The internet has grown vastly since it’s start in 1957. It has allowed for a lot of change to happen in our society that at the time might have seemed absurd. Despite the progress it has made through the years, I believe that the internet truly became something significant for the people in the early 2000s. I don’t intent to discredit the many important things that the internet has done for us in between the years of its start and the 2000’s but I do want to express that when social media began to take form and take off, anyone with a computer could sign up and be part of this network that would allow connections between people all over the world. This blog will be published online in 2020 and as of the year, social media has only grown bigger since it started. 

I believe 1997 was an important year and I’m not just saying that because it’s my birth year, but because it’s also the birth year of the first recognizable social media site Six Degrees. Unfortunately Six Degrees did not get to see the success of its successors but I think it did set up a new way for people to see what else the internet could offer. A great quantity of social media sites that we know today as linkedIn, Myspace, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter would start up and pick up a huge following. Despite never having experienced Six Degrees, I have experienced all other social media sites that succeeded it especially the ones listed earlier.

So now we are in 2020 and not only has the list of social media sites grown, but so has its potential. We now have social media sites and platforms like Twitch, TikTok, Snapchat, Onlyfans, Patrion,Tinder, Bumble and Cameo to name a few. These platforms and sites have definitely offered entertainment or even escape from the real world but it has also made it harder to live. You might be asking what do I mean by harder to live, and I think that could mean a lot of things and typically one would assume I’m saying that it gets in the way of everyday life such as it wont let you sleep, or you spend to much time on it, but what I want to focus is on the idea that not many people are speaking about. That idea is the content we see. There’s so much that these sites have done positively for us but it also exposes us to things that we may typically not have seen had it not been for social media. I think in some way social media has desensitized and morally corrupt us. 

Social media has morally corrupted us in the sense that it has made it easier for people to hide behind a screen and express themselves. Sure expression is good, and I’m not saying that good expression does not exist online but most of the expression online often comes from people who like to fight in comment sections on many things from opinions on Tv shows, Music, art and politics. You can even find that people will argue about racism and people dying. It makes people feel brave because you can literally say almost anything and once it gets out of hand they ignore the conversation or block you. It’s crazy to think that every time people get into street fights, or another person is killed by the police, Facebook or other sites are often the first ones the videos are uploaded to and shared by many possibly even before a news station gets a hold of the story. People share these videos without possibly thinking about how the person in the situation must feel. One could argue that these videos are posted to raise awareness and I don’t doubt that because it does but also I think it’s important to think about other ways to do this. Bullying and harassment can often be found on social media and people are always picking sides because it is so much easier to do it online.

I often wonder if the content we see on social media makes it harder for us to live. Theres so much bad things being posted, shared and things trending that I ask myself, Would we be better of without social media? Are we any different compared to a generation that didn’t have social media?

---

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/04/media/donald-trump-pennsylvania-reliable-sources/index.html

I think this article is worth sharing because the concept behind this portion of the assignment is to battle misinformation with accurate fact-checked information. In the article by CNN it talks about this rally Trump had in Pennsylvania. Interestingly enough Fox news stopped covering the rally because they felt that the rally was too long and believed he was wrapping up. He went on for another 50 minutes. But the most interesting thing about the article was that that Trump was fact checked and it appeared that he made numerous lies at the rally as he is normally one to do so. He lied about a “report” that CNN had made of him having a heart attack, Covid-19 numbers and ironically even talked about how dangerous Covid-19 was while having many people not social distancing at the rally.