2016 was an interesting year to say the least. The election, the Black Lives Matter movement, and an alarmingly high number of celebrity deaths, just to name a few, were all stories that took the nation by storm. And to me the most interesting part of it all was that I found myself learning about and commenting on all of these things via social media, Twitter of all places. Back when I joined Twitter in July of 2012, it was a different place. It was where we tweeted angsty quotes and song lyrics hoping our crush or our feuding bff would see them and get the hint. It basically took over 2010 Facebook for us.
Fast forward a few years and Twitter's popularity has grown immensely. Though still largely populated by millennials, it is no longer just a place for self expression; it is a news platform, and a marketing tool, and a popular culture hub, and a vehicle for social justice. Twitter is honestly one of the weirdest social media platforms to ever exist. It’s the only site where you can find breaking news headlines followed directly by a meme followed directly by live sports updates followed by…well, you get the idea.
With around 100 million regular active users, Twitter is a highly trafficked site; the average user has around 208 followers. I, for one, go on multiple times a day, not necessarily to tweet things myself, but to see what people are saying or promoting. People also typically re-tweet things—that is: sharing someone else’s tweet on your own feed—much more than composing tweets of their own. This I find especially unique. This is how people, across cities, states, even countries connect. Ideas spread like wildfire, sparking awareness, discussion and even in some cases, action. News stories are broadcasted over so many platforms now-a-days. Especially for college students, a large portion of which may not even have a TV to tune into to watch the news, Twitter can even be a source to stay in the know with current events.
I’m not in any way suggesting that you all should make Twitter your number one go to application on your phone for serious matters. Because of the massive amount of comical and superficial content that one also comes across on Twitter, it’s probably a safer bet to get your information from a source that’s dedicated to reporting serious content, and fewer images of cute dogs. Granted everyone’s Twitter feed is different, controlled by you and what and how many accounts you choose to follow and how frequently you use the app yourself, so you could create a feed that’s entirely filled with news and reliable sources. However, as someone who uses both CNN and Twitter applications on my phone often, I will admit that sometimes I find out about things from the latter first solely because of how fast news travels on there, even amongst all the silly videos and pictures. A tweet can go viral in a matter of minutes.
We can pretty much all agree that we’re ready for 2016 to be over, and we’re hopeful that 2017 will be overall a better year *knocks on wood*. Whatever is to come though, what I’m most interested to see is how Twitter, along with all other social medias, will continue to grow, what kind of role it will play in our lives, and what we as an audience will do with it.
