SOCIAL MEDIA HAS CHANGED THE WAY MILLENNIALS COMMUNICATE TODAY. CAN CONCISE COMMUNICATION ON SOCIAL MEDIA BE DETRIMENTAL IN THE OVERALL DEVELOPMENT OF COMMUNICATION SKILLS ?
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Social media has changed the way millennials communicate today. Can concise communication on social media be detrimental in the overall development of communication skills? That question, like so many these days is quite subjective and open to opinion. You know what people say about opinions right? “Your opinion is not my reality.” (I bet you thought I was going to use the popular cliché there that everybody knows, right?!). Not this young lady, not this time. Anyway, it’s time to get back to the question at hand about social media being detrimental to the overall development of communication skills. Looking for a clear and concise answer (see what I did there?) really can be difficult. As a so-called Generation Z child, I have grown up in the age of communication Millennials defined and so to me, it’s somewhat normal. After careful consideration however, I do see that there can be immeasurable negative effects to us in society and a definite opportunity, and perhaps need, for better communication amongst all of us.
Advocates of social media and all its wonders often point out that social media has had profound effects on our society making it easier to navigate the landscapes of interpersonal communication, a feeling of belonging, research and commerce. What those advocates fail to acknowledge is the nature of communication itself on a broad spectrum. We, as Millennials and Generation Z’ers, are not the largest of the living population. Baby boomers and children of baby boomers both represent a larger populace, and these are the people that we, as the youth need to lead into the future, not vice versa. If we are the helm of technology and social conventions, communication with older generations and avoiding immense gaps in such is key on many levels.
As the driving force for marketing, technology and e-commerce, we risk alienating past generations if we cannot communicate on their levels. See the age breakdowns compiled by The Globe and Mail above. The prevalent concise diction found on much of social media and increasingly on websites and blogs is a constant source of questioning and concern for our predecessors. I will briefly explain a personal example of this. I told my father that I wanted his input on helping me to write an essay for this same EDKENT Media Scholarship Program. This was the middle of last week on one of our regularly scheduled calls to touch base. I thought I explained to him the parameters of what I was going to be working on but all he got from the conversation was the submission was about whether social media was good or bad. He called me over the past weekend to give his opinion on why and how social media, although a good thing in many respects, had an overall negative effect on society. This was obviously not the scope of what I was looking for. A good thing about it though, is that it poignantly demonstrated how my truncated blurbs of an explanation didn’t convey the proper idea of what I was longing for. End result for Danielle, doing the darn thing myself entirely. Sheesh!
I thought back to numerous texts with my father over the past years as well and there have been a lot of questions he’s had about acronyms I use like “smh, “ttyl”, “rofl” and a personal favourite of mine “dkm”. Even after explaining what they mean, my father thinks they are dumb, especially “dkm”. I really cannot justify why when I hear something funny I say “don’t kill me” or tag posts with “dkm” to show that I think it’s funny. I guess it’s just blind acceptance of something picked up from social media that I accept and proliferate. I consider myself a somewhat intelligent and stubborn being, and if it takes years of this behaviour for me to realize how easily I am manipulated by mores and trends on social media and the internet, imagine the real far-reaching effects it can have on anyone? I see people that can be increasingly depressed or envious over what they see as the advertised lives of others on social media and adopting the trappings of a phony lifestyle from what they see on social media with people “flossing their cheddar” (glamourizing money and throwing it around). Unfortunately, I am guilty of this jealousy and comparing my (quite privileged) life to those portrayed on social media. However, I recognize that in no way can those things be healthy or lead to a happier life for all, but the little snippets of reality portrayed, and the character limit allowed on many platforms doesn’t lead to increased understanding. This communication is not only concise in the verbiage, but also the depiction as memes and pictures are pervasive on the internet and social media. It leads to further interpretation. People might think money is the key to happiness or defining success and that thinking for many leads down an unhealthy path, mentally, behaviorally or otherwise.
(via https://corpmediapl.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/social-media-or-face-to-face-communication/amp/)
This got me thinking actually about another real-life context for the argument that the concise communication on social media is detrimental to society, Donald John Trump, the 45th President of The United States. As an extensive social media user and advocate, Trump is on record as saying he wouldn’t be president without twitter. He believes in the medium and that often blurs the lines of what his real message might be and leaves interpretation of what “Make America Great Again” really signifies. As we’ve seen, it has been a rallying cry of the far right of one of the world’s most powerful nations. His concise messages are interpreted to mean certain things and then advertised as the truth behind what he means, without clarification. That is dangerous and therefore can be very detrimental as it creates divisiveness not unity. When social media and its concise communication divides, it conquers us all.
‘When somebody says something about me, I am able to go bing, bing, bing and I take care of it. The other way, I would never get the word out’
- https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-tweets-twitter-social-media-facebook-instagram-fox-business-network-would-not-be-a8013491.html.
