Someone right now is smiling to a post their friend made on Instagram who is on the other side of the world. This is the power of social media! It can reach anyone, anywhere. Smiling is something that everyone does, if they’re happy to see someone they like. A lot of my family lives in India, and I talk to them at least two times every week via social media, and it makes me smile every time I see them, because I miss them and I don’t travel to India often. Smiling shows that we have no boundary, and this is true with social media, because it lets us connect with anyone in seconds. Social media has a positive effect on humans because it lets us communicate effectively due to the knowledge that we gain on it, it lets us talk to anyone anywhere, and it lets our voice be heard.

Sherry Turkle, a famous writer that writes about technology gave a TED talk where she said, “We can use what we learn in the virtual world to improve ourselves in the real world.”, and I completely agree with what she said, I’ve had problem in the past, and I easily looked up a quick and easy solution on online forums, or something like that. I can inform another person how to fix a problem that they have, due to the knowledge that I gained. Due to advances in forums and other social medias, all the knowledge that humans have gained so far is at out fingertips. Erika Andersen says, “All the knowledge of the world and all of man’s creation is at our fingertips [due to social media].”. What Andersen said is 100 percent true, we can learn almost anything that we want on the internet as long as we’re dedicated. This enriches our lives and makes us smarter. Being smarter we can talk to more people effectively by saying what we need to say correctly the first. I’m not saying that if you want to talk to people you have to know everything, but it makes it easier to communicate with them, and we can communicate with them because we’re on the same page and we don’t misinterpret anyone.

Being interactive, it’s a skill that every living thing has. Meeting new people is how we interact, research done by Wellman’s showed, “[Social media] adds on to them, increasing the overall volume of contact.”. This is one of the key reasons that social media is good, it lets us meet other people no matter where they are. Social media users can connect and talk to people, even if they’re a million miles away. This will help each other get to know the culture of other people, due to what they say and how they dress (in their pictures) this will also get us to respect them and their culture and not say things that we would say before, so when we communicate with them we won’t offend them. I was going through Facebook the other day, and I saw a really good article by Matt Hicks, “[Social media] has always been about helping people make connections.”. That’s what social media has always been about, getting to talk to anyone, whether it is your family or stranger that someday may become your wife or husband. People keep saying that as social media is becoming more and more influential and a part of our life, we are not talking to anyone, and we’re becoming introverted. This is not true, we’re getting to know more people and being experienced to other culture and enriching our intelligence. We are able to communicate to anyone, not just the people that are near us. We’re getting to know more people online, and we doing more talking that we have done in the past, being able to keep multiple conversations going at the same time when texting etc.. It’s the way that this generation will experience communication. Communication without any boundaries!

Feeling powerless is the worst! But what’s even worst is when you strongly believe something and you can’t say anything about it. With the help of social media though, you can be heard. Millions of people get on social media everyday, this is where groups of people form and share their view point. Here you can be heard, say what you believe and people will listen to you, and respect your choices. “With the advent of social media, users now have the ability to connect based on shared interests [and not based on their location]”, says Jennifer Brannock Cox. Almost every forum has a worldwide audience, your voice can be heard and your ideas will be respected. “there are about 7.1 billion people on the planet right now. Of those billions, more than 1 billion have [social media] accounts.” Cox states. With an audience this big, you’re for sure to have your voice heard. You don’t feel powerless when you use social media, that’s because there is a group for everyone out there. To be heard all you have to do to be heard is simply type what you believe.

There are a few unfavorable things to social media, one is cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is completely unacceptable and is rude, this also hurt a lot of teen every year. People feel safe because they’re behind a screen and they think they’re safe, and since they don’t see the person’s reaction they don’t know how much it hurts the person they’re bullying. But you can take action to protect the person being cyberbullied, according to StopBullying.gov is report it to an authority (law enforcement, responsible adult etc.), you should also block the person.

People also think that using social media decreases productivity, I don’t know why people make such a big deal about this. “Get rid of the distractions around you [like social media]” says CELESTINE CHUA. This is the number one way to raise your productive, all you have to do is set aside your social media accounts and put your phone away to stop wasting time.

Social media has a positive effect on humans because it lets us communicate effectively due to the knowledge that we gain on it, it lets us talk to anyone anywhere, and it lets our voice be heard. Social media helps us smile, it helps us become culturally aware, it teaches us, and finally it lets our voices be heard! Social media is a good thing that we need to accept. Social media can reach anyone. We truly do have freedom on social media! Just remember you have the power to make someone you don’t even know smile, via social media.