I enjoy the freedom and the access to friends and family near and far, social media has given me. The world is constantly evolving and this outlet has allowed this enormous earth to become even smaller. The airline industry had its effects; the postal service had a good run as well. But the advances of social media devices have totally changed the game. I can recall the not so recent past when the cell phone was the latest and greatest communication device, well those days are gone. Then the pager or as the kids would say the beeper was a quick turnaround from hot to not and then totally obsolete. Now we have wireless communication in the form of Twitter and Facebook via the internet.
I have mixed opinions of the social juggernaut that strangling the traditions idea of friendships. I do not how ever have any problem saying that this is bad for kids. Not only do we have another outlet for evil intentions but we have opened up another Pandora box for children. Kids have too many ways to get them involved in the wrong situations but the new outlets have changed the game. I have read numerous articles of child predators having unlimited access to kids now and it has become harder to catch them due to the web. The social network allows for access the children in various states at multiple times. I do however support the idea of technology advancement and improvement of communication. But this is different the idea that I can have friends and the only interaction we have is in the virtual world is baffling to me. We have reached a new low as a society we can simply sit in front of a computer to get our laughs and discuss our troubles with the people we value in our lives. I have seen people have thousands of virtual friends, never see them yet put information in a status slot that that allows your personal information to be vied by an infinite number of people. This now creates another problem identity theft and yet more work for the already overwhelmed legal system. The point is the virtual world has opened the door to numerous malicious activities and evil people. I hate to be so cold and opinionated about something that so many enjoy on a daily basis but reality is most do not think about how the most innocent conversation on the web can come back to bite you in so many ways. The instant information at times is troubling, as soon as anything happen in the world there is no filtering or fact finding it simply hits the web, true or false we have been dumbed down to wait for the actual facts, we prefer opinion more.
Parents please pay attention to your kids, if you do not believe me watch a few episodes of Intervention on television, or watch To Catch A Predator with Chris Hanson on MSNBC or perhaps just pick up your local newspaper, the news is not good in these cases.
• Mikami, A. Y., Szwedo, D. E., Allen, J. P., Evans, M. A., & Hare, A.L. (2010) Adolescent Peer Relationships and Behavior Problems Predict Young Adults’ Communication on Social Networking Websites
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