Social media is a powerful tool. It can be used to gain support for a movement, raise awareness of an issue or voice opinions of current events. When used effectively, social media makes these things possible; its nature is to connect people and serve as a platform for discussion. However, as with any power, the power of social media can easily be abused. High school students need to figure out how to use social media without abusing it.
There are numerous ways that students try and take advantage of social media. It makes it easy to send mass invites to an event or send mass messages asking to complete a survey. People can add their friends to an organization’s group page on Facebook without their friends’ permission, and they can send hundreds of follower requests from a Twitter account created for an organization, in hope that it gets followed in return.
To everyone who does this: Stop. Sending the same message indiscriminately to large numbers of recipients on the internet is not conducting intellectual research. It is not reaching out to your online connections to gain support for a cause. It is spam.
You might think you are spreading the word by simply spamming everyone you have some sort of online relation with, but what you are doing actually has an adverse effect. While these methods might bring issues or a cause to the attention of one’s peers, people are usually not inclined to help organizations that are constantly sending them spam. It is an unprofessional way to achieve a somewhat professional goal.
2012-01-06