Cindy, from Indonesia, shares her opinion on whether social media is beneficial or not to Generation Z.
A few days ago, I met with my friend. We were born in 1996. Both of us are Generation Z.
A generation that is said to be very knowledgeable about the digital world, spending most of its time on social media. Our conversation lent itself to that direction. We talked about how social media impacts life.
From my point of view, social media is very helpful. Information is very easily accessible from anywhere in real-time. There is no space and time limit to learn something new from the Internet. In fact, for me, social media is very good for my own creativity. We can work and get a lot of inspiration from online resources.
Personally, in my conclusion, it has helped me as a Generation Z individual.
On the other hand, my friends have a different view. For my friend, social media is mentally damaging
and also makes her waste time.
I asked myself, how can it be mentally damaging? She said she always saw people flaunting their lifestyle online, emphasizing both beauty and success. The happiness made her uncomfortable.
She tended to compare her life to others', then felt she got nothing. Every day, she uses social
media just to see things like that.
In the end, we agreed that social media can be very healing but can also be very painful.
Why? Because if you have a different focus, the results will be different. Social media is like a forest.
We are free to find what is in it. If you want to find fruit, sweet things will be found. But if you want
to hunt wild animals, the possibility of danger could kill you.
“Social media is like a forest. We are free to find what is in it. If you want to find fruit, sweet things will be found. But if you want to hunt wild animals, the possibility of danger could kill you."
Social media can make one Generation Z person very well developed, but it can also make others very incompetent.
It can make one person very creative and tolerant, but it can also make the other very sensitive and
mean.
It also can make one person feel that the world is good, but it can make others judge the world to be
very cruel.
One person can think of social media as a place to collaborate, then another person may
think social media is a place to compete.
To conclude, we need to learn to determine priorities on social media. Don't let the platform pull you into the current and then sink you to the bottom.
*Prompt taken from New York Times list of argumentative topics.
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