The Fact Behind Social Media

There have been many occurrences in history where people rallied together in hopes of creating change, from the betterment of a community or individual to that of humanity as a whole.  Examples within the past century would include movements for women’s rights along with movements for the rights of African Americans.  These were movements which people devoted their time and resources into fulfilling.  Nowadays, there seems to be this mentality that simply liking a picture on Facebook or retweeting a picture on Twitter will bring about change.  Now wouldn’t the world be wonderful if a photo of a child could be shared and that child would instantly have medical treatment, or even food and water?  Unfortunately, life doesn’t work like that; food and water has to come from somewhere, then there has to be the human resources to distribute that food and water, or in terms of medical treatment, there has to be a doctor to deliver that treatment, along with the necessary supplies.

Society is fooled into thinking that simply raising awareness will get anything done.  Now there isn’t anything wrong with raising awareness, but it won’t go anywhere if there aren’t people to take up the mantle and do something about it.  We can go and like or share a picture a million times, but if no one actually cares to do the work needed to get something done, then it’s just a waste of time.  It is about as good as a manufacturer advertising great cars, but when you go to buy one, they don’t exist.

Kony 2012 was a great example of how society can be tricked into believing the overestimated powers of social media.  Millions of people liked and shared a documentary about Kony 2012, and hey that’s fantastic, but what has been done about it? Nothing, it was simply an online fad that made its way around the net and received its 15 minutes of glory, now almost 2 years later I haven’t seen a single Kony 2012 photo since.  It’s pretty much been forgotten and left to die.  Now I can’t credit this documentary with this, but there are stories of people escaping from the LRA which is run by Joseph Kony.  Perhaps awareness gave them the courage to escape, perhaps not, but one thing is almost certain, this campaign didn’t achieve much of anything. Why is that? It’s because no one has any intention of actually doing something about it, or maybe people do, they just don’t have the resolution to get too deeply involved.  Not to mention the actual human and financial resources needed to achieve the actual wanted result would be astounding.  You’d also be fighting the very people you are trying to rescue.  I’m not too sure people are willing to risk their lives for that, and asking people to escape without providing help is just irresponsible.

In short, social media is not a driver for change.  It’s is merely an outlet.  The real driver for change is what it has always been from the very beginning. That is the dedication and tenacity of people, and social media won’t change that.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/12/world/africa/kony-2012-tms-ruge-opinion/index.html

http://www.news.com.au/world/remember-kony-2012-well-its-2013-what-happened/story-fndir2ev-1226550575923

Social Media and the News

Previously, before the social media hype, most people got their news from a credited news station or newspaper.  Newspapers and news stations check their facts as best as they can before reporting on it, as they are public sources of news they are liable for the things they report, inaccurate news could result in a decrease in viewers or subscribers, which would mean they lose out on their public standing which is critical for a business.  If people don't trust you they're less likely to ask for your services. Today in this day and age, it's still the same for newspapers and new stations, but with an added twist.  They now have to compete with smaller news sources, such as blogs, which can be run by your average day Joe/Jane, who do not have to be held to the same standards as these bigger news sources.

The internet is vast, and it's not ridiculous to say that there are an infinite amount of sources in which you can obtain information from.  As I said before though, many are run by your average person,  this dilutes the amount of proper information you can receive from a single source.  Of course that isn't to say that what you smaller news sources post aren't true or that the information is bad, it just means that sometimes not everything is down to the letter exact, and they don't really have to double check their information for irregularities and such.  If you go out and search news topics I'm sure you could find many sources which contradict each other, though at the same time you'd find many that compliment others.  This is where it becomes troubling, who can you trust?  Personally I'd gather much of the current events from Facebook.  I have Global News and CBC both 'Liked'.  I'm a bit picky so I can't pick one, I compare similar news stories from these two sources, but that's because I believe I can trust them, they're big news stations, they need to have reliable facts.  The problem with have many sources run by any average person is the facts.  If you want to be popular it's more advantageous to get the story out first, with the internet that makes it almost instantaneous.  That isn't good, there isn't any time to research, no time to think it over, as it is a race to see who can get things out there the fastest.  At the same time, we are more aware.  We gather more information, and if we're interested there are plenty of sources in which we can go to, to delve deeper into the topics at hand.

One instant of news irregularities I came upon just happened recently with the capture and escape of a Canadian UN worker in Syria.  I'm not too sure as to why, but Global News has reported that this man was released, which CBC News did as well, but if you read further into the report by clicking on the CBC article it mentions that he was able to escape, which there is no mention of in the Global article.  CBC also goes into some details of the escape.  I'm not sure if it's just me, but I understand release as in letting him go, if he escaped there was no release going on.  Though I was really able to get this information without having to wait for the 6pm or 11pm news, because of social media. (Please note that the article was updated and the video with the caption saying "escaped" was not there previous to me reading it.)
http://globalnews.ca/news/907863/canadian-un-worker-released-in-syria-in-good-health/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/carl-campeau-montrealer-working-for-un-released-from-capture-in-syria-1.2100770?cmp=fbtl

Social Media Diet

Personally I don't think I'm a big user of social media, though I still found that taking 48 hours off of social media was troublesome.  Other than through the internet it's is difficult to get in touch with me,  mostly because I live a ways off from most of the people I know and I'm not big on using my phone be it calling or texting,  I would also categorize myself as an introvert.  Though there are many other things to do other than things related to social media, this definitely was not easy.

First off I'd like to say, I did cheat.  Most of the time by accident, but sometimes times intentionally.  There are just some things I can't do without social media.  One of these is to keep in touch with my friends.  Yes I can do it on my phone by texting and or calling them, but as I stated I'm not big on either of those and not to mention i have a very basic cellphone plan (200 minutes of calling and 125 texts.)  I even have a friend who does not have a cell phone, so contacting him is almost impossible due to recent events concerning his home.  So I did go on Facebook or Skype to converse with my friends, but I will say this, I did not once update my status during the last 48 hour diet from social media (I don't generally do that in the first place, If people care about how what's going on, they'll ask, otherwise it's just something I do when something big happens.  Social media is the core of my contact network, especially since I have online friends I've gotten to know because we're interested in the same stuff on Facebook, and social media is the only way for me to contact them.

Now, in general we're in classes to learn, but sometimes in the middle of class I'd find myself drifting over to social media, namely Facebook (I don't use twitter or anything else really,) to look up look up with CBC or Global on any news.  It also really helped me during that time, because Rogers mobile phone service went down last night, couldn't figure out what was going on with the phones since apparently my parents were calling me, but I wasn't receiving any of the calls.  Through Global News via Facebook I was able to find out what the heck was going on ( I probably could have googled it but Facebook is the first thing that pops up when I Mozilla Firefox.)

Intentionally not using Social Media for me was pretty difficult.  Other than when I'm out or playing video games I'm on Facebook and surfing a bout the internet and checking my email is a must for me.  Sometimes I get things I need to respond to asap, so I was constantly on that (plus I have a blackberry playbook which constantly flashes red when I have a new email.)  Without social media, I have very little contact with friends (I'm not big on family) and sometimes E-mails are the only reason I remember about school work that I have to get done.

I can say with my utmost belief that this was a difficult task to fulfill.  As I'm not someone who needs to be on Facebook, in fact I'm probably actively on social media tools for no more than two hours a day.  I could only imagine how difficult this would be for those who live out their lives on tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, e-mail and the like, not to mention those who need these tools to work.  I found this to be incredibly troubling, I would assume the majority of people with access to these tools would also find it very troubling to be without them for even a day.  Though I've learned that sometimes I'm just needlessly on social media tools to kill a bit of time, and I've found a few other ways to entertain myself, and I found time for things that I kept putting off.  I figure I can probably reduce the time I spend on social media and get a lot of the projects I've been starting for myself completed.  Social media itself is a semi necessity, people spend a lot of needless hours on it, but sometimes it's all we have to stay in contact with some people or even a need to do certain jobs.