Professors, professionals and academics ready to write off social media as a waste of time – I urge you to reconsider.
For now I feel alone on the social networking frontier.
Not once in my time here, and I am graduating in June, have I taken a class that has shown me how to harness the power of social networks.
Much as the invention of the telegraph, printing press and television, the advent of social media is changing the way we talk and the way we think.
I know social media is powerful, but still no one has taught me why it’s powerful or more importantly how to effectively use it.
True, few have been able to answer these two questions , but maybe this is because those capable have decided to ignore the existence of this powerful new medium. Consequently, there is no one to teach us.
Often I hear professors and professionals speak about Twitter and Facebook as if it is a disease or plague that is taking over and infiltrating our youth. The complaints with how our generation uses and abuses these sites to share with everyone and no one in particular are unfounded, and every move we make, however numerous is warranted in my opinion.
The issue is not the medium, but how we use it.
When the printing press was invented it allowed the world to spread news and information at an unprecedented scale. When print became the dominant medium ,Socrates, the great orator he was, saw it as a tool detrimental to the academic community. He was the exception.
Where would we be if the best and the brightest minds stuck their noses up at print in the same way the best and the brightest detest social media today?
In the wake of current world wide events, it is impossible to deny the power of social networks. Libya and Egypt recently used social networks to start and fight revolutions. Remind you of anything?
The American Revolution was driven home to the people by a series of articles and writings championed by the newest technological advance in communication.
I fully accept and acknowledge the issues older generations have with my generation’s apathetic attitudes towards higher learning and our often inability to go deeper than a few surface level words. But, my generation also finds itself utterly alone during a social revolution.
Our adventures in effectively using social media as a means to positively change the world come without the aid of generations before us who could help us lead the way.
Instead, they claim they were dragged onto Facebook by a long distance friend or relative who pleaded with them to make a page.
So here is my plea.
Help make us experts on how we can utilize these great new mediums in ways other than satisfying our selfish desires. Get on these sites and use your experience and skills to give us tools to use Facebook instead of writing articles and books explaining how Facebook is further destroying the minds of our youth. Join the Facebook revolution.
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