Final Blog Post

 The Relationship with Social Media

        Social Media has been on the rise for years and years now and it's become more of a double-edged sword.  I've somewhat beaten this topic to death this year with the amount of projects I've worked on this semester about the platforms.  But whether we are ready or not for it, social media is here and it is growing in popularity.  

        There are several pros and cons for social and some go hand in hand as well.  Social makes many tasks so much more convenient for us.  However, it also a medium that can be used for deception and to spread false information more easily and quickly.  

The power of social media on our brains is a growing issue, according to the documentary “The Social Dilemma”.  Social media, especially on our smartphones, has become so commonplace in our society today that many of us don’t even realize how much time we are spending with our technology.  Because of its success, the social media market is now being driven by their lust for profit rather than their desire to improve the connection of humanity.  Many platforms are using personal user data to take advantage of those who use the platform.

 

 

Social media used to be all about the people.  It was about bringing people together, keeping families close, and connecting friendships. However, it has slowly evolved to be about making money off of people. Unlike in other industries, where they promote physical products to consumers, in the social media industry, the consumers are the product.  In the documentary, it mentioned how the like button on facebook and/or other platforms has evolved in value over time.  The incentives are now different.  Some people, specifically young/middle teens are so obsessed with how many likes they get on their posts, it’s what determines their mood and self-worth is.  If they are not satisfied with their numbers, some become depressed and some even go the length to commit self harm and suicide.  This is a huge problem and it was definitely not the intent of social media.

        As a result of the way social media companies are marketing their platforms, we are losing connections with each other instead of building them because of the way that they are trying to get money over actually bringing people together.  Just like the family example from the documentary, people feel like they are missing out and being excluded by just not being on their phone.  For them, it becomes a mindset of “If I’m not always online or posting, it’s like I don’t exist”.