What Does It Mean to Network Using Social Media?

From what I can recall, I first starting using social media in middle school which is around ages 12 or 13. I have been a user for roughly 7 to 8 years, and it has become a huge part of my life in the process. I am able to connect with friends and family who live far away from me and still have the up to date with what’s going on in my life and vise vera. I am able to story a post on snapchat, a status update on Facebook, and post on Instagram. The possibilities are truly endless with how many social media platforms are available in today’s day and age. There is something suitable for everyone I believe, meaning that there is always an option to connect with someone you already know or someone new. Especially now due to the pandemic, COVID-19 has caused a transition to heavily rely on the internet and having access to it. Without the internet we could not access ZOOM or Brightspace which is how we have access to our education. Social media plays an integral role in connecting with your peers too, I have found that for nearly all of my group projects, my group members and I always connect on Facebook since that tends to be the most common social media platform for people. Social media can be used for a variety of things and the possibilities are truly endless.

 

How Are We Motivated to Participate in Networked Publics?

Social media has progressed significantly throughout the years, more and more people are gaining access to it every day if they don’t already. Social media is the new way of communication with people rather than actually calling people and catching them up on their lives. For instance, especially this year social media has been the forefront of a lot of social movements like the world’s largest protest in India regarding the farmer laws and the black lives matter movement for the injustice and police brutality against black people. A simple post or hashtag can have significant impact in spreading the word about a topic and getting people’s attention all over the world. Individuals are able to post their opinions and ideas on social media because they have the accessibility to, and people will engage with one another and create a greater discussion. Social media doesn’t just have to be posting about yourself, you can really use you voice to spread information of topics or events occurring all over the world and utilizing your platform for that.

 

What Are the Risks & Rewards of Public Communications?

With all that being said, social media does have its negatives and downfalls unfortunately. Social media can have negative impacts on the user’s mental health. Some people base their self-worth and confidence through how many likes and comments a post can get which not a way to live your life. People also tend to forget that social media is essentially a highlight reel of an individual’s life and they should not compare themselves to others because it is a false reality. Another unfortunate aspect about social media is that there can be cyberbullying, meaning a user saying rude or negative things under an individual’s account or direct messaging them hateful things. They best way to deal with situations like this is not responding or giving into that person and just removing or blocking them from your account. However, there are positives to social media, like mentioned before it is a great way to spread the word about current events happening in the world. There is a lot of good that can be done through social media like raising awareness which can capture a significant number of people’s attention than a newspaper article.