Is Social Networking Actually Anti-Social?

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by Sasha Mazikins

The initial purpose of social networking was to quickly contact friends, family, and co-workers. But is that really what it is used for now?

It is only human to judge one another, but I have witnessed a cruel kind of judgment happening within our school. Twitter is one of the most popular social networking websites, and a few weeks ago that fact was proven. Multiple anonymous Twitter accounts with “WHS” contained in their titles were created for “confessions,” but in reality people sent in insults, secrets, rumors, and vulgar confessions.

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The page entered a link to their ask.fm account (another social networking account which serves the purpose of the ability to send in anonymous questions) in their profile, enabling students to send in these rude tweets with no consequence. The accounts have been deleted, or are now inactive due to the threat from administrators and the reaction from students. This and many other factors are why I think social networking should be used less frequently.

Walking among hundreds of other students in the halls in unison, we all filter through the hallway as a part of our daily routine. The majority of students are a part of the second world of school: Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. But do we really acknowledge each other at school? We like one another’s photos on Instagram, or even have conversations on Twitter, but in person there is this awkward gap that has been created. I am not saying that this is the case for every student, but social networking has definitely influenced people to be more socially inept than they would have been without them.

twitter_logoLast year when the school was hit with the anonymous Twitter page problem, a school club created another account called “WalkervilleCom” which was a place for people to send in compliments, and nice tweets. This is an example of what social networking should be like, back to its original purpose.
The use of these sites is inevitable, so I cannot ask everyone to completely stop using them. But, the school as a whole should work together to use social networking in the right way.

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