Is Twitter a Step Towards Ending the Ignorance?

Individuals may argue that social media platforms are pointless in regards to factual information, seeing as the platforms are primarily used to share status updates, selfies, food pictures, and memes. Has the use of social media introduced individuals into a new age of ignorance? An ignorance so intense that is distracting individuals from factual evidence and feeding lies in order to suppress the voice of the public? The article “The Age of Ignorance” by Charles Simic discusses the idea that ignorance is preferred in our country as opposed to intellect. According to Simic, “A truly educated populace would be bad, both for politicians and for business”. Simic argues that gullible individuals are what politicians desire, because they will be unable to distinguish lies from truth, which may sound odd but it is a very real thing. A perfect example would be last years presidential election; plenty of individuals gave into President Trump’s long list of promises, fully believing plenty of ignorant things the now President said. Ultimatley, Trump was unable to fulfill many of the immediate promises he vowed to his supporters because he simply does not have the sole power to do so (i.e. building a wall that Mexico would pay for), yet his “uneducated” supporters were not aware the government worked in that manner. An ignorant population definitely benefits the corrupt, however, the truth is out there and I believe Twitter is a valuable source to introduce individuals to a variety of conversations to further expand their knowledge. 


The social media platform that is Twitter grants individuals the opportunity to share thoughts and ideas about any given subject with users all over the world. The article “Twitter Theory and The Public Scholar” by Pete Rorabaugh, discusses the relationship between Twitter and its positive use towards helping engage informative conversations. Rorabaugh states “Twitter provides the academic community with valuable communicative tools that help our work gain more public attention and relevance”, and I fully agree with his statement. Whether the discussion be about politics, or something fun like discussing the eclipse of 2017, individuals will gain some sort of knowledge from engaging in the public conversation that is Twitter. However, Twitter is not an entirely reliable source seeing as it is largely opinion based, and anyone can fabricate their own lies. President Trump has his fair share of questionable tweets, yet they bring awareness whenever they are “trending”, causing users to do further research. For example,when trump made his tweets surrounding the infamous wall in Mexico, I began to conduct my own research on the matter because I truly questioned if he had the right to do such a thing. That is what Twitter is all about, spreading information intended to bring awareness to topics! Twitter does not guarantee the truth, but it is a large community intended to share and voice opinions, which I believe can help individuals step outside of their comfort zone and introduce new ideas.

articles mentioned:
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2012/03/20/age-of-ignorance/
http://www.digitalpedagogylab.com/hybridped/twitter-theory-and-the-public-scholar/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Can Awareness Be Spread Without Talking About the Cause?

The article “What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Service” by Adam Davis is an interesting piece that discusses the idea that community service/engagement should NOT be openly talked about because it takes away from the service, and steers it in an ego boosting direction.  I find the claims Davis makes as quite negative and not entirely true. Davis states, “It seems to be so clear that Service Is Good (SIG) that we do not need to question service or to talk about it; we only need to do it. It even seems that talking about service might be a problem—first, because if you’re talking about service, you might not be doing service, and second, because if you’re talking about service, you might start to wonder about its goodness”. Yes, some individuals may use community service as a way to enhance their ego among peers, but not everyone is like that! Talking about service is not a bad thing, if anything, I believe talking about service helps spread the word about the cause, espec...
Read more

Killer Millennials

So for my last blog post, I think it is fitting to touch on a topic that we covered in the beginning of our senior seminar course. The topic is of course non other than millennials! I recently stumbled upon this video on Youtube that is all about Millennials. The video aims to focus on explaining why millennials are 'hurting the diamond industry', many of which include the fact that the diamond industry exploit minors, ruins the eco system. And lastly, diamonds are an item that have an arbitrary value. It is all marketing! Diamonds essentially have no value! Millennials are also the generation that dealt with the toughest economy since previous generations, and they earn 20% less due to that. Not to mention that Millennials are stacked with student loans, and it doesn't help that the Government keeps trying to take away our health care, and all of the other services offered to help individuals. In conclusion, millennials are more aware of the negatives associated with diamo...
Read more

Reflective Blog #2

On Friday, October 13th our group made the trip out to 916 Ink, and we explored the imaginarium along with interviewing some of the staff members. My initial reaction of the imaginaruim was simply WOW! It was such a beautiful space that was carefully crafted with so many details. I absolutely loved all of the details such as little boxes filled with starfish and other knick-nacks, typewriters, and a huge amount of books. Creativity definitely fills the room, and I can see how students might be influenced to think and write creatively in such an amazing space. The vision behind 916 Ink and their desire to help youth through literacy is amazing, and I truly want more youth to get involved! Our group is currently working on helping 916 Ink get more youth involved in the workshops. While interviewing Henry, he explained how participation at workshops has been lacking. For the new media plan, our group is proposing a revamp in the social media area; we think 916 Ink can be more active on ...
Read more