Social media sites have taken over our lives. It’s hard to even imagine that 10 years ago there was no Facebook or Twitter! 15 years ago people were actually waiting to hear from each other because even email wasn’t that common.
How did social media actually influenced our life and the society in general? In my opinion (and I am an early adopter) it has had a positive impact. I am all for the widening of the world we live in, and easy communication around the world.
Social media has definitely made us closer to other parts of the world – as someone who used to do the worldwide business from Ukraine, I am the one who can totally appreciate it!
It doesn’t mean I don’t see the back side of the coin. I do know the cons along with the pros…
The Good
First, we have the obvious: communication. We are living in a time where the world is open to us. We can contact anyone around the world, at any time, with just a few keystrokes. It is free, unlike calling across the ocean, and live. We can also share elements of our life, from what we enjoy to photos of ourselves and those in our lives. It is like being a part of that person’s world, even though distance keeps you apart.
We also have the communication between people and businesses. Since they have paved a new way for interaction between the two, customers can now tell brands exactly what they want. Businesses can then use that information to tailor their products of more appeal. They used to have to spend a ton of cash for this kind of marketing data. Customers used to have to spend hours on phones getting more and more frustrated when they had a problem or complaint.
There are also causes and information. Social media has made it possible for like minded individuals to discuss important topics, widen their personal knowledge and discover things they never knew before. For example, young people around the world are now more involved than ever in their country’s politics. The last presidential elections in the US are proof of that. Social media has contributed to that increase in a big way.
Non-profits are seeing the benefits of using social media for their awareness campaigns. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others are a cost effective means of spreading the word and getting support. Not to mention socially shared petitions from sites like Causes.org, reaching hundreds of thousands of people.
There is no doubt that there are many reasons to love social media.
The Bad
But not all consequences of this technology are good ones. Like the way it has allowed us to hide behind screens and limited our social interaction face to face. You get the feeling of being social without having to go out and socialize. In the same vein, it gives you the feeling of being a friend (or having friends) without having to put in any actual work to build the relationship. Just think of how many people you have on your Facebook friends list. How many of them do you see on a semi-regular basis? At all?
Then we have the issue of how it has taken over our lives. I hate being out in public and seeing people on their phones. Seeing them talking never bothered me as long as they weren’t being obnoxious. Nor does sending off a quick text bug me; maybe they are meeting someone and telling them where they are, or something. It is the obvious Facebooking or tweeting or whatever else that keeps people’s eyes glued to their phones.
I never check social media sites when I am out doing something. Whether it is grocery shopping, getting dinner with friends or waiting in line, it is just so impolite. It also shows a serious problem with distraction in today’s society. We can’t enjoy the world around us for an hour without retreating back into that safe little digital box.
Productivity is pretty much shot thanks to social media, as well. Admit it, you check your profiles during work, or find yourself wandering over to YouTube or your favorite blog during work hours. Here is a fun little game: every time you get distracted by a social media site, make a little strike on a piece of paper. At the end of the day, count all the strikes and feel your heart drop into your stomach as you try to estimate how much time wasted it represents.
The Ugly
Some of what social media has done isn’t just ‘bad’, it is flat out ‘ugly’. Like the number of relationships that have been broken up over social networks. Now, don’t misunderstand me, I am not saying that Facebook is to blame for this. It is just a tool that has seemed to make it easier to cheat, or to do things that cross a boundary in your relationship. Like flirty PM’s with that high school sweetheart you haven’t seen since graduation. Or much more blatant infidelities that are sure to be caught the first time you forget to log out of the computer you share with your spouse.
Then there are the sheer number of stupid, vein people on Facebook. Yeah, it seems a little mean to point out. But I bet you are thinking of at least one person who would fit into one (or both) of these categories.
Each status message is a flat-out attention whoring sob fest, usually vague. Or way TMI about their struggling relationship with someone they should have dumped six months ago. Let’s not forget the badly spelled, grammatical nightmares that you would need a magic decoder ring that translated moron into English to read. If you want proof that this kind of thing is spreading, as is the self-centered douchebaggery that most of us try to keep out of our lives, check out Lamebook sometime.
Conclusion
I think that the effects of social media have been somewhat balanced, to be honest. There are many good things about it, and many bad things. In the end, if you can keep your own life centered in reality and use social networking as a small part of it, you should be just fine.
For those who can’t, it might be time to turn off the computer for a bit and go for a walk.
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Why do Black people cause a HUGE share of society problems?
crime, welfare, low education, violence, etc
It’s been about 150 years since slavery was abolished. Do you think another 150 years is enough time for them to get their act together? If not, when? Im not trying to be racist, cause I’m NOT!
Where I live I see many black folks cruising, and trashing up the place, and Hispanics trying to make a living here, raising a family, they put food in the table everyday, while the Black person tries to become rich by rapping, or trashing up the place? HISPANICS AN WHITES WORK REALLY HARD
Look how Detroit is.
Most of the population are African American
Detroit has the highest Murder rate? EXPLAIN THAT!
Compton is not even dangerous anymore, compared to Detroit with high Black Population
If you are dead and had a Facebook what happens to it? does it erase itself permanently or what simply happens?
Ok, I’ve seen several new groups and/or pages talking about Facebook charging money to use it next month.
Is this true?
Why are they doing this?
Why haven’t I gotten anything official from the Facebook people saying this?
(This Mainly Applies to Asian-American Males in North America)
Being an Asian American Male, we face a lot of negative stereotypes from the media.
A lot of Asian Guys often see Asian Girls with Guys of Another Race. But you almost never see Asian Guys with Girls of Another Race. Why is that?
First Outside Factors Not Involving an Asian Man Himself:
1. Asian American Males are portrayed by the media as wimpy, intelligent, nerdy, feminine, and asexual. In Fact, most Asian Men portrayed in Hollywood Media are intentionally portrayed unattractively.
2. You see many commercials, movies, and television shows that portray romance with Asian Women and Men of Another Race. But Rarely you see Asian Men being portrayed in a romantic/sexual matter anywhere in the media.
3. With the negative influence from the media, girls can never picture or imagine themselves being with an Asian Man. But they can with men of another race, because they’ve seen stories of being happily ever after with men of other colors. But Never with an East Asian Man. Because they never see it anywhere. Which makes it that much harder for them to open up to the possibility of it.
4. Because of the negative stereotypes Asian Men suffer, girls often gossip and make fun of Asian Guys. Many Girls say “Asian Guys are ugly (lol laughs)”. “Asian Guys have small You knows.” “Asian Guys are nice, and good Friend Types. But Never could be with them romantically”. “Asian Guys Just Don’t Do It For me For Some Reason”. “I could never picture myself with an Asian Guy.” “I can never be attracted to an Asian Guy”. “Eww Asian Guys LOL” Etc… (I have either actually overheard or seen on the internet these types of messages from all types of girls).
5. Because of the Gossip and constant bad rep of Asian Guys going around the social scene of many girls around America. Girls who actually do feel attracted to Asian Guys, are too afraid to actually go for it, in fear of judgment and gossip from other Girls if they are seen with an Asian Guy Romantically.
6. Girls perceive Asian Guys to have low social value. If they date them all girls in their social circle will gossip and make fun of the couple. Or Make Fun of Her for Liking An Asian Guy. Therefore its better for girls to not take a chance, and keep her social rep and status safe.
Factors from Asian Guys Themselves:
1. Asians are raised to be polite, quiet, and not showy. This has excellent qualities to be accepted in society, but they are also perceived to be very feminine qualities. Asians should still be respectful and polite, but they need a backbone and respect their own needs instead of just for others.
2. Asians have low self-esteem from the media. When you are seeing girls of your own race being sweeped off their feet by other guys, you feel there must be something wrong about us. You see the media constantly portraying Asian women being taken away by the dark tall handsome Caucasian male everywhere. Like Asian Guys are never meant to have romantic relationships, not even with their own race. Therefore, they don’t know anything about themselves that appeals to women. Why should they when they don’t see it or have examples/role models to follow?
3. When you hardly ever see Asian Guys dating Girls. How do you get an idea how to date someone? Asian guys just feel there is nothing appealing about themselves to girls. So they don’t even bother. White Guys speak-well, are handsome with great Hair. Black Guys are Tall, Dark, Handsome, and well-built very masculine. Latino Guys are passionate and romantic with spanish/latin flavor. Middle Eastern Men have beautiful eyes and great features. Us Asian Guys?: We are seen as short, wimpy, and too uptight. As Seen by most girls. Or that is what we believe.
4. The completely ruined self-esteem comparing ourselves to guys of other race makes us feel even more inferior deep down inside that we won’t admit. You don’t see any of our guys dating girls of other race, like other guys do. Girls talk *bleep* about us. We have low social value too many people. Just too nice, but the friend type.
Now the Main Focus of the Topic: What should Asian Guys do to improve their success in Dating and their masculine image overall? (With all the negative portrayal and stereotypes of the media).
http://media.photobucket.com/image/coexist/soulsk8er/coexist.jpg?o=2
Across my upper back, in between my shoulder blades.
Today we see people competing to become more sexier socially by getting nose jobs, boob jobs, and dying the hair blonde.
Basically society holds that the blonde slender girl with that nice face as the best of women so we see black celebrities, as well as hispanics and white girls all trying to become like her.
People like beyonce, shakira etc
This pisses me off for a number of reason
1- Woman feel pressured to look this way are not proud of their own appearance
2- Makeup and hair dye is for clowns, woman look good natural
3- Although color of hair does not determine level of education since many blonds are smart, the concept of sacrificing brains for blonde is scary to me
Of course in USA you are free to do what ever you want but people act according to social pressure, women feel pressure to compete in looks not in brains thus we i feel women in usa do not feel equal
pretty versus ugly, we see this ignorant outlook repeated by the media
Source: Guy with 2 eyes
This culture dates back 2-3000 years the greek-roman culture always glorified the blonde babe with sexy figure
Even the male with these feature was seen as God like- Herculeus etc
As Charles Krauthammer so eloquently points out here:
Liberalism under siege is an ugly sight indeed. Just yesterday it was all hope and change and returning power to the people. But the people have proved so disappointing. Their recalcitrance has, in only 19 months, turned the predicted 40-year liberal ascendancy (James Carville) into a full retreat. Ah, the people, the little people, the small-town people, the “bitter” people, as Barack Obama in an unguarded moment once memorably called them, clinging “to guns or religion or” — this part is less remembered — “antipathy toward people who aren’t like them.”
That’s a polite way of saying: clinging to bigotry. And promiscuous charges of bigotry are precisely how our current rulers and their vast media auxiliary react to an obstreperous citizenry that insists on incorrect thinking.
— Resistance to the vast expansion of government power, intrusiveness and debt, as represented by the Tea Party movement? Why, racist resentment toward a black president.
— Disgust and alarm with the federal government’s unwillingness to curb illegal immigration, as crystallized in the Arizona law? Nativism.
— Opposition to the most radical redefinition of marriage in human history, as expressed in Proposition 8 in California? Homophobia.
— Opposition to a 15-story Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero? Islamophobia.
Now we know why the country has become “ungovernable,” last year’s excuse for the Democrats’ failure of governance: Who can possibly govern a nation of racist, nativist, homophobic Islamophobes?
Note what connects these issues. In every one, liberals have lost the argument in the court of public opinion. Majorities — often lopsided majorities — oppose President Obama’s social-democratic agenda (e.g., the stimulus, Obamacare), support the Arizona law, oppose gay marriage and reject a mosque near Ground Zero.
What’s a liberal to do? Pull out the bigotry charge, the trump that preempts debate and gives no credit to the seriousness and substance of the contrary argument. The most venerable of these trumps is, of course, the race card. When the Tea Party arose, a spontaneous, leaderless and perfectly natural (and traditionally American) reaction to the vast expansion of government intrinsic to the president’s proudly proclaimed transformational agenda, the liberal commentariat cast it as a mob of angry white yahoos disguising their antipathy to a black president by cleverly speaking in economic terms.
Then came Arizona and S.B. 1070. It seems impossible for the left to believe that people of good will could hold that: (a) illegal immigration should be illegal, (b) the federal government should not hold border enforcement hostage to comprehensive reform, i.e., amnesty, (c) every country has the right to determine the composition of its immigrant population.
As for Proposition 8, is it so hard to see why people might believe that a single judge overturning the will of 7 million voters is an affront to democracy? And that seeing merit in retaining the structure of the most ancient and fundamental of all social institutions is something other than an alleged hatred of gays — particularly since the opposite-gender requirement has characterized virtually every society in all the millennia until just a few years ago?
And now the mosque near Ground Zero. The intelligentsia is near unanimous that the only possible grounds for opposition is bigotry toward Muslims. This smug attribution of bigotry to two-thirds of the population hinges on the insistence on a complete lack of connection between Islam and radical Islam, a proposition that dovetails perfectly with the Obama administration’s pretense that we are at war with nothing more than “violent extremists” of inscrutable motive and indiscernible belief. Those who reject this as both ridiculous and politically correct (an admitted redundancy) are declared Islamophobes, the ad hominem du jour.
It is a measure of the corruption of liberal thought and the collapse of its self-confidence that, finding itself so widely repudiated, it resorts reflexively to the cheapest race-baiting (in a colorful variety of forms). Indeed, how can one reason with a nation of pitchfork-wielding mobs brimming with “antipathy toward people who aren’t like them” — blacks, Hispanics, gays and Muslims — a nation that is, as Michelle Obama once put it succinctly, “just downright mean”?
The Democrats are going to get beaten badly in November. Not just because the economy is ailing. And not just because Obama over-read his mandate in governing too far left. But because a comeuppance is due the arrogant elites whose undisguised contempt for the great unwashed prevents them from conceding a modicum of serious thought to those who dare oppose them.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti
option 1 the justice scale on my left shoulder or my left uper arm this one will be represting the battle of good and evil and the need for balance in life this will have a evil more demoic look on one side and a more peaceful look on the other. option 2 on my lower back aka tramp stamp angel wings with dad in the middle represting my father who i lost when i was 11 or a beta fish on my ankle symbolisng my freedom my independance & desires to be myself please answer which one you think i should get first and why thanks
this is for a friend of mine
if i could find the awnsers i wouldent be askign for help JAMES
to hate how they look? to hate their normal and sometimes attractive bodies? to hate how they were born? to hate actually having a life?
to hate making good decisions?
like this girl – http://www.youtube.com/user/ThinkThin17
The media is putting abuse on girls and telling them useless, unhealthy ideals they should accomplish. And also, guys should stop making bad comments towards a girl’s appearance even if they don’t like it. The reason girls wear make up is because they don’t like their natural self and has probably been called ugly or seen a bunch of other girls get called ugly.
Yesterday my friend told me that people are talking sh-t and really nasty things behind my back, mainly for my
1) Gummy smile [I smile a lot and is always “high”]
2) Being ugly
3) Being “noisy” in class. [I like to ask and answer teacher’s questions]
4) Once I got misunderstood by the media and caused a controversy, and as a result some of the “school patriots” hate me.
5) My “personality” [Nobody gave me an explanation for that.]
She told that there are more sh-t and I am really famous in school. I am not even a mean person who calls people ugly/fat/shitty and a majority people hate me for the above points?…
From then, I begin thinking about who is talking behind my back- teachers, relatives, members of social organisation I am part of….I am getting really paranoid about this. I don’t expect everyone to like me but they shouldn’t be so mean to me.
I don’t think I have an attitude problem.
I am doing rather well socially. I have three close friends [two friends for more than 3 years, another one for more than 7 years]. Two boys have confessed to me [one like me for my straight hair and another I am not so sure, but I think he’ve dropped hints that he like my smile].