The Role of Social Media

Social Media is playing a huge role in the daily life of us high school students. And it is not going away anytime soon. There is always a new site or app for us to post our thoughts and pictures on. We are always trying to connect to people and share with them who we are and what we are doing at this particular moment. Whether we are posting a new selfie on instagram or a status update on twitter, if we aren’t on the site we are thinking of what we will do next.

 Many of the conversations we have with one another start off by someone saying “did you read this on twitter?” or “did you see that on instagram?” We don’t realize it now but most of our social life revolves around social media. Here is a test, next time when you are with your friends try not to bring up twitter, instagram, vine, or facebook. I think it’s going to be harder than you thought. Or try doing a day without looking at those sights. Can you do it? I even find myself checking the social media sights instinctively without even thinking about it. We don’t realize how much time and emphasis we put on these sites. I am not saying they are bad, I am just pointing out the fact that we obsess over these things without even realizing it.

We are able to connect with people all over the world using these social media websites. You can become close friends with someone that you haven’t even met before. This is why our generation is more connected than any before it. I mean think about it, the computer didn’t become popular in everyday households until the 1980’s. That means we are some of the first people, ever, to have them around since we were young. We have integrated social media into our lives so much that we don’t even realize that there have been countless generations before us who got on just fine without it. If you say that you are good friends with someone who lives across the country and have never met in person most people today wouldn’t question you. But if you said that, merely 15 years ago, you would probably get some strange looks. I mean I have even heard of people getting engages over the internet without actually meeting.

Helpful Tip: The internet can be both exciting and dangerous. Be careful who you talk to, you don’t want to end up on the next season of Catfish.

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