By Laura Gattis
Social media is valuable. It’s more than just memes, Reddit or leaked nudes of celebrities. Social media is, and always has been, much more than just a fleeting form of entertainment. Just take it back to Facebook’s founding, where it was meant to be a way to connect classmates. In today’s growing technological era, social media is more important and relevant than ever.
Social media has been invaluable in American politics, shaping our political landscape and involving millions of people who otherwise would not have been able to learn about their candidates in the most recent presidential election. Think about it. Most, if not all, of your friends have a strong opinion one way or another about President Trump, and if you ask his critics why they dislike him, they’ll probably mention his tweets.
Sure you can “cash me outside” (how bow dah?), but you can also catch me on my ASUN representative’s Twitter accounts making sure they’re being held accountable for their actions in ways that would have never been available to me otherwise.
Social media is worth so much more than just the bashing of questionable representatives. For people like me, it’s about networking, proving to companies that I’m worthy of working for them and that I can make their business better if they hire me. Bloggers that cultivate followings can create their own businesses writing about their travels or recipes and earn thousands of dollars a month, sometimes turning it into their full-time job. Before the rise of social media, the only way to be a published blogger was to be a journalist working for a magazine or newspaper, but through social media, anyone can give it a try and see if they’re successful.
Beyond that, and at the core of it all, social media is a connector. Of course, Facebook is how I stay in touch with that one weird kid from high school who thinks he’s going to be the next white Tupac, but it’s also how my friends have met their significant others and found careers. Without LinkedIn and other job search sites, I’d probably be unemployed or working in a job I absolutely hate, but the freedom of being able to search thousands of jobs means that you can throw your résumé into the cloud and see what comes back (with the appropriate safety checks, of course).
When you’re more intimately connected to your community, I believe that you have a higher chance of success in life. If you’re struggling with your sexuality in a small, conservative community, there are forums online that can help you discover yourself. Similarly, if you need to find God again but your current religion no longer aligns with your beliefs, there’s no shame in researching the differences between Protestants and Orthodox Jews. You just can. You can learn from people who have been in both religions before deciding which one to try out, just like you can with colleges.
When I picked Nevada for my undergraduate degree, it was important to me that I clicked with campus life, and Youtube videos of ASUN’s events and the university’s revitalization of downtown made me feel like it was here, in northwest Reno, that I belonged. Social media had a valuable impact on my life, memes and celebrity nudes and all.
