Pro And Cons Of Social Media

“Twitter is a great place to tell the world what you’re thinking before you’ve had a chance to think about it.” (Pirillo). Twitter is notorious for having user that prefer to tweet about their actions, before they think about them. Social media has slowly been working its way into people’s everyday life over the past twenty years. Most individuals cannot go a day without checking their Facebook or letting their Twitter followers know what kind of coffee they had to drink that morning. Social media can be either a blessing or a curse to the human race depending on how people look at it. Not only can social media help us connect with new people and become more aware of worldwide issues; on the contrary, it encourages the spread hate and fake

One of the strongest arguments for social media having a positive impact on peoples everyday lives is that it spreads news quickly. People can be aware of events as they are happening. Live-streaming and feed updates lets the followers know in real time what is occurring. News stations have taken full advantage of this feature to help put out facts and new, hot topic stories as they happen. Local news stations tend to stream news stories such as fires, shootings, charity events and many other interesting headlines. ProCon.org stated that, “78.5% of traditional media reporters polled used social media to check for breaking news.” ("Are Social Networking Sites Good for Our Society?”). That is the equivalent of thousands of people depending on a social media website of some sort for news. They went on to say in the same article that “Social media sites are one of the top news sources for 46% of Americans compared, to 66% for television, 26% for printed newspapers, and 23% for radio.” ("Are Social Networking Sites Good for Our Society?”). Almost half of Americans used a website such as Facebook or Twitter for news. The best explanation is that, it fits in a pocket and the stories are being updated as soon as the reporters know more information. Now there is no need to worry about being home for the 6 o’clock news every evening. Go out with friends for a

It is wonderful to have local news always updating on Facebook, but when fake new sources are sharing information, all it takes it one person to believe it. One person will share it until there are thousands of people reading an article about something that is not real or the most common case of fake news, something that started out as true, and afterwards was twisted with fake information to make it more appealing to the reader. From a recent article, “Facebook in particular came under attack for enabling fabricated news stories to circulate unchecked.” (“'Fake News' Becomes a More Recognized Phenomenon in Wake of 2016 Presidential Election."). All these unchecked sources led to untrue stories during the 2016 Presidential election on both sides of the party. The reason that fake news is believable, as worded by Hannah E. Spratt, “Fake news creators can be highly skilled in writing stories that will appeal to personal emotions and beliefs, starting with a grain of truth and building up fake stories that reinforce their suspicions, worries, or desires.” (Spratt). Meaning that if a Republican will see fake stories about Democratic candidates and vise versa. Fake news has always been around but has not become a big problem in the United States until the recent Presidential election. Yet the political fake news is not the only kind. Groups of people will