Right now many states are moving toward restricting if not banning the use of social media/networks to all individuals under 18, not just at school but everywhere. PBS’ Student Reporting Lab looks into good benefits from social media. What would you say is something positive in your life from your use of social media?
Source: PBS Newshour Student Reporting Labs, How can young people use social media to create positive change, https://youtu.be/nMehR-xF-Jc
I probably spend too much time on social media. I’m entertained by all of the video clips from different movies or shows that I’ve already seen or watching football clips when football is out of season. I know that the platforms are designed to keep me locked in and pretend to give me a sense of actual connections with whomever I’m giving a “like” to or commenting on or watching their videos. I’ve been exploring the online world since the mid-1990s and did some dial-up networking beginning in the mid-1980s. Although we are using binary technology, making connections with others isn’t a binary thing where online isn’t “real” vs. face-to-face. It’s never been my desire to replace one with the other, but I learned in the 1980s that some people were not flexible enough to see whatever connection one can make as being “real.” So they only accepted face-to-face as real and that’s too bad, because it doesn’t have to be an either/or.
Now the folks making legislation on social networks, I wish I could believe that they really had anyone’s best interests at heart or understood what online communities mean. But that’s not how politicians and “disruptors” work. And, as a veteran of these places, I don’t need for them to tell where to go or what to view. Should children be protected? Of course, but that’s the responsibility of the parents, right? Things are all cross-wired and mixed up. How are you going to “protect the children” when the primary mission of the system is to sell them something and keep them spending. If their sole mission was to help people make connections or create communities they’d be non-profit, or they’d charge a reasonable fee to cover infrastructure and network maintenance. But that’s not how things are done. Banning things is the message of the technologically illiterate and noise-makers. I wish there was a better way to exist online.