Tanner+W+Final+AmEx+2013+Speech

=Title of Speech= Social Media

=Text of Speech=

 The internet is definitely the most advanced technology of my generation. It lets us explore anything we wish. From the internet, a recent revolutionary innovation has become a mainstream concept that we constantly think about. It enables us to communicate with each other at an extremely fast rate, connecting our private lives to our public lives. This revolutionary innovation is, of course, social media.  Social Media seems to be the epitome of our generation. 75% of youth use some sort of social networking site. It seems as if our lives have become overrun with posting literally everything we do, from revealing where we are at, what movie we are seeing, what person we are with, or just posting song lyrics. Is this corrupt? In some respects, no. However, it is when the users use social media to do detrimental things like doing drugs or getting wasted on camera, that social media becomes a negative to our society. Kids are subjective to popular figure heads who take part in these inappropriate actions because famous celebrities are often looked up upon by the youth culture; this is not beneficial to youth because it becomes a greater obstacle for them to eventually acquire a job in the future in order to provide for themselves. Therefore by taking place in posting about doing drugs and what not our generation could possibly have a future with a high unemployment rate along with an even worse stereotype for young adults.  Clearly, I think we are all aware of what our peers are posting. I don’t know if they think that’s cool to post about them smoking weed and doing drugs, but I certainly think that’s unacceptable.  Social media negatively impacts our youth because most people are not the person they correctly are over the internet, than they are in real life. For instance you can have a friend that’s really shy and quiet, but on the internet they’re flooding your entire newsfeed with pictures of all the social parties they’ve attended and lying about how many fights they’ve gotten into. Social media is corrupting our generation because it causes people to be a completely different person online. This leads to the atrocity of cyber bullying. As much as it is a cliché factor to address, the youth are still very much susceptible to name calling and threats over the internet. This relates to social media because statistically 42% of kids have been bullied online at least once in their lives.  Another issue with social media is when people complain-brag about themselves. I find this extraordinarily frustrating because it portrays insecurity at its finest in these situations like when girls friend zone other guys. It is clear that we all shutter at our generation when they post negative connotations about themselves that we truly feel sympathy for them. Or how about when people post something that CAN be directed to you but can also be directed to someone else, on Twitter, people will obsessively post statements inversely focused upon a completely unknown person or thing, its super confusing when they’ll make a negative comment right after they’ve just seen you.  Social media manipulates one; creating a metaphoric mask that one can always have the security of hiding behind, thus proving the point of acting as a different person. I believe that these issues also reside outside of the cyber world and that they also make our generation vulnerable to real life incidents like: not getting accepted into a certain school or not getting a desired job due to ones post about that amazing party that happened years ago. Everything you post online will affect your life in some way since it is open for the entire world to view. So, next time maybe you shouldn’t post that picture of yourself smoking that fat doobie and passing it to all your friends. The fact of the matter is that social media is here to stay, and it will continue to flourish in the future. The interconnectedness of our lives is growing. However, I see hope in Americas youth culture. I see an America with more sophisticated social media users. I see an America that will one day take off the mask and have more self-esteem. I see an entire world that will eventually have the confidence in themselves to let go of their petty disguise and embrace the big picture of what it means to be who they truly are, which is why the problems with social media should be addressed. Thank you.

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