In the wake of this past week's shooting in Florida, a storm of people have taken to social media platforms with their opinions on policy, thoughts, and prayers, statistics condemning the United States, and their anger. We hear the same cycle that always come with mass shootings. People are starting to get tired of the endless loop of typical responses with no real action. Other's are tired of hearing the blame laid on the second amendment. And how accurate is social media backlash? A lot of the time social media is all about arguments and not about understanding.
Does social media help? Or does it do more harm than good? With so many voices it's hard to listen to everyone at once. Of course, there's trending hashtags, but how much attention does social media really get from our policymakers? People ask for change on social platforms, but they should be demanding it outside of their local legislator's offices. The fights that happen on Twitter and Facebook are essentially pointless, so why do we keep having them? We all want our voices to be heard, but usually, as soon as somebody types theirs out and hits send, they're satisfied.
The victims of the Parkland High Shooting aren't sitting down and taking this. Many of the students and families involved in the shooting have tweeted that they plan to do something about it. Out of the responses came a twitter account created for a nationwide high school walk out. Anonymously, someone made the account and tweeted plans for everyone to sign a petition committing themselves to not go to school on the 20th anniversary of the Columbine School Shooting.
That's April 20th, two months away. I wish I could believe that this would happen, and high schooler's all over the country would stay home in a political protest, but it's sadly unrealistic. By then the thoughts and prayers and anger and requests for gun reform and deny for gun reform will have died down.
Conservatives aren't backing down either. It's the same defense every time. Unwavering and backed by history, they're arguments stay unpopular on social media platforms with millennials. Once again, this is why there are fights. There is no give or take, no grey area, only black and white on social media. Twitter only allows for 140 characters on tweets. How can opinions on reform like gun control be summed up with that? The arguments cancel each other out and then there's silence until something else happens.
It's a hopeless mindset, but it's what usually happens with these things. Some part of this fruitless result is the fact that everyone goes at each other's necks for opposing views. Most people who would put their political opinions out on the internet for everyone to see are extremists. They tend to be far right or far left. The majority also tends to speak out more, struggling for more attention. Social media can encompass all of these flaws in representation, adding to the ineffectiveness.
Our saving grace is that it seems like responses have started to change a bit from the past. This time around the rage seems to be directed towards the cycle of ineffective reactions. More and more people are calling out the fact that voices aren't being heard and that no reforms are taking place.
To make a change there needs to be a larger movement than just trending hashtags and popular posts. With a school shooting happening once a week on average so far this year, we'll have to wait for the next inevitable tragedy to take place to see what way responses have changed, or haven't. I hope that all who were involved in this tragedy use their voice while they have it, and the conversation turns into something productive rather than a mess of fighting.
The opportunity to make a change happen is now. No matter your political standpoint, thoughts and prayers are in goodwill, but the victims, their families, anyone involved in the shooting and the general public needs your help through policy, whether that's for reform or against it. The way to help is to make a change and keep the conversation from dying, and not through the fake construct of social media.
