Everyone has some form of social media. But is social media secretly turning our world into a dystopia? Is it making people become less caring? Would you rather post something that gets more "likes" and comments or post something that will actually help people? I see countless fight videos on Facebook. But instead of filming, why don't the people behind the camera try to stop it? I believe that because of social media people are becoming less compassionate. Some may argue that social media has a positive impact on the world. However,I feel as though the vast majority of people that use social media are making this world into a dystopia. The three outcomes of social media that I believe are contributing to a dystopia are cyber bullying, people who would rather post than participate, and the easier spread of fake news.
I will start with cyber bullying. This has become a major topic in the world recently. Cyber bullying is when people attack others online because it it easier for them to say mean things when they can hide behind their computer. It's even worse when they use a social media platform that allows them to be anonymous. They don't see the effects of what their words do to people. As an example, I am going to talk about a 2012 case involving a girl named Amanda Todd. Amanda started to use video chatting to try and make new friends over the internet. One stranger convinced her to show her breasts to him. However, that stranger then used the pictures to blackmail this poor girl by creating fake profiles with her picture of her showing her breasts as a profile picture. This man ended up becoming become a stalker - every time Amanda would move schools, this stalker would go undercover and make another Facebook profile. Amanda made a Youtube video to talk about her bullying, her self harm, and potential suicide. She posted that video on September 7th, 2012. About a month later, Amanda hung herself. There are countless stories like this all over the place. People, especially young people, can't escape cyber bullying because the internet is everywhere. Amanda's video is posted below.
My next point is that social media makes people less likely to step into a situation because they are too busy filming it in the hope that it will go viral. Before social media, if a fight broke out, some people would watch, but people were more likely to step in and break it out. Now, iIf a fight break outs, all people do is pull out their cell phones and record it to post it online later. No one steps in and stops the fight. People are behind their phones laughing and having a good time while people will brutally beat each other up. Or they think to themselves how this video is going to get them famous when it gets shown on the news. A recent example occurred when a the man that was forcibly removed from a United Airlines flight. There are many videos of this incident on the internet right now, but one stands out to me more then the others. That is the video that shows the man being pulled by his arms and the other passengers are just sitting there filming this. No one is stepping up and saying that they will take his place. Everyone is too busy recording the incident or saying out loud that this is wrong. Not a single person stood up and took his place because people are being desensitized to events like this. After the event was posted and circulated both online and in the news, when others would talk about it they would claim that if they were on that flight, they would have done something to stop this man from being kicked off. But I wonder if they really would or they would just be another person filming it. Another example is the website, which has videos of people who have filmed fights and other extreme events where they could have stepped in and stopped what was going on. But instead, they decided to pull out their cell phones out and try to get famous for it. People care too much about their popularity or how many views or likes they can get rather then doing what is right or just simply helping someone. This is how people of The Man in the High Castle are. They stand idly by and watch people being arrested or killed for nothing. Because they are scared or are so used to it happening around them, they pay no mind to it. There is a scene where Japanese soldiers are taking people and executing them in front of other people just to show their strength and people are just watching. No one tries to stand up and fight back; they are just content with going with the flow of the world.
My third and final point is that social media allows for the spread of fake news. Social media sites like Facebook make it easier for people to not just share their own news, but world and local news stories as well. Sometimes people share articles from legitimate news sources such as The Washington Post or The New York Times. Sometimes, however, they will knowingly or unknowingly share articles that aren't true and haven't been fact checked by legitimate journalists. Fake news really became popular during the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election when some people felt that the spreading of fake news stories that painted Hillary Clinton in a negative light led to Donald Trump's win. Some of the stories were downright lies, others were half-truths, all were created as click-bait in order to drive more eyes to the website and thus more advertising dollars. According to David Pogue's article in Scientific American, 44% of American adults receive their news from Facebook. Additionally, the top 20 articles circulating on Facebook that were false received more clicks than the top 20 articles that were true. And more clicks means more money for those sites. Although fake news can't be entirely blocked (as the article suggested, what do we do about satirical articles?) Facebook is making efforts to reduce it by adding warning labels to articles that users have marked as false. However, once a story, especially a conspiracy story, gets lodged in someone's brain, it can be hard to shake it out. And social media just makes it easier and faster to spread these stories (2017). Social media is leading to a dystopian world because it allows people to cyber bully others, makes people more interested in posting a video than stopping something that they could easily prevent, and makes it easier to spread false stories. Yes, social media can be a valuable tool for people to share their achievements or connect with others who have similar values. It can help with organizing marches or relaying information about safe passages for refugees. But you can't have light without darkness, and social media continues to show its dark and ugly underside. Bibliography Pogue, David. "How to Stamp out Fake News." Scientific American, vol. 316, no. 2, Feb. 2017, p. 24. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com.libdb.dccc.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=120664496&site=ehost-live. "The Top Six Unforgettable CyberBullying Cases Ever." Nobullying.com, 27 Mar. 2017, nobullying.com/ six-unforgettable-cyber-bullying-cases/. Accessed 25 Apr. 2017. Zdanowicz, Christina, and Emanuelle Gringerb. "Passenger Dragged off Overbooked United Flight." CNN.com, 11 Apr. 2017, www.cnn.com/2017/04/10/travel/ passenger-removed-united-flight-trnd/. Accessed 25 Apr. 2017.
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AuthorCollege student majoring in graphic design. This blog is for my english class. Archives
April 2017
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