Much anxiety with many newer social media sites

TO THE EDITOR:

Thursday’s column “Please Bring Back the Old Media” (April 22) echoed the way I have been feeling lately about the recent influx of social networking sites.

These sites seem to have taken over the lives of the people around me, like my friend who updated his Facebook at least seven times over dinner one night. Admittedly I do have a Facebook, but I rarely log on.

But I am more concerned by sites like Chatroulette, Omegle, and the personals section of sites like Craigslist. I have read recently of several people contracting HIV due to being less than safe when meeting people off Craigslist, which goes to show that what people post on the Internet is not always the truth.

The tagline of the site Omegle, which allows you to chat through video and text with random people from around the world, is “Talk to Strangers.”

The world is by no means safer than it was when I was a kid, and instead of taking time to tell people the dangers of interacting with those whom they know nothing about, it seems that society is doing the opposite.

Apparently things have shifted from “Stranger Danger” to “Go ahead and talk to strangers, and while you’re at it, climb into their vans and take the candy they offer you.”



Kayla Harrelson
Sophomore
Dramatic Art