Is Social Media Good Or Bad?
This is a question I've heard and seen a lot of times and I always choose to ignore it. That is until today when my cousin came home ranting about how her teacher said that social media is the devil's playground.
I asked why she would say such a thing and she replied "Simi's father came to complain that she (Simi) was being cyber bullied by her fellow classmates". I was genuinely appalled by that but I didn't (and still don't) believe that the social media platform is to be blamed. I told my cousin how I felt about the matter but all my efforts to convince her that her teacher was wrong proved futile so I'm here to ask an old yet still very relevant question: Is social media media good or bad?
Here's my opinion: If your little brother picked up a pen and wrote "You are a goat", would you scold the pen or the boy ? Exactly! You would scold the boy because even though the pen played an important part in the writing of that unpleasant sentence, it still cannot be held responsible for the action. It is impossible for the pen to contrive such thoughts let alone express it on a piece of paper. Your brother had to hold it and use it as a tool to carry out his unpleasant plan. That's how it is with social media too.
Twitter doesn't troll people,(some) Twitter users do! TikTok doesn't body shame people, (some) TikTok users do. My point is that it is impossible for these platforms themselves to carry out all those heinous actions that they are being crucified for. It's the users who are responsible for these actions so it's not fair to blame the platforms for it.
Social media is neither good nor bad, it is a tool. It is a tool that can be used for good purposes such as business growth, networking, community etc or for negative purposes such as bullying, hacking, misinformation, etc.
Social media is to users what a pen is to a writer. This is why we should all remember that we are all responsible for keeping social media safe and conducive for other users. We should all try to use social media for good and not for malicious purposes.
What do you think of my explanation? Do you think social media is good or bad, or is it amoral ? Let me know in the comments below.
See you later!
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