Category: Unit 3 (Page 1 of 33)

Brandon Muniz

Eng101

Unit 3 Revise

Since we are the Generation Z born in the social and technological advanced age being constantly surrounded by many social networks, so it becomes quite important for us to understand the social media that surrounds us and how it impacts our lives. I still remember when I first began using Instagram at 11, I could sense changes in me. I realised that I had become a victim of stress, anxiety, and depression every now and then and had moments when I didn’t feel like doing anything or just felt immensely miserably. I could hardly understand the reasons for my growing stress and insecurities and let myself thought that I’m not good enough. And I’m sure that we all feel this way at some point in our lives and very few manages to take control of their lives. Over the years social media has evolved unimaginably and has become a significant part of our daily lives. So, I figured out that I want to understand how does social media affect our society. I want to understand the ways in which it contributes to our physical and virtual world. Through this project I want to find the answers of “Is social media good or bad”, “Is social media making us unsocial” and “Is abandoning social media the solution?”. I intended to educate people from young teens to senior adults because such information can benefit us all. But I specially want to focus on young adults as they are more vulnerable and are not critical thinkers. I first surfed the internet and went through few articles. I came to know that overall YouTube and Facebook are widely used while use of Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok is especially common among adults under 30.  I learned that young adults especially women are the earliest social media adopters and their frequency of usage is more often. Billions of people use social networks for different reasons such as communication, entertainment, news, jobs hiring, businesses, to show their work or talent, etc. Social media has been instrumental for the raising the issue of #Blacklivesmatter but it also infamous for 2021 Unites States Capitol attack. The dark side of social media shows that it is responsible for cyber bullying, trolling, fraud, and harassment. It negatively affects both their physical and mental health and in worse cases causes death. Other concerns include data leaks, easy tool for running fake propaganda or spreading false rumours. So, there’s no wonder that it has a huge impact on our lives both positively and destructively. But I couldn’t come to certain conclusion if social media is good or bad even after a brief study of pros and cons of social media. To me they seem to balance each other. While looking for a genre, I watched few videos on YouTube and came across a TED Talk by a normal adolescent girl probably the same age as me. She quoted “social media isn’t so dark. In reality, it has become a reflection of our darker side” and “these machines are producing output based on what we input.” From the talk I learned that we tend to put the blame on social media for our failures and fears. We refuse to take the responsibility to bring positive change in us. My research ended with the conclusion that social media has become an irreplaceable part of our society and it contribute to in almost all the fields. Now I’m convinced that it is a tool not created to harm us but to connect us. And social media shouldn’t be blamed for our actions and that we should be conscious to follow credible sources and positive influencers.

Artist Statement

Living in the digital era, I feel that social media is almost omnipresent. Despite being a convenient tool for communication, education, news and entertainment, I often find myself having second thoughts about abandoning social media. But I realised that it is possible but it will make my life difficult in many ways. Being surrounded by gadgets and internet driven life gives us the liberty to learn and connect to a sea of infinite information. No matter how much we criticise that social media are a major distraction, addictive, false news spreading source and causing riots and more. We are constantly on it for long hours. So, I chose this topic to understand the impact of social media on our society and what we as individuals can do. As social media is a contemporary subject of great importance understanding it will help my audience who are adolescents and adults. For my research I began with reading few articles and the information provided me with obvious results, the already known facts. But I learned which are the widely used platforms and studied the users’ demographics depending on age, gender, educational background, etc. While working I had little trouble over deciding the genre which would best reach my audience. I planned to write a short article describing the pros and cons of social media for my audience to have a clearer picture of both sides. But such information about social media, in my opinion, is already well known and self- explanatory. But still, I will write an article. I shifted to also giving my audience the solution through a short and persuasive TED talk video which I strongly believe will make the audience think that social media is a tool to connect and not to disconnect. People will agree that we have been looking with wrong perception and will use social media for the purpose it was designed and not to harm others or to spread hate or misinformation. I believe that showing a video will be more interactive to hold the interest of people. I initially planned to focus on mostly the impact of social media on society which mostly deals with the problems but later decided to also include a solution. I learned that simply by being more responsible and consciously following only credible sources we can together bring a BIG change. Social media has proved to be a game changer and it is difficult to fathom a world without it and now that it is our reality, we have to learn to live with it. At the end I feel very content with my research and I got the answers to my many doubts that I don’t have to give up social media. In fact, we all don’t have to. All is needed is to surround myself with positive influencers, filter out the negativity and manage our time well. I learned not to let social media take control over me and decided to restrict my online activity in a productive manner and not follow anything blindly. And lastly, I found this quote to describe my mood that, “Don’t use social media to impress; use it to impact people.”