Is social media a reliable source of news?

                                                                       

                                           Happy Friday!

For the ones who are dedicated readers, you would know that this post is a little late. It's been a stressful week once again, unfortunately. Also, if I make any mistakes, my apologies, I am working from my phone because I didn't want to drag my laptop out my bag.

I hope all as is well with my readers. 

Today, with all the seemingly never-ending violence on college campus, I want to talk about social media involvement with it. Social media can be a powerful tool for spreading the news quickly but not always accurately. For some people, social media is how they get updated when something happens. It's not a bad thing. I know this is how I get updated sometimes because I'm so busy doing homework, working, etc. that I don't hear about something until someone tells me and/or I see it trending on social media.

There is one particular way word of mouth and social media are alike. Sometimes the events sparks assumptions or guesses that spiral out of control. "I heard that is also happened during the event." "Well, I heard that this happened from so and so." This makes it hard to determine what the truth is and what's false. For this reason, social media should not probably be used to cite where you learned about an event. Most people have good intentions to be unofficial news reporters, but we should leave things alone and keep our guesses about what happened to ourselves. That doesn't mean I think we shouldn't be involved and stay updated as much as possible and give our condolences to the respective parties involved. I believe we should let the people involved or closely related to talk about what happened. 

Why do we do this? A possibility is directly related to social media and other advancements changing us. We don't have much privacy these days; once something is online, it can't be taken back. An obvious solution is to watch what you put out on social media, and that's the one that works 100 percent of the time. We are constantly wanting to know how other people are doing and be in the know. We want to see if other people are doing better than us, and if it seems like they are, we get jealous and forget to appreciate what we have going for ourselves.

I'm guilty of that. I would almost bet that almost everyone is guilty of that. And it's so easy to be because you don't want to post about your bad day when others are posting about getting into relationships or graduating college. You don't want to look bad. We get selective about what we post to the point when we are almost lying about how our lives are really going. It's for that reason I respect people who are seemingly honest about their lives on social media. I'm trying to be honest about my life on social media. Am I always successful? No, but I'm trying and that's what counts.

  

Until next week,

Thought of the day