Social media has undoubtedly become a substantial part in our everyday lives. With modern society becoming more and more internet-based, we spend endless hours staring at a screen. But social media has evolved into something beyond a place to seek entertainment, it has become an outlet for even the most pressing worldwide news stories. Millions of people using platforms such as Twitter or Facebook are being directly fed information about the news. But how reliable are these sources? How do we know we are reading the truth if we never question it? Do we too often allow the online comments of random strangers to influence our perception on nationwide issues?

When discussing the widespread use of social media, many people will simply associate it with teenagers. But in reality, adults are just as guilty; 55% of Americans who are at least 50 years of age rely on social media to learn about the news (Lomas). I personally think it is alarming how heavily social media is used to spread news, especially between adults whose opinions might greatly influence others. What would George Washington think if he knew our president was using Twitter to announce major political decisions?

I understand that social media is an effective way to reach millions of people around the world, but I think it is too often used in the wrong way. Because social media was primarily intended for entertainment and social interactions, it may not always be the most reliable source for news. For example, I went on Twitter just two days after the school shooting occurred in Santa Fe, Texas, and the leading news headline was about Ariana Grande discovering the acronym “oomf” means “one of my followers.” On a daily basis I see articles about celebrities, current sports or fashion related affairs published with more emphasis than national news related stories, for example. This proves that although social media platforms might appear to do a decent job covering pressing news stories, that job well done is usually short lived. The people who use social media marketing to make a living are mainly concerned with maintaining users’ interest and attention, and pop culture undoubtedly appeals to the interest of millions of people.

On the other hand, I don’t know if social media deserves to be heavily criticized for its lack of accurate news reports, because the news isn’t what it was necessarily intended for. Of course, as it’s popularity has exploded over the past years, news has been integrated into it, but that was never the main purpose. Social media was meant to be used as an escape from real world problems, not to be a constant reminder of them. Furthermore, as 96% of teenagers from the ages of 13 to 18 are using social media, their main interest is generally not the news (Jamieson). Most teenagers, I think, turn to social media to laugh at stupid jokes and interact with their friends, not learn about America’s new foreign trade policy or government programs. Whether or not you agree with teenager’s lack of interest in worldwide news, I think it’s pretty difficult to argue it doesn’t exist.

However, if social media experts are aiming to better their users’ knowledge of the news, they must first understand how the opinions of other users are heavily influencing the viewpoints of those that read various comments, posts, etc. Our perception of certain news stories can be strongly influenced by the people we follow on platforms such as Twitter. If you mainly follow people who have liberal views, you might be given a different story than someone who follows people with conservative views. Therefore social media marketers should seek to find a method of sharing news

that avoids the bias of other user’s comments as much as possible.

The use of social media undoubtedly is growing and will continue to grow for many years, so this is a concept we cannot ignore. With 500 million tweets sent out a day and 3.03 billion social media users worldwide, social media is not going away (Smith). This increasing popularity ensures that news coverage will continue to integrate into each of it’s platforms. With this, more and more teenagers will turn solely to social media to educate themselves on our national news. This means our future generation of leaders are being fed most of their knowledge through the internet. With this, we have to ensure that the knowledge they are obtaining is accurate and unbiased.

I think the best way to integrate accurate news understanding into social media is not to completely separate the two, but maybe to create an isolated section within these platforms where news is broadcasted without the opinions of others. I feel that cutting news off from social media would significantly decrease the amount of people who are aware of what is happening in the world, as so many people are becoming solely reliant on it. If social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter create a separate portion of their platforms that was dedicated only to news and did not allow comments from other users, people would be able to form their own opinions on the national news.

Social media has allowed the widespread of news to millions of people both nationally and worldwide. This access to people has the potential to create extremely educated and aware societies regarding the news, as long as the information is portrayed in an unbiased manner. By reshaping social media to where entertainment is separated from news articles, people could begin to obtain a better understanding of what is actually happening in the world. This will allow for our current leaders to form better ideas and opinions and our future leaders to learn about the shoes they are soon to fill.

Works Cited

Jamieson, Sophie. “Children Ignore Age Limits by Opening Social Media Accounts.” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 9 Feb. 2016.

Lomas, Natasha. “Even More US Adults Now Getting News from Social Media, Says Pew.”TechCrunch, TechCrunch, 11 Sept. 2017.

Smith, Kit. “116 Amazing Social Media Statistics and Facts.” Brandwatch, Brandwatch, 1 June 2018.