We live in a world when the internet consumes most of our time and social media is our number one priority. With social media being such a huge factor in our lives, it has indeed had an effect on the morals of Americans. Social media has caused a great shift in American values over the past few decades. The increase usage of social media has indeed played a large factor in shifting morals. Social media has given us the ability to get something across as such a fast rate on such a large scale. Also, a person is now able to conceal their identity and remain anonymous online also plays a factor.
Nowadays you’re most likely going to find a computer in almost every American Household. According to Pewresearch. com, over 87 Percent of Americans own a computer and about twothirds own a smartphone. That’s a 40 percent increase of computer owning American since 1998 (Census, 2001). With all this increase in internet usage, that also means an increase in social media usage. Americans even spend about 1. 78 hours on social media a day (GlobalWebindex). From AOL, MySpace, to Facebook, social platforms have been growing since the early 2000s.
This also leads to an increase in online interactions. These interactions induced the ideas and opinions of thousands of different point of views. So naturally, with these iterations and discussions, someone’s views and values are bound to change. being on social media does that, you’re able to learn and grow to a better (or worst) person. For example, a celebrity tweeting a problematic tweet when they were a teen. Let’s take American singer/songwriter Ashley Frangipane, better known as “Halsey” for example.
In her teens she tweeted a tweet containing the transphobic t-slur. Since then, she has apologized stating that she has learned since then. She even states that she even adovoaces trans rights in her music videos (PopBuzz, 2015). The huge grow in the popular of the internet is of no surprise. The internet has made it easier to get news and ideas across in an efficient and effective manner. Social media such as Facebook and Twitter has connected millions of people to one each other. It’s a tool has also shaped what is and isn’t socially acceptable anymore.
It’s also a tool that makes it easier for opinions and facts to spend. Also it’s easier to spark discussion on topics that maybe are considered controversial. With social media, Americans can reach a large amount of people in a short amount of time. According to studies, the average American knows about 200 to 600 people (NYTimes, 2013). Compare that number to someone with thousands of Facebook friends. Most celebrities have millions of followers on many social networking platforms. A large following on social sites means a bigger platform and opportunity for ideas to spread.
For example, a person a thousand online friends sharing an article on Facebook. Of course not all those people are going to read the article, but a lot still will. Facebook is a great platform to get points across but there are others who are bigger. YouTube is a great platform to get points across to a large follow with the help of multimedia tools. Videos tends to be more appealing to people than reading. Youtube has become a popular social network over the past decade. Millions of people are able to upload and share videos about anything.
YouTube has even become a career for many. The video sharing site has allowed people to discuss topics like abortion, sex, and more. Let’s take a YouTuber such as Laci Green for example. She has a large following with about 1,000,000 subscribers. Green also has over 125,000,000 views on YouTube. (Laci Green YouTube, 2015). Laci Green’s YouTube channel mostly have content about sex education, and feminism. Her videos aim to educate people about topics that most Americans avoid talking about. Sex Education in schools has been a debate in American public school for years.
Teens and adults are scared to talk about sexuality and will avoid doing so at all cost. This could be because of America’s Christian background. A rule of Christianity is that you should not have sex until marriage. Sex in Christianity is demonized and consider not to be pure. But with the decline in religious influence more Americans are having premarital sex. Studies even show that the number of adults who view themselves as Christians drop almost eight percent over the last seven years (Washington Post, 2015).
If children are not taught about sex in school, they’re going to learn in from somewhere else. This is where the internet and social media comes in. With Laci Green’s channel, she offers a wide variety of sex education videos. “Condom Tips For Ladies” to ” Sex With Disablity” videos, Green has a video on almost every sex topic someone could think of. Like stated before, people will do everything to avoid uncomfortable situations. The internet and social media has made things less uncomfortable, at least online. The ability to hide behind a is definitely a confidence booster for a lot of people.
Being anonymous online gives you the advantage to do and say basically anything you want. This ability makes it more likely that for you to be callout out on something you do online. More and more people will give you an opinion that you didn’t ask for. This is part of callout culture. Callout culture according to Kate Brown of Academia is this idea that in order to be a good activist you must to call out every slightly problematic thing a person does. This is common on sites like Twitter and huge on sites like Tumblr, a blogging site.