Do you ever ask yourself, is this post necessary to share with others? How will this post affect the lives of those around me? As of 2017, The Global Overview showed that “2.80 billion global social media users use social media sites.” With that being said, almost everyone “in the world now uses a smart phone and almost two-thirds of the world’s population now has a mobile phone.” (Digital in 2017: Global Overview). Today the majority of young American adults use social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, SnapChat, Instagram and etc. As of the recent years, social media has been a great way to connect with friends, family and has also been a great way to promote small businesses. Amy Jo Martin once said, “Just as we teach our children how to ride a bike, we need to teach them how to navigate social media and make the right moves that will help them. The physical world is similar to the virtual world in many cases. It's about being aware…” (Brainyquotes.com) With that being said, Amy is stating, just how we teach our children anything in life we must also teach them the basics of social media because that will one day affect them later on in life. Therefore, social media can be effective but can also be affective to the life of others around us.
My classmate Abigail, presented her topic on social media as well. Although her argument was that your emotions can get in the way of how we act on social media. Which is completely agreeable. For example, look at our president Donald Trump. Scroll through his twitter feed and look how his emotions get in the way of what he really wants to say to the public. Since the presidential election of 2016, Trump has taken to Twitter to appeal to his followers. Recently Trump has become pretty trigger happy with the tweets he has been posting. In the article, “Twitter Should Ban Trump for Using Service to Threaten 25million Lives” By Mark Dare, he states, “Yesterday, Trump took to Twitter once again…” (Dare). With that, Dare is claiming that from the public eye, Americans aren’t surprised that Trump “took to twitter again.” (Dare). This action the president is doing is a reoccurring problem, sadly it is embarrassing as an American. Furthermore, Trump had recently called The North Korean Minister a name and made a threat on Twitter. Dare goes to say that, “Calling North Korea’s leader “Little Rocket Man”
and threatening the country with total destruction…” (Dare.) Trump is violating Twitters terms of service as President of The United States by making a threat online. (even though he was surely trying to appeal to his audience). Of course, Mark Dares argument is valid. Even though, it is also arguable that not only is President Trump violating Twitters terms and services but imagine Trumps followers as well. What will Trump tweet next to divide our country? Will his emotions continue to get in the way of how Americans and allied countries view him? Probably so. Into conclusion, my classmate Abigale’s argument that your emotions can get in the way on social media relate to my argument over social media being both effective and affective. Clearly it can be both effective by Trump successfully creating a desired result in his following and also affective by Trump letting his emotions get to him, ‘once again’ on social media and making us as Americans look stupid. After all, it seems when something exciting happens or something extremely unplanned happens many humans turn to social media to be heard about their problems.
Now as we look further into social media we can see it can both be effective and affective in many ways. Ashley Northrup, my classmate decided to argue the point of police brutality and asked will it ever stop? Now you may be asking how and why does this topic relate to social media. Well, it can relate in many ways, for example, you have Americans who decide to video policemen when they pull them over. As of 2016 police officers were enforced to have a video camera on their dashes for lawful reasons. Although citizens on the other hand feel they need to use their own video cameras as well for their own rights. Many citizens do this to prove that police officers are either violent or respectful of their citizens’ human rights and in many of those cases the officer acts in a violent manner. Many of the cases from police brutality you see and hear of are a majority of the ‘black community’ in an article from Understand Media titled ‘Social media and police brutality’ by Roger K. He quoted a woman of color named Sandra Bland, and she said, “This thing that I hold in my hands, this telephone, this camera, it is quite powerful. Social media is powerful. We can do something with this. If we want to make a change, we can really, truly make it happen” (Morrison, 2015). With that statement, she is saying that social media can be a powerful thing it can help spread the awareness to many people. In a Huffington Post article, Social Media vs. Police Brutality, it was said that “Social media is changing the game for governments under pressure.” (Ulgen.) With that being said, Ulgen is saying that governments no longer have the power to stay ‘lowkey’ about things because everywhere you look someone has a smart phone and is able to let the whole world know what is going on. Furthermore, in the last year or so one of the hot topics in America has been racial injustice, so called riots of #BlackLifesMatter. If you go onto Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and use the hashtag #BlackLifesMatter you will see hundreds maybe even millions of posts about the racial injustice we have seen in America and the public voicing their opinions on this topic. There are many police reports of police brutality every day. How can we stop this? Even myself as a white women in America feel scared of officers at times, knowing they think they have a higher status than the everyday American who walks the streets. Social media and police brutality go hand in hand. If we as citizens did not have the power of being able to record officers and their actions they take upon some innocent citizens we would not be able to fight for our birth rights as Americans. Whether we are white or black, we are all American and every life matters. Therefore, my classmate Ashley’s argument over police brutality relates to social media being both effective and affective because it can play a huge role in preventing police brutality. Social media lets the world know how police officers really act towards Americans. It can help stop the officers who feel entitled to stop feeling entitled by becoming unemployed and being the ones put behind bars. It can also be affective because sometimes it can make our police enforcement look bad, of course we all know that not all police officers are bad. Although that is how social media works it can make some look good or bad, that is why social media is both effective and affective.
So as social media can relate to emotions and to police brutality it can also relate to gun control. My classmate Shelby Torres, brought up the topic of gun control. She had mentioned how in the recent shooting in Las Vegas president Trump had not said anything about gun control after the large massacre occurred. Shelby believes that you should be 18+ to purchase a gun. She stated that anyone can purchase a gun even those with a mental illness. Over the last year now we have had more than 550 shootings take place in America. Nytimes.com showed some graphs of the last year and how many shootings have happened every day for the last year.
Just in 2016 it shows from June to December that 248 mass shootings have occurred. The relation between social media and gun control are very tight nit. Social media and politics separate the true meaning of guns. Guns today are viewed as the only weapon to kill people. False. You can kill people with many other legal weapons and people die every day from other weapons other than a firearm. The media and people’s views have created a major dispute about gun control. Why? Politicians, movie stars and musicians fight against gun control. Posting to social media about why gun control hasn’t been issued yet.
(Capewell.) Ariana Grande Tweeted October 2 after the mass shooting occurred in Vegas and mentioned that a mass shooting = terrorism. Terrorism was not involved at all, because when we think of terrorism we think of 9/11 not the Vegas shooting. Obviously, the man had some sort of mental illness. So, social media can portray very different views on subjects that you wouldn’t think twice about seeing on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, but now in 2017 when social media seems to run the world who knows what you will find online. The overall topic of social media being both effective and affective to gun control can be portrayed here. Social media allows people to express their opinions and voice how they feel. Although in this situation with gun control being an extreme controversial topic lately seems to make you wonder how would people all across the world be communicating their condolences about ‘gun control’ if it were not for social media? Social media can be effective for letting people voice their opinions on this topic of gun control. It was said in an article Gun Control and the Media in 2013, after the Newtown shooting in Connecticut that, “four months since the shootings, and the tone of the conversations about gun control on Twitter had shifted several times in response to ongoing events, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of nearly 21 million tweets from December 18 to April 21.” (Pew Research Center: Journalism & Media Staff.) With that being said social media can play a huge part on people speaking up for what they believe in, especially in times like these when our president can’t do anything about gun control. This argument about gun control can be arguable to some that social media and gun control do not have anything in common, but in 2017 and the coming of years we can see the correlation just fine. Social media is the new power house of having your voice heard.
Into conclusion, social media can be both effective and affective because it allows people to communicate their beliefs and sometimes even helps stop a certain law that is being enforced. The negative to social media is that it can be harmful to some like our president by making himself and his country look like idiots. All in all, we can see that social media is linked to just about any topic out there, because it is the new powerhouse of this age. Social media has its ups and downs but that is why it is both effective and affective. Overall my argument that social media being both effective and affective related to my classmate’s topics on, ‘How emotions play a huge roll on how you act on social media’ ‘Police Brutality’ and ‘Gun Control’ because those are hot topics in America right now. So today ask yourself today is social media really effective or is it affective?