Social media has a place near and dear to my heart. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and even Pinterest are amazing outlets for people everywhere to connect and share ideas for audiences around the world.

As a future journalist and even as a young adult, I personally love social media at times. It’s a great way for information to travel fast and news is now basically instantaneous. It’s amazing to me how quickly word can spread and something like a picture or quote can become “viral” within seconds. It’s become such a great tool for people around the world, but with the good comes the bad as well. This is where I start to get annoyed with social media, especially Twitter.

Twitter has risen through the ranks of social media and has become one of the top media platforms in the business. It’s easy to tweet about something for your followers to see, then someone will retweet it for all of their followers to see, and so on and so forth. It’s a never ending circle of sharing information and news. Twitter is great when there’s something such as the flooding that happened a couple weeks ago at Texas State University in San Marcos. People took to Twitter to share where roads were blocked off, when classes were canceled and even shared photos and videos of the insanity of all the flooding. It was a great source for people to get information. However, there is also the negative effects of social media, such as the clown epidemic that has made its way across the country.

Don’t get me wrong, the cases where it was a person trying to harm others is not okay. People needed to be aware of what was going on, but when it blew up on social media it became another entity altogether. Social media, especially Twitter, blew up the story to a point where there were people who would dress up as clowns as a joke, causing this whole clown craze to increase even more. If it hadn’t of been for social media, the clowns probably would have been gone, or at least minimized, much sooner.

Another social media platform that I have a love/hate relationship with is Instagram. I love, love, love Instagram, but I hate that instead of being a place to share pictures for friends to see, it has now transformed into an outlet for people to try to get the most likes. It just bothers me that people pay more attention to the “likes” they get on a picture than the actual purpose of Instagram. On the Instagram website, it says,

“Instagram is a fun and quirky way to share your life with friends through a series of pictures. Snap a photo with your mobile phone, then choose a filter to transform the image into a memory to keep around forever. We’re building Instagram to allow you to experience moments in your friends’ lives through pictures as they happen. We imagine a world more connected through photos.”

Did anywhere in that statement say anything about likes or users needing a certain amount to enjoy the app? Nope. It said, “to allow you to experience moments in friends’ lives through pictures.” Instagram’s whole purpose is to share photos and let your friends stay up to date in your life as it’s happening.

However, Instagram has transformed into a place where popularity is more important than the photos you’re sharing. Do I get a little discouraged whenever a don’t get as many likes as I’d prefer? Yes. I try not to let it because I know that it doesn’t matter which of my followers decide to click the thumbs up button on my picture that day, but it can still be a little discouraging. Do I still love Instagram and will continue to use it every day? Absolutely. I love keeping up with people I don’t ever get to see anymore, my cute sorority sisters and my family who I miss so much.

With social media growing as much as it is, it’s so easy for it to consume our day to day lives. I check all of my different social media apps every day and will most likely continue to use them as long as they’re around. They’re a great way for me to connect with everyone and stay updated with news and everything that’s happening in the world. There will probably always be the bad parts that come with the good of social media, just like anything else, and hopefully one day we won’t have to see something about a Kardashian on our timeline ever again.