Are social networking sites good for our society

Social media is everywhere today. You cannot turn around today and not see someone checking their twitter feed or looking at Facebook on their smartphone. They say the fastest growing segment of the population in use of social media is adults over 45. That means your grandma or grandpa probably has a Facebook page or a twitter handle. Makes you wonder if we are all just wasting time or can social media actually be something beneficial. I truly believe it is a great tool for our society as a whole. Sure there are people who are just trying to gain as many friends or followers as they can and do we really need to see another funny cat video posted to someone’s Facebook page? Those types of uses are in the minority of the uses for social media. There are examples everywhere of how amazing and incredible social media can be. Politics is so much more interactive with the use of social media. You can find out so much more about how one candidate stands on an issue as opposed to other candidates. You can find out where your politician’s will be holding fundraisers or where they are going to be appearing. Twitter allows you to “hear” a candidate’s speech without leaving your home. News is another way that social media can be useful to you. By following or friending the local news station in your town, you can find out quickly the breaking news without having to wait for the 5pm news to come on tv. It can alert you to traffic problems that would delay your commute to work as well as news stories that cannot be covered in the short time a news program is on the air. The benefits of following the companies or businesses that you frequent can even be financially profitable to you. Companies regularly post specials or discounts or coupons directly on their Facebook page or even send them out via twitter so you can take advantage of them quick and easy. It can also warn others of a negative experience you had with a company so that they don’t have the same type of thing happen to them. Companies are also using it to turn those negative experiences into positive ones by reaching out to the customers who post their bad experiences and trying to turn those into positive ones. Potential buyers can also find out about new products or even new ways to use current products by checking out a company’s Facebook page or website. Even making dinner reservations can be achieved by making use of social media and getting the gang together for that dinner is also a snap by texting or messaging a group of friends quickly and easily. The use of social media can also make the miles disappear by letting grandparents see the first steps of their grandchildren who live miles away. They can also share the school plays or the winning touchdowns that they would have missed years earlier. Those same grandparents are using social media to get in touch with friends from younger days that they have lost touch with years earlier. I believe that social media in allowing us to enrich our lives in ways that were never possible before. If you sit back and think of all the things that can be done with social media, maybe a cute cat video is not such a bad thing if it makes us smile. Don’t we all need more smiles in our lives today?