The Dark Side of Social Media

These days no matter where we go or what we do, we are reminded of the tremendous impact of social media. Social medial in the early years was awesome. People could connect with friends and family from anywhere at almost any time. Many learned how to use social media to work and earn a good living. This is all still true, but, over the last decade we have learned of the dark side of this wonderful communication network.

Being able to immediately respond to any form of information has the whole world thinking they are experts on every subject. That is laughable but also dangerous. The days when we watched the evening news and trusted them are long gone. Every major news organization has an agenda. The only part of that they share together is making money. News is money.

Back to social media. Facebook for example allows us to share our opinions and ideas as soon as we form them. We no longer watch the evening news, talk things over with family and discuss things at the water cooler the next day. Instead we suffer from knee jerk reaction responses from every corner of the globe. Think before you speak should be taught in schools…it would serve us well.

Gone seems to be the days of factual reporting. Please bring it back. Media in any form needs to be based on facts. Yes, there is a dangerous virus spreading. The media could most definitely have handled this better. When a reporter or writer falsely reports a story, there should be consequences. This type of thing twenty years ago was not tolerated. Integrity in the passing of information should be brought back at all cost.