2023 Often time people generally hear about how digital technology has negative effects on positive change when it comes to social media

 

Often time, people generally hear about how digital technology has negative effects on positive change when it comes to social media and its many platforms. Sometimes we forget to mention that there are plenty of positive outcomes that result from digital technology as well. One way that I know social media has benefited from the access of digital technology is the process of getting word out on important and helpful events in local communities. For example, recently the high school that I attended held a local car wash and all donated proceeds contributed to the Cleveland Clinic breast cancer research branch. The event was mostly shared with signs and word of mouth but locals actually heard about the car wash from Facebook posts. On Facebook, they were able to read about the event, see photos  and what the cause was for, also learning where exactly the funds would be going to. I think the sharing feature that Facebook has allowed the event to be viewed by more individuals in the community over just sharing the news with friends and family via conversation. Of course, these actions benefited everyone positively because it was a good cause and an important cause as well. Also, it allowed for people to come together and feel a sense of togetherness for those near and far.

In today’s world,  social media is a powerful tool: spreading information and changing the way we receive news. It often reaches faster and farther than any any other channel (Roy, Sarbani. 2017).

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and many other social networking sites allow users to share and interact with online content and to connect with like-minded people. Its strengths – rapid dissemination and amplification of content and the ability to lead informal conversations – make it a powerful tool to use in a professional context (Osterrieder, A. 2013).

As quoted above quick dissemination is important when needing to get any word out. Now that digital technology has been able to improve that, I think it will continue to lead to positive social changes because with communication that leads to people in society to be able to come together for any good cause it will extend the barrier of people not having the ability to be more involved.

Osterrieder, A. (2013). The value and use of social media as communication tool in the plant sciences. Plant methods, 9, 26. http://doi.org/10.1186/1746-4811-9-26.

Roy, Sarbani, (2017). The importance of seed nodes in spreading information in social networks: A case study. 2017 9th International Conference on Communication Systems and Networks (COMSNETS), Communication Systems and Networks (COMSNETS), 2017 9th International Conference on, 395. doi:10.1109/COMSNETS.2017.7945410