I have come to the conclusion that it is nearly impossible to live without social media, especially in today’s college environment. While I began the day with the initial intention of going without any form of social media for twenty-four hours, I quickly realized that this venture was nearly impossible. The first thing that made this task unmanageable was the fact that I needed to get input from several people for a class assignment. While I could have called them, I have found that I get better input from people when I give them a chance to write down and sort out their thoughts. From there, I could have texted them the questions, but this may have discouraged lengthier answers that would take a while to type on a small cell phone screen. Therefore, email or Facebook messaging seemed to be the most reasonable form of contacting them, as it was again necessary for a school assignment. The next problem that I found in attempting to avoid social media was when I began preparing for another class, in which the instructor provides links to various book excerpts and videos that we need to have knowledge of before arriving to class. For this class in particular, we had to watch “The Last Lecture” which happened to be through a link to YouTube, another venue of social media. Later on in the day, I was reading a book for my literature class and came upon a term that I was unfamiliar with. Without thinking, I looked it up on Wikipedia, which could also be considered a social media source (Wikipedia).
Throughout this attempt in avoiding social media for a day, I came to realize how much of today’s society and interactions revolve around its use, including work for my college classes. The positive result from this usage is that it enables us to have nearly infinite, instantly available resources that would either be impossible or at least much more difficult to come by otherwise. We also have the opportunity to stay in touch and up to date with friends, family members, and classmates (Wheeldon). The negative side of it, however, is that it causes us to rely a lot on sources that can be completely unpredictable. If my Internet had failed on that day alone, my classwork would have suffered in three different subjects. It also causes us to lose distinction in our ties to people, such as how we know them and whether they are actually friends or acquaintances (Jarvis). Therefore, while it can have a very positive result, it also leads to us being held to much more responsibility in our work. While life would be much slower and possibly less stressful without all of the resources of social media, it would also be less fulfilling. As it is now, we can share information instantly, either with an individual or massive group, with others all across the planet. Social media makes our lives much more efficient and gives us many more opportunities than we would have otherwise.
1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media
2) Ebony Wheeldon http://networkconference.netstudies.org/2010/04/a-social-society-the-positive-effects-of-communicating-through-social-networking-sites/
3) Tim Jarvis http://www.oprah.com/relationships/Negative-Impact-of-Social-Networking-Websites-at-Work
