Social Media- is it for idiots?
Practically much of our everyday lives is regularly eaten up by social media. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter: these are just three of the biggest and most popular social media platforms, to name but a few. SM can be accessed on various devices, phones being the most frequent. In her article, Matei (2020) states “I spend an average of two hours and 20 minutes a day on my phone, according to my iPhone’s Screen Time function. As someone who writes about internet ephemera for a living, I feel justified in my habit of filter-feeding through social media like a megamouth shark.”
As clearly indicated in this statement, social media to this date, has become a habit, following numerous traditions such as junk food and video games. With some however, it is not the case. Many people depend heavily on social media as a means of delivering to the public. One such example is businesspeople. Breeds of new and upcoming entrepreneurs take to platforms like Facebook and Instagram so they can promote their business and unveil new products and campaigns.
“When determining which channels to use, you should consider your customers and your business. It’s important that you create accounts on the platforms for your target audiences uses, so they can easily connect with you.” (Lu, 2017)
This evidences that not everyone on social media is an idiot.
The second key group that uses social media as a method of promoting are personalities. Actors, directors, writers, and studios choose to unveil trailers for their latest films or TV series on platforms like Facebook, musicians (with record companies) often release advertisements or campaigns for their latest album or single from the album, and authors (and publishers) also use SM in order to promote their books. For many people in the entertainment and the creative industry, social media can be a major benefit.
Returning to the titular question: Is Social Media for Idiots? With millions of people using SM, it is often difficult to identify the ones who take advantage of it to mess around. Average everyday individuals often use Facebook and Instagram to post pictures from their holidays, nights out, birthdays, weddings, and seasonal events e.g. Christmas and Halloween. They also like to do “check-ins”, indicating that they have arrived at, or are currently in a specific location or place, doing something. Then there are those who regularly only post random comments and questions and/or memes on their timeline. This activity is commonly known as “Shitposting.”
“When someone posts something typically nonsensical, surreal, and ironic online- sometimes in order to bait people into a reaction. It can be a graphic, a meme, or a set of text all with the intention of looking, reading, or sounding like shit.” (Manavis, 2019)
Idiots? Perhaps and perhaps not. Users of social media tend to post memes for various reasons. Since 2016, following Brexit and Donald Trump’s election as US president, political memes have been shared widely across Facebook and are still on the rise. Some may be doing this because they are deeply political. Others could be doing it ironically and have no interest at all in politics. A majority of content shared through SM has been strongly criticized for being what is commonly known as ‘fake news.’ These are mostly produced by scammers looking to profit from the number of clicks that the stories receive.
This is just one possible example of the idiots to which the title is referring to. Con artists hoping to make easy cash from the amount of interest gained by stories with unchecked facts. But there are many more scattered about, lurking in corners that can easily fall into this category. Two specific examples are pedophiles who attempt to groom young children and teenagers by using a false identity and pretending they’re the same age as their target, and hate groups and right-wing organisations who take advantage of social media to spread their murderous and outdated ideologies and convince people to join with them. Efforts have been made, with some success, to ban these subjects from social media platforms. What we’re all repeatedly asking though is how they were ever allowed to be on SM in the first place.
“Just some of the adverse events linked to online hate and extremist narratives include a recent surge in hate crimes, an alarming increase in teen suicide rates, as well as inciting mass shootings, stabbings, and bombings. Indeed, social media outlets open the door for global recruitment by extremist groups.” (Dunphy, 2018)
Back to the central question: Is Social Media for Idiots? From my point of view: No. However, there are many people on social media with views and beliefs that are sickening and should definitely not exist in today’s world. Will any action be taken to remove them? If so, it should be done, fast.
References:
Dunphy, S. (2019). How do hate groups persist on social media platforms? Available at: europeanscientist.com/en/research/how-do-hate-groups-persist on-social-media-platforms/
Manavis, S. (2019). What is shitposting? And why does it matter that the BBC got it wrong? Available at: newstatesman.com/politics/media/2019/11/
Matei, A. (2020). Shock! Horror! Do you know how much time you spend on your phone? Available at: theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/aug/21/cellphone-screen-time-average habits
Lu, L. (2017). Eight Effective Ways to Promote Your Business on Social Media. Available at: businesswest.co.uk/blog/8-effective-ways-promote-business-social-media
