Social Media has become a norm, a livelihood, an addiction that people cannot live off. Well while social, media has played a big role in creating a global community, it comes with its fair share of negativity, that the online community seems to ride on all too often.
Michelle Obama, The First Lady of the US’ 44TH President Barrack Obama revealed that she has had a love-hate relationship with social media, urging mass to shake off the endless addiction to social media and start knocking on doors
While the internet has opened opportunities for young people, she is worried sick that the same internet is widening the gap of connectivity with each other. Despite Michelle Obama having over 12 million followers, she revealed in an interview that she never looks at Twitter
She warned that there was the danger of lies spreading if people lost the ability to communicate in person, and encouraged people not to take everything they read on social media on face value.
” We have to be a lot more sceptical about social media and the internet. We have to do more work as individuals and react with others and be more vulnerable with each other. Don’t read about your neighbours on Twitter because someone can talk into their ear about the person living next door and they can feed you lies and misperceptions. We need to be more vulnerable because we need to get to know each other,” she urged social media fanatics.
During Barack’s career as 44th President of the United States, Michelle noted that people would be nice to her face but abuse her online or in the media.
” People can never be as mean to your face as they can be online. We have to get off the phone and knock on doors and talk to each other face to face. We can’t rely on the internet to tell us about the world,’ she mentioned
In conclusion, she conceded that the internet could be a good force to fight for change, opening a whole new world to young people.
” As much as I worry about social media, it is opening up the world to young people. They are seeing and experiencing diversity and openness and clarity that we can’t take away. They understand the world is accessible to them,” she noted.
