Social media: that defining plague of our generation. Everyone has an opinion on it. And, in the wake of recent scandals like the Russian election interference via Facebook, many opinions are shifting from those of the “I don’t see the big deal” variety to the “Good Lord, I’m sort of low-key addicted to Facebook, and maybe that’s changing the ways that I interact with the world around me” variety.
Of course, panic over social media is nothing new. Studies have shown a correlation between prolonged use of social networking sites and signs of depression; other studies have demonstrated a link between low self-esteem and prolonged use of those same sites. And in Silicon Valley, in an ironic and vaguely terrifying twist, the very same people who are running our most popular social media sites are increasingly banning their children from “screen time” generally.
Athena Chavarria, former executive assistant at Facebook and current employee at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, summed up the collective parental hysteria more succinctly, saying, “I am convinced the devil lives in our phones and is wreaking havoc on our children.”
So, in summary: social media is bad; millennials addicted to social media are bad; parents who allow their children screen time are bad. What’s that, you say? You went on Facebook for an hour yesterday and watched an hour of Tasty videos, and you still, somehow, have the gall to think that you’re a decent person? We condemn you, roundly. You only communicate with your friends from home over Snapchat? Nice going, devil-worshipper.
That being said, with all the panic about big tech and SNS (Social Networking Sites), we here at Editorial Board were interested in exploring a more optimistic piece of social media news from this past week.
In a recent two-week period, Snapchat reported that over 400,000 of their users had registered to vote through their app. Snapchat users were given a button urging them to register on their profile pages, and were sent video messages reminding them to register. The app then sent them to TurboVote.org, a nonpartisan voter registration website.
So, in summary: registering to vote is good; getting 18-24 year olds, who are consistently unreliable voters, to vote is good; Snapchat is… not as bad as most of us assume it is?
It’s easy – and by easy, we mean lazy, conformist and uncritical – to unendingly demonize social networking sites. They are easy to mock. They make people, ourselves included, act in strange, performative and petty ways. They encourage, in many cases, a deliberate gulf between “real” life and internet branding of real life. (We put “real” in quotes because, honestly, internet life is a part of real life now.) Instead of mocking from a distance, though, isn’t it more interesting, and more optimistic, to grapple with the very real positive and negative consequences that social media sites have for our daily lives?
So, in summary: social media is maybe, possibly not just a platform for vapid meaninglessness, but a force to be reckoned with. Go vote!
