Social Media Awareness: Social networking vs. handwritten letters to remain connected

On Feb. 23 the Diversity Achievement Center presented the pro’s and con’s regarding social media.

During the event, a film called “Social Bankruptcy” showcased what life would be like without social media, and how it affects individuals. Social media is everywhere, and it’s unavoidable, having become a communication tool for the majority of society.

According to outthinkgroup.com there are six types of social media: social network, bookmarking sites, social news, media sharing, microblogging and blog comments, and forums.

Apps are now being developed to curate your apps. One creator is Appcrawlr, and they have designed a site to better organize apps and how they’re used. A major focus is on social networking apps.

With social media as the number one activity on the web it has dangers associated with it. According to statistics from InternetSafety101.org, “Of the active adult users of Facebook, 66 percent reported they did not know privacy controls existed on Facebook and/or they did not know how to use the privacy controls.”

“If I could make a change to social media, it would probably be to get rid of the dangers that come with it,” said student Luis Cabeza.

Social media isn’t just about the apps used daily, it’s about the communication people have with each other. What happened to all the hand-written letters? At the end of the event cards, envelopes, and stamps were provided to write a letter that the DAC would send out.

According to The Wall Street Journal, studies suggest there's real value in learning and maintaining this ancient skill, even as we increasingly communicate electronically.

"It seems there is something really important about manually manipulating and drawing out two-dimensional things we see all the time," says Karin Harman James, assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at Indiana University who led the study.

According to huffingtonpost.com there are nine reasons to not abandon hand written letters.

Those nine reasons are that they create lasting memories, show how much a person cares, make people feel good, make every word count, spark creativity, require undivided attention, require unplugging, they honor tradition, and they are timeless.  

“It has been a pretty long time since I have written a letter. It’s kind of hard to say, but I feel like I haven't written one since my sophomore year in high school,” said Cabeza.