Good or Evil

           Contemplating this assignment has led me through many thought processes. I can’t quite decide if I feel one way or another because I can see both benefits and destruction from social networking. I am one with Facebook, I started it when I moved away from my family and all of my friends. It has been an incredible way to stay in touch with those so far away, especially when I travelled and taught English in Eastern Europe for a year. So many people wanted to keep and touch and the best way to do that was all at once. I was grateful for Facebook and the connections I kept abroad. Then once I came back home I have been able to keep in touch with so many friends I made out there because they also have Facebook. The benefits out way the destruction in my part, but unfortunately not for everyone. It isn’t difficult to pin point someone trying to put on a happy face, someone faking life to make everyone think highly of them. Social networking can be a complete lie from the smallest cases like a depressed teenager trying to pull in acceptance where ever possible to a stalker serial killer. Technology has brought such evil to this world but the incredible good it brings needs to outweigh the bad. I guess that is the goal, if we can all work together to use it in its good ways. That means we don’t over use it or allow things to affect us emotionally, we don’t lie but we don’t need to use it as a journal to record every moment and breath we take.

            I know of a family who used Facebook as an auction to sell things and raised money for IVF and now they have the beautiful baby they’ve waited the last 10 years for. We see every day people being found, lives being saved, belongings being returned because of the connections we can so easily make with social media. We also see pornography addictions, child molesters, and kidnappings all over the place because of these simple connections. It’s terrible, but used properly, social networking can be a great recourse for good. It’s up to us and how we allow it to affect us personally.