Rachel Rosenberg Oratory on Social Media: We Have a Voice (draft 6)

I have never lived in a world without social media. I hear stories from my parents and

grandparents about what it was like back in the days. When sharing a picture with someone across the

country was an involved process. One had to take pictures with a camera, have them developed, put them

in an envelope, pay postage to mail them to others. Nowadays, a photo can be uploaded and shared to

many in a matter of seconds for free! My mother recalls spending hours looking through a giant encyclopedia

to do research. Today we can youtube such things as how to fix a toilet, how to perform CPR, or even how to

write an original oratory. A cell phone has replaced a land line, and has changed the way people

communicate entirely. Some say social media has a negative effect on society, but I believe Social media

can be a powerful tool for personal, community, and worldwide growth. When it first began, it would have

been impossible to predict the extent to which this technology would impact all of our lives.

The first social media site was called Six Degrees, which was created in 1997 by Adam

Weinreich. The site was based on the six degrees theory, which says that no one is ever six relationships

away from anyone else on the Earth. The theory was created in 1929, and recently brought attention to actor

Kevin Bacon, as the example that no one was more than six degrees of separation from him. Six Degrees

was one of the first sites that allowed users to create a profile and connect with other users on the site. As

time went on, the Internet became more advanced. By the year 2000, almost 100 million people had access

to the internet. MySpace was created in 2003, followed by facebook in 2004, and twitter in 2006. In the

beginning of 2016 Facebook had 1.71 billion monthly active users while Twitter has accumulated over 300

million users, says Statisa.com

Currently, there are many types of social media platforms such as instagram, snapchat, vine,

musicly, and more. Each type has different ways of use. There are pictures from instagram, lipsync video on

Musicly, and short videos on vine. On Youtube today, 300 hours of video are uploaded every minute.

According to Journalism.com YouTube has changed the world. They say, Almost anyone can upload almost

anything to YouTube, for free, and be in with a chance of reaching its one billion monthly users whether

theyre activists, terrorists, politicians or pop stars (or just the proud owner of a mutant giant spider dog).

In an interview on CNN in October of 2014 teenager Amelia Masio, talked about social media,

claiming its, kind of like math in a way, with negative and positive positions. If one person says this

(negative) thing it brings them down, but if (another) person says the equal amount just as good, it evens out
to a zero. This is a good analogy of the positive and negative aspects of social media. Most people seem

to feel that, on balance, social media is useful.

Social Media is used for many purposes; one key use is to connect with people around the world in a

quick, easy way. According to statista.com, 78% of the United States population use social media. Through

social media, long distance is no longer a hindrance to friendship. For example, every summer I go to a

camp in Santa Rosa, California. I meet people from all over the country. Though I live in Utah, by using

Instagram, I can keep in touch with them easily and for free. According to socialnetworkingprocon.org, 52%

of teens use social media to enhance their relationships with friends as it allows people to connect with

friends and family, increased on line communication, and strengthen relationships.

Another way social media is useful is in education. Researchers from a wide variety of fields are

sharing photos, providing status updates, collaborating with distant colleagues, and finding a wider variety of

subjects via social media, says socialnetworkingprocon.com. If students need help figuring out problems,

they can easily go on a social network platform, and find solutions, or connect with a mentor. Mcgraw Hill

Education suggests that social media can make learning more collaborative. They write, Social media no

longer has to be an obstacle to studying; it can help students create and manage a study community, make

the best use of study time, and find new resources to help them learn and retain knowledge.

Social Media is also useful for community growth. Linked In is an application for the business

community that allows for connection between businesses and people. Linkedins website claims to have

433 million members in 200 countries. The Wall Street Journal says that Professional networking sites,

such as LinkedIn.com, have become a valuable place to find new employees, employers or clients,

reconnect and strengthen relationships with friends and former colleagues, and get career-related advice.

Social media is also effective at spreading news information. Many news sources currently choose

to spread information through different apps and repost current story clips on youtube for accessible news

options. According to the pew research center 62% of adults get their news from social media. Two-thirds of

Facebook users get news on the site, nearly six-in-ten Twitter users (59%) get news on Twitter, and seven-

in-ten Reddit users get news on that platform.

Social media is a positive influence is because of its use to generate worldwide awareness of

important issues or problems. A few years ago, some of you may remember your instagram or facebook

feed overloading with videos of people dumping buckets of ice water on their heads, and then challenging

specific friends to do the same. The ALS ice bucket challenge was created in the Summer of 2014 by Pete

Frates, a baseball player with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis- a devastating terminal illness that many people
werent previously aware of. There is no cure for this disease that quickly robs its victims of the use of their

muscles, including the muscles needed to walk, to communicate, dress themselves, or even swallow.

Making millions of people aware of its existence was the first step to increase fund raising to try to find a

cure for this devastating illness, ASL got $115 million of dollars in donations. The exponential growth of ALS

awareness made possible by social media is only the beginning of the potential good social media is

capable of generating.

With all the positive aspects of social media, as a society we have to be careful with how we use it.

Every time you visit a website on the internet you leave a mark in the cyber-world. And it is permanent.

What you do online can be seen by anyone even people you dont know. It can be copied and then passed

on. This is called a digital footprint. Colleges or even employers have access to your digital footprint. They

may look at your history, and if they see something they dont like, they have the right to not hire you, or

even fire you. According to careerbuilder.com,Forty-nine percent of hiring managers who screen candidates

via social networks said they've found information that caused them not to hire a candidate They cite that

inappropriate photographs, drinking or drug use, discriminatory comments, and reckless behavior are some

of the things that turn off employers.

I was born in a world with social media. It is all I know. My parents and Grandparents may like to

reflect on what is was like before social media even existed. But they have to accept that its here to stay

and it is our responsibility to use it in a positive way for personal, community, and worldwide growth.

Erik Qualman, Number One bestselling author of many books on social media, says, We dont

have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it,

Were all in this together, so lets do it well.

Thank you.