Social Media and Citizen Journalists

While the availability of News and information has increased, I believe that Social Media has decreased the quality of media.  With everyday citizens being able to report and upload media from their phones and portable devices, we are bombarded now with stories, photos and videos being posted, uploaded, linked, liked and shared the instant they are taken, or viewed and passed on as indisputable fact.  As a result, we are now being able to hear of breaking news almost as soon as it happens and before traditional media is able to report it. 

While it is great to be able to learn breaking news much faster and from first hand accounts, the downside is that we are inundated with stories constantly and faster than we can viably check the reliability of sources and accuracy of content.  According to the Schools.com infograhic, “49.1% of people have heard breaking news via social media that turned out to be false.”  In Ask Your Target Market’s latest survey, “17% said they often find breaking news on social media sites that has turned out to be untrue. 32% said this has happened to them once or twice, and 51% said it has never happened to them (Pilon).”  These particular survey results are of no large surprise to me due to the nature of Social Media and the ease of clicking and “sharing” links and posts without actual investigation.  Sure there are a number of people that will investigate a news item before reposting it, but from personal experience, I have found people to be eager to repost or share the juiciest bit of news first without checking out the story itself.  Some great examples of this are in the article, 8 Social Media Hoaxes You Fell for This Year by Samantha Murphy on Mashable.com.  Many of you would likely remember at least one of them, myself having been shocked as I read the post “RIP Morgan Freeman”. 

The article also brings up another good point regarding these viral ‘news’ stories surrounding pop culture and celebrities.  They have become a platform for cybercriminals to attach malicious links and phishing traps.  The article speaks of a particular scam where Justin Bieber creates his own false news story about his laptop being stolen and a fake Tweet by the supposed thief planning to release a new video on-line as a publicity ploy.  Unfortunately, cybercriminals used that story to create malicious links to a phishing site.  These types of scams also happen quite often in Social Media which is another reason that I have my doubts as to the quality of the news on it.  It is all too easy to fall for an interesting headline only to click on a link and be brought to a suspicious site that fails to deliver. 

After thinking about the ramifications of this and how many scams and crazy posts that are shared daily I thought that it might be helpful to share this article I found on Security Watch.  It gives tips and advice on how to spot a phishing scam from a link or e-mail that may have come in your inbox or from a Social Media site.  I found it very informative myself:

http://securitywatch.pcmag.com/spam/317892-how-to-recognize-and-avoid-phishing-emails-and-links

Sources

http://www.schools.com/visuals/social-media-news.html

https://aytm.com/blog/daily-survey-results/breaking-news-survey/

http://mashable.com/2012/11/05/social-media-hoaxes/

http://securitywatch.pcmag.com/spam/317892-how-to-recognize-and-avoid-phishing-emails-and-links

  My Digital Sabbatical

    Lately, life has felt like a non-stop roller coaster of ups and downs at full speed.  Taking care of two small children, busy schedules, working and full time school has not left much time for anything else.  The Two day Social Media diet has allowed me to steal pockets of time that may have let get away on me other wise.  I found that taking the little bit of time to sit and talk with my kids or focus on them instead of feeling the need to check on things such as my e-mail has helped me to take some time to breathe.  

     I have also been guilty of checking back and forth from Facebook or Pinterest and school work while on-line and letting myself get easily distracted.  Before I know it, time has gotten away from me and I still have not accomplished much.  I have noticed that when I am focused on what I am doing and tune out all distractions that I get a lot more accomplished and in a much shorter time.  When I am distracted and my thoughts wander to other things, I find that I tend to feel a lot of anxiety and guilt about wasting time.   As a side effect of time being sucked up from being on line all of the time is that I not only feel guilt about being side tracked but I feel guilty about not having enough time with my relationships and family. 

     I have found on my sabbatical that I have been able to spend more time with my family, but also really focus on my time with them and not being distracted about other things.  I found that I had no desire to go on and check for updates and statuses but wanted to "tune out" the noise of the internet and focus more on the little things like taking walks.  
    
     I also discovered that it didn't bother me to have people ask about e-mail and why I haven't read any of it or responded.  Instead I felt that they were missing the bigger picture and noticed a reflection of my own distraction and insignificant worries.  

     I will definitely be spending less time on line and more time focusing on the important things in my life while I still have them.  

I found this blog with five positive effects of a digital sabbatical:
http://nathanrhale.com/benefits-of-taking-a-digital-sabbatical/