Social Media as an Argumentative Platform: Is It a Healthy Practice?
The digital age of the web has been upon us for years, steadily growing stronger, taking root in society and everyday life. Conference calls which connect businessmen from around the globe, digital publications, online dating services, social media: all have become more prevalent with the development of the Internet.
It definitely has some benefits such as the contact and information connections it has made possible. But, just as with everything humanity creates, there exists a good side and a bad. The injurious aspects of the rise of the web include the widespread creation and distribution of false or misconstrued information. For example, anyone can post or edit articles on Wikipedia. This capability is the prime reason the site is an unreliable source for facts.
In a less severe light but similarly, someone could even post a history piece on Medium. Just because it’s been published online doesn’t mean it can be held as fact. The proven credibility of the author has to be taken into consideration. However, one of the positive outcomes of the liberty allowed on the internet is the personal accounts or memoirs that are able to be published through its various media. Such pieces of literature can often make it a vast virtual library of golden literature.
Social Media’s Functions and Flaws
Let’s examine the oh-so-popular social media. The property they all have in common which can aid people is the ability to socially connect with others with great ease and over great distances. Social media has additional pros and cons, some of them dealing directly with my sort of work: journalism. Social media is about just as reliable as Wikipedia is.
However, even like the beloved Wikis, platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. can lead a good reporter down an interesting “alley,” so long as he can see what’s in the alley and evaluate if it’s a solid road. (Many sources cited in Wikis may actually be dependable.)
In other words, the journalist of today needs to be quite leery of accepting social media pages or contributors as a source of info. One of the obvious reasons is due to the high possibility of its inaccuracy. Another is that it may be extremely difficult to find the true original source of a piece of information.
A page could share a video or article produced by another organization, and that content could show up in its feed as its own, not as somebody else’s. Because of this, if a source is found to be reliable, the researching journalist has to get in touch with the page or website of the information’s origin. This particular practice can be rather tricky, time-consuming, and tiresome.
But there’s another aspect of social media that’s used by many individuals and not merely writers. This is the tempting pastime of taking part in online arguments. As Jasmine Fowlkes noted several years ago in a USA Today op-ed, tests have already shown that social media is harming in-person social skills. The type of so-called arguing that takes place over social media platforms can tend to weaken people’s argumentative skills.
For instance, many millennials send texts or Tweets on a daily basis. Such random notes can often be riddled with emojis. The extensive use of emojis and other cute little icons remove a degree of respectability. A mature, professional conversation or debate does not include emojis at all. Emojis are fine for the random Tweet or personal text, but they are frequently empolyed in comments on social media posts.
Social Media’s Unsociability
A social media message can be comprised entirely of emojis. Or, a serious or argumentative remark can be added along with emojis. It could be argued emojis are utterly useless in any circumstance; this possible because any opinion is arguable. (For a writer, it’s somewhat concerning to have an editor texting you a business-related message along with a couple emojis.)
Quite a few of us have first-hand experience with many a post that have begun flaring arguments. This leads to extremely active threads where various forms of cyberbullying and lying are spewed back and forth.
Tempers, slanderous remarks, and hate speech flow rampant in great quantities on such threads. Social media is a marvelous place to share opinions; it’s good for emotional backup from friends and family. But at the same time, online communities are far from being any sort of safe haven.
Content considered offensive to a variety of people is posted regularly. It’s also (obviously) not the place to go to learn how to have a structured conversation or argument. Missing words, misspellings, and statements that aren’t facts: we see them every day on social media whether we recognize them or not.
It’s a safe bet to say much of America’s modern youth is doing a fair amount of its reading through social media as well as engaging in virtual yet relevant disagreements on those same platforms. Aside from lending itself to stray from the topic being discussed in an online dispute, any individual can opt out of the argument with ease, leaving questions unanswered and a specific viewpoint lost.
The excessive use of social media in the digital age does have side effects. Many people think arguments are something you do vehemently on Facebook, instead of calmly and in person. If people continue to use social media as a platform for their arguments, logical thinking shall become rarer, and genuine debates building off solid facts will fall into oblivion.
