Our world today is consumed with social media. We always want to know what's going on with the world. Conveniently we can access it all in the palm of our hands. I'm sure almost every teenager and twenty-something today has parents yell at them to put phone down. I for one, always had every type of social media. As soon as I heard about a new platform or a new upgrade, I had to download it. I would be addicted until the fad passed. As I've gotten older, I've realized that while social media is great for many things, it also has many downsides.
Social media has made it incredibly easy to connect with friends, stay up to date with current events, politics and celebrities. It's an easy way to express yourself. That's all great, but it seems we have lost our privacy. We all feel obligated to update our followers with what we just ate for a snack or to point out a typo. I do it all the time. Snapchat,Tweeting and Instagram have become my main way of communicating. Recently, the art of conversation has drastically changed. Back when our parents were kids, they only had the telephone during certain times and really only for important things. Texting was popular, but it has lost it's attraction with the introduction of all the new social media apps. Now it's easy to Periscope your gym workout and post as much as you want to your Snapchat story. You're friends don't even have to directly contact you to find out what's going on.
I hate social media because everywhere you go, people are on their phones. They are on their phones waiting in line at Starbucks, on their phones while eating dinner, on their phones while having conversations. The list goes on. The world is obsessed with smart phones now.
On the other hand, I love social media. It will hopefully be my future job. Currently, I have an internship in social media and I love it. I love creating quirky Tweets, finding interesting pictures and writing blog articles to post. There is something different every day. Almost every company today is getting into social media. Companies that target consumers directly have been in the forefront when it comes to Instagram,Twitter and Facebook marketing. Business to business (B2B) companies are slowly but surely making their way onto multiple platforms. Everything is at the touch of our fingers. We can experience a different country by watching their Snapchat story or we be inspired by a heartbreaking Instagram post. There is so much out there and we can see it all.
Social media is the easiest, and most inexpensive way to market. It's an amazing thing to keep up with the world and know what's going on. We have all been there with going through periods where we hate social media and delete every app from our phone, only to reload everything a few hours later. This is because our culture is obsessed with knowing what is happening.
While social media has many positives and negatives, we are stuck with it, so we might as well like it (and make careers out of it)!
