Thoughts from social media user

It’s our mindset, as students, these days to share what we’re doing and thinking almost every minute of the day with others. Thanks to the Internet and social media we have countless ways of doing this— Tumblr, Twitter, LiveJournal, Facebook, Myspace, and blogs just to name a few.

I’ve had or currently have all of the above, except for Myspace. Why do I waste my time you may ask? It’s partly because I like it and partly because it is a necessity. I have my blog to practice fashion writing and my Twitter to keep up with my Public Relations class. I hate Facebook, but it would be impossible to function without it. I would never know what is going on.

I’m no expert, but I know that these websites have changed our lives. Changed for the better? I’m not so sure, but it has made keeping up with the news a lot easier and faster. Connecting with others in a fast pace world has become easier and staying connected to those people, which is even more important, can now be done in a click of a button.

Besides the practical side of sharing news, people have started sharing their opinions like never before. Social media makes it possible for anyone with access to the Internet to share their personal opinions on the latest fashion, gossip, music or political spat. The positive effects this flow of thought has created results in millions exercising their first amendment, however, this has produced issues the tech savvy world we live in.

The anonymity of the Internet has emboldened people to say what they think even if it is harmful.

In her New York Times column, Maureen Dowd posed the question “Is technology rewiring our brains to be more callous?” With all the examples of cyber bullying it seems so. In her opinion piece she quotes the literary editor of the New Republic Leon Wieseltier, who forbade comments on his work online. “Why would I engage with people digitally whom I would never engage with actually? Why does the technology exonerate the kind of foul expression that you would not tolerate anywhere else?”

No other generation has had to approach the question of how we need to interact with people that we’ve never met in person before or even connecting with real friends instantly.

Back in 2009, when social networking was starting to gain popularity outside the college and high school set PC World Magazine took a look into how Facebook was changing our interactions with others. “They (social media) are taking us somewhere exciting, but we have to work out how we deal with the fading boundaries these tools have left in their wake and that means rewriting our social rules as we go along,” said Lisa Hoover of PC World Magazine.

Now that we live our lives out on computers we have to be careful and write those rules for etiquette online.

So if you feel tweeting about your lovely stamp collection, go ahead. You can share your loves with people who care now and the people who don’t care don’t have to follow you. Social networking is all about choices.

Posted by Danielle Paluga on Feb 28 2011. Filed under Close Up, Special Sections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.