"You know we actually had to talk to people back when I was your age," is the main grievence most people in the younger generation have to listen to about social media. And although this complaint can get annoying once you've heard it enough, there is some truth to it. While it is important to acknowledge social anxiety is a very real thing, but unfortunately social media is allowing most people to hide behind a screen while lacking the development of needed social skills. While real life social situations teach us to respect the personal space of others and avoiding rude confrontations, social media is allowing users to develop an intrusive attitude towards others. Social media itself isn't intrusive, social media is just a platform and it becomes whatever the users make it. Though this is a general observation and doesn't apply to all social media users, overall users are falling victim to the intrusive nature the public has developed. Users are pressured into sharing everything interesting about themselves just to fill the imaginary social status quota. Also, with the fight for "likes" and "retweets" requires users to allow the perpetuating of this intrusive behavior. Social media participants have to open up their whole lives to the world if they want a chance at climbing the online social status ladder. Of course there is a responsibility to social media, there is a responsibility to everything. Whether or not we decide to collectively respect this responsibility is up to the users.
Even with all that being said, there are still positive aspects to social media. Just recently during the harsh blizzards that plagued Buffalo, people took to social media to ask for help from the people of the community. From being snowed in and needing medicine or having a shortage of food and water, individuals with the resources to help went out and helped those who called for help on social media. Police, firefighters, and town officials do a great job with helping people during blizzards like this, but unfortunately their numbers are limited and so by going to social media to ask for help resulted in members of the community stepping up and lending a hand out to those in need. Without social media, many people could of been in a very scary situation and the results could of been terrible. But, in this instance, social media saved lives.
Social media will stay on the track it is already on, it'll continue with the intrusive behavior perpetuated by the users and influence them to share their personal lives with the world. Although it still will continue to help people, like it did during the Buffalo blizzards. It's very difficult to weigh the benefits and disadvantages of social media, but it won't be going anywhere soon. Social media isn't some fad, it'll stay around as long as technology is around. Maybe laws will be passed in the future restricting social media usage, or maybe it'll be left alone for the world.
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