The Ups and Downs of Social Media

As I begin to think about social media and its effects on society, I wonder if it is providing a less or more truthful reality. As far as reality goes, as Stephen Colbert says, “Look it up on Wikipedia”.  With the advent of social media, there are so many more perspectives and accounts available for the everyday Internet user to peruse. Information about the world no longer needs to come from institutions, and money is no longer necessary to provide one’s opinion. However, in this new climate of unregulated exposure to any and everyone’s opinions is the truth being more exposed than when it was so closely regulated? I would argue yes, that individuals have more information now than ever before, and can therefore discern the truth far more easily than ever before in history. However, some might argue that the massive influx of ideas and opinions, in many cases presented as facts could lead to an altered perception of the truth by some unwitting individuals.

For example, there are websites and blogs of all sorts. For every left wing blog, there is an equally extreme right wing blog. For every website about healthy eating and body image there are websites explaining the virtues of anorexia and providing support nets for girls to connect with other anorexic girls to share tips and stories. When I did the Google search “Pro Anorexia tips”, in .11 seconds 405,000 results were presented to me. When I did an “Anti Anorexia” Search .16 seconds returned over a million results. The majority of these results were blogs and other personal websites. Anyone seeking information on either of these subjects would be instantly validated in their opinion if they made the correct search. I am not in any way advocating for censorship, or stating that information was better when controlled by industry and corporation. There is such a fine line between policing material that could help individuals make unhealthy decisions, like anorexia, and robbing individuals of the right to free speech.  

 If one looks hard enough, most any point can be validated through some site of information available on the Internet or through social media groups and blogs. Because of this, I wonder that although there is a far greater amount of information, and variety of opinions present, do people have the tools to use this new information to find and understand the truth, or is this new information being used to validate pre-existing opinions and stereotypes? I do think that the fact that so much new and interesting information is available to anyone with a computer is a wonderful thing. The ability of individuals to become creators and share their insights without the constraints of government or industry is ultimately a good thing. However, as with anything, there can be those who use something that should be a good thing for other purposes. The good outweighs the bad in this scenario, but is there a way for the bad to not exist, or does it go hand in hand with freedom and free speech?