the next opportunity to provide something funny, insightful or witty to say in the hopes of appeasing their audience. Technology makes them think they are more connected, but the more they use it, the more disconnected from real life they actually become. 

Serra, Jessica. "Social Media Is Destroying Quality Human Interaction." Thought Catalog. 2014. Web 22 Apr. 2016. 


Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Blog 1- Social Media Introduction

Finding a topic that would interest me enough to write about was very challenging. I was constantly looking things up online, asking around, "what is a interesting topic that I can write about?'' Finally I thought, "what is a problem that everyone carries around on their shoulders?" and I immediately thought SOCIAL MEDIA and how it is changing everyone and everything around us. I took the time to look up some sources online but the articles were a bit too formal for my first blog so instead I went on TED TALK and looked up a video. The video was exactly what I was looking for, and at that moment I found exactly what my goal on writing this topic was. By the end of this I would like to know, what triggered us to act and see people in the perspective that we do right now.

So today I am going to write about how social media has changed society overtime. This topic real caught my eye due to the fact that I hear and see people everywhere talking smack about how many likes a person gets or how many followers they have. This really makes me upset because it’s not like any of that concern them. Furthermore, social media has changed many of our old traditional ways; people are just not how they were in the 50s. Boys no longer approach a girl with the intention of asking her out to a nice evening dinner but rather they ask over text or through direct messaging. The funny thing about all this is that society no longer knows who to trust anymore because some people just talk to others simply for attention and have other girls on the side at the same time. They go out and make you feel special but its heart crushing to find out a person you may have liked is talking to many other girls on the side. If you are still wondering how society has changed... well let me just tell you, people these days care about the wrong things. 

What we should be worrying about is our futures, our careers, and not how many likes a person gets or how popular they are. To be real, we shouldn't even worry about finding love or relationships. Everything that’s meant to happen will happen and things like love and relationships will come to you at the right time. Life is about seeking adventure not waiting for it to come to you. Instead of caring so much about others, you should spend time actually going out into the world and talking to people, having interactions with the real world, not through a computer screen or a phone. I know it sounds like its the same thing, but let me tell you, talking to someone face to face is way better then texting them. 
 TEDxTalks. "How Social Media Makes Us Unsocial I Allison Graham I
          TEDxSMU." Youtube, 2014. Web. 19 Apr. 2016