Personal Statement: Social Media
The Impact of Social Media on Profound Thinking and Reflection
Social networks, instant and global communication technologies have spread rapidly across the globe. People have embraced it in good spirits. They do not seem to let it go whatsoever. Social media has brought the world together, thus making seem like a village. Social media and instant communication technologies have made many think that serious thinking and reflection have been hindered with the invention of social media. I cannot deny the fact that, to some extent, social media and instant global technologies have posed obstacles to deep reflection and serious thinking. Despite that social media have a lot of advantages that outweigh the idea that it has created obstacles to serious thinking and reflection (Sternberg 59).
Some of the social networks that many use at the moment include Facebook, Google, e-mail, Twitter, and Skype. Many use these social services to communicate and get to hear from each other. People is able to communicate with their friends or family members that are located anywhere in the globe. Moreover, people are to meet and make new friends by means of these services. An example is Facebook, which allows one to view every information regarding someone, but only if that person has put information about them on public. With that, one knows everything about the friends they are making (Mandiberg 70).
Skype enables individuals to communicate visually. That means that people can feel the presence of their relatives or friends. Furthermore, e-mail allows individuals and even companies or organizations to communicate as well. These social services also allow spreading information from one place to another at a fast rate. Google enables people to source information from the internet. Moreover, some information can be sourced only from the internet since it cannot be found in books. This makes social media a hugely lucrative site in that whenever information is lacking in the books, then the internet can be very helpful.
In the real life, people communicate in a way that thoughts are provoked in different ways, thus communication expresses a lot of seriousness and a true reflection of individuals’ thoughts. Nevertheless, during communication people are able to debate, express out their thoughts to their satisfaction or even argue. Therefore, live discussions and talks bring out unqualified reflection and seriousness. The individuals reflect on what they are communicating about and not talk or air out issues for the sake of just doing so (Mandiberg 105).
The fact that social networks discourage thoughts does not mean that thoughts are completely ceased. This is because when socializing, one has to think properly of what to post and the thoughts that these posts can provoke. Usually, the topics of discussion in social networks are not real, serious or full of deep thoughts. It is hard to find people in social networks that are discussing serious issues like what they stand for in life, their place in the world, what love means to them or others or the difference between what they are after life. Such issues are of a deeper nature. They are somber and hard queries that people and their lives are under extreme analysis. If to observe any popular public networking website, one would discover that no one raises such questions. There are some exceptions, unfortunately, such arguments hardly ever become visible because the public view social networks as a way for common conduct, but not as a way to think seriously and accomplish introspection. Instantaneous communication provides with a possibility to make friends or let the family be in touch in an amazingly easy way; thus, social networks are obviously suitable for such. To gather new and entertaining people in order to have fun becomes very easy with the help of such websites as Facebook (Bryfonski 60).
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With the instant response during communication, it does not necessarily mean that because one responds immediately to a certain update, they have not given deep thought and reflected on the update posts. I think one responded to a given thought depending on what news was posted or updated. Moreover, it might be that they already have the answer to it on their finger tips or post may not require deep thinking or reflection. With this, I tend to disagree with Fr. Adolfo’s anxiousness towards instant communication technologies. Also, there is a fear that these technologies foster a world of superficiality. To some extent, I tend to agree with this since technology has promoted it by a large level. There is so much tastelessness with whatever people discuss and post in social media. Furthermore, people love to interact and chat on Facebook, Twitter, and Skype. These are sites that individuals use in order to get closer to each other and mostly post things that are not of serious thoughts and are of less mind reflection (Bryfonski 120).
I do not think that a globe that is constantly linked and virtually instantaneous is a barrier to serious and profound thinking and reflection. Somewhat, I would endeavor to utter that this new technology allows people to put into practice their ideas in more improved way than prior. College students are the people who can use social networks in a way that shows that it do not hinder serious and deep thought reflection. College students can practice serious reflection in the always-connected and instantaneous world, by giving thought to what they post in the media. They could also post topics that require deep reflection and participation in online discussions that provoke extensive thinking and reflection of thoughts. These students could also ensure that they are not left behind when mind-boggling topics are posted, by ensuring they give a say on them after deep reflection (Sternberg 75).
