Social Media Corrosion

I remember the day my sister told me about a classmate of hers asking why The Onion wasn't a reputable source for siting in her Model United Nations class when they were freshmen, and honestly even my sister couldn't come up with the proper response to the question. She just knew it wasn't a good source without understanding what satire was yet. For me, I follow a lot of satire news sources such as Reductress to keep my newsfeeds lighter, especially within the last two years of incredibly rough news stories erupting I need something to laugh at occasionally. Though because of following those pages, the algorithm on my homepage gravitates away from hard news sources and suggests humor pages instead. I think that’s the danger of impressionable children using social media while trying to find out more information and learn about the world around them.

As an adult who knows how and where to find information from reputable sources I stay away from Facebook, and perhaps it was a major benefit that it hadn’t gained popularity when I was still learning how to find sources and site them in middle school (2006-2009). 10 years later though with the access to smart phones, tablets, and computers in general opens the younger generations to falling into the confusion that social media creates. I work at Islands, and the amount of kids I’ve seen walk into walls because they are hyper focused on iPads is unparalleled. Sure there are children blocks and such but even this week alone we have seen the dangers that accompany the internet in what we consider the safest of realms.

The YouTuber Logan Paul, who is watched by a massive amount of adolescents and preteens, posted a tasteless video in what is known as the “Suicide Forest” in Japan of a man hanging from a tree. He proceeded to ask “Yo, are you still alive? Are you fucking with us?” And make jokes out of a strangers very private, very upsetting decision for an audience of 15 million followers. Paul’s a 22 year old vlogger who rose to power during the Vine era (2013-2016) and has a target audience of teenagers. Before this week I had never heard of the YouTube star because I am out of the age range of his watchers, and uninterested in the type of humor he boasts. Now though, I can’t escape his name on my newsfeed. One mother who was responding to the tone-deaf video from Paul explained she had to tell her 11-year-old “why his hero think[s] suicide is funny and why it’s actually not.”

The real issues stem from children just trying to learn and being exposed to videos and incorrect information while browsing newsfeeds. The flip side of course is that being exposed to all of the fluff of satire, incorrect stories, and generally inappropriate pieces, children are learning. They are learning how to filter themselves, and how differentiate between what is real and fake. It’s a delicate line and the total access to the internet from every piece of technology is helping to define it a little more everyday.