Social media has definitely influenced my perspective of
events. I’m not sure I ever really
believed everything I read or heard without giving it some thought, but the
speed and breadth of social media has made me more conscientious of my
responsibility as a consumer of information. I consider this a positive
influence.
I use Facebook on an almost daily basis, for work and for
personal use. I use my smartphone
throughout the day, mostly for the calendar/schedule functions, but also for
personal email and texting. (I deliberately
do not have my work email on my phone.) Some
of the posts on Facebook remind me of spam email that need to be dealt with
carefully, or simply deleted and put out of mind. I compare utilizing new media
to being a good consumer of products. I evaluate
the information I have to choose from. I
use experience and reputation of the individual or source posting to decide if
the claims are true or exaggerated to promote responses. What validates the information that I’m
supposed to believe? Is it presented
objectively or is it laden with emotional hype? I think I’ve always been an active “thinker”
when it comes to accepting information, but social media has developed that skill
further and has produced additional skills that enable me to evaluate reliably.
In my professional capacity, I work in Animal Control where
social media can create unintended consequences, both positive and negative. We recently posted a photo of one of our
Animal Control Officers returning a Beagle to a senior citizen who had lost the
dog 2 years ago! Nice story…or so you
would think. We were proud of our
officer and his detective abilities to reunite the gentleman and his long-lost
hunting partner based on a very cryptic, handmade dog collar. However, rather than focusing on what we
thought was important (reuniting a pet with an owner), some people chose to
comment on the officer’s appearance. Social
media opens the door for criticism on various levels.
I feel like I’ve witnessed an increase in sloppy journalism,
both traditional and electronic. It
makes me even more convicted to be a better consumer of information and a distributor
of such, since I have the opportunity to write articles for the facility I work
at. I admit that I write with a purpose—typically to educate the community and
get animals adopted. I include an emotional component to solicit the response I’m
looking for from readers. However, I
never compromise truths and facts. I think as both consumer and producer of
information, new social media has had an overall positive effect on how I view,
and present, events.
