Social Media for Social Change
A 4- Hour Seminar that Challenges the Youth Today
Which I have hit the Books:
“Social Media has overtaken pornography”, that was the remarks of Ms. Maria Ressa, CEO of Rappler Online Journalism.
That was the most intriguing message I heard during the seminar. As I dig deeper what the speaker is trying to tell us, I realize that social media today is so powerful that even pornography is dethroned by it. Ms. Ressa’s message is true because based on the survey showed to us, 91% of Filipinos are registered on Facebook and there are about 1 billion of text messages are sent everyday only in our country. Even in the Arab Uprising, social media became the channel to which the revolts were being organized and serve as their battleground.
The seminar was so interesting and I’ve learned lot things from the speakers. It gives us realization and enlightenment on how to act in a manner that we should think about others before we do something. The documentary films showed to us by Ms. Patricia Evangelista tell me that there are many people out of chaos and tragedies that never lose hope and who always believe in justice. These people became my inspiration, for me to fulfil my dream of becoming a journalist, to help magnify the voice of the voiceless, and advocate truth, uprightness, and hope among my countrymen.
The speakers in their remarkable presentations left me no room for doubts but gave me enough reasons to make my stance and help build the future a most promising one. Social Media moves our lives today. It is spoon-feeding us, we are being served the best way it can that leads some of us to become lazy and would just rely on it every step of the way. Sometimes, it is too much to get things easily. Students would have just bank on their computers, click on something, copy-pasting something and would surely read and remember nothing. Social media incapacitated some of us.
The benefits I get for my ICT class:
The lessons I get from the seminar amplify my knowledge on ethics concerning about social media. It provides guidelines and awareness on how to act a responsible journalist and a user of social media.
The speakers help us think of a good future. They provide us a blueprint to make us understand fully the entire surface of social media. I become more aware about the dos and don’ts. They help us think not as mere students enrolled in a new media class but responsible professionals who possess credibility and dignity.
The awareness they provide us could be best apply in my ICT class. It furthers my knowledge about how the new media cater the works of multimedia journalism, online reporting, documentary film and crowd-sourcing.
The overviews that have been shared to us give us a warning to know the risks cause by social media. One of that is the increase level of dopamine in our body as it leads to addiction. Another is, it reveals everything of our well-being to the public and risk security. Social media complicates everything.
Social media is very useful to us nowadays that it destroys the old world of kings and queens and leaves the traditional media dying. But at some point, it gives us a challenge to be responsible and ethical. The new media is not that bad, it is the only anyone of us who makes it dangerous.
As a student of ICT class and a Filipino citizen, the benefits I get from the social media seminar would be beneficial unless I use it in a responsible way. And that is a challenge not just for me but to all Filipino youth who love this country.
