Wildcard - Review of "Social Media Changing Social Interactions" by Kaitlin C.

While researching the effects of social media on society, I stumbled across a publication by the Student Journal for Media Literacy Education. The document had information about many aspects of social media. The article is interesting and closely related to my topic, and is titled: Social Media changing Social Interactions by Kaitlin C.


The link to the article may be found here. The article is located on page 11.

Overall, I thought that this was a very informing article with a lot of good points. The author states: "Social networking websites effect our social interaction by changing the way we interact face-to-face, how we receive information, and the dynamics of our social groups and friendships." I have definitely witnessed first hand how social media can alter face-to-face interaction. For instance, many times I have witnessed people pull their phone's out and open social media in order to escape an interaction with someone they do not know. In my opinion, social media should be used more as a tool to improve social connections, instead of taking away from everyday physical interaction. 

I would also strongly agree that social media has changed the way we receive information. A quote from the article reads, "The sites open up different portals through which we get information and create a more diverse news outlet." Social media allows users to gain information about news stories around the globe just by checking their "friends" status updates or trending keywords. There is no longer a need to go digging through multiple major news channels or newspapers to find news stories. Also, there is less media bias when information is coming from many different sources.


One thing about this article that I did not agree with was the idea that social media gives us the false impression of what a "friend" is. The author says that "our traditional notion of friendship embraces trust, support, compatible values, etc." However, I personally can recognize that the people that I am connected with on social media are not necessarily my friends, and a lot of people that I know would agree with me. Some people on these social media sites are just people that you went to school with, worked with, etc. that you may want to stay in touch with.