Social media abuse

By Keirsten Heckel, Student Writer

Social media has become somewhat of an epidemic in the last few years, as its presence has grown significantly. From the very beginning, social media has been a great channel for individuals to get in contact with nearly anyone they wanted, whether it was with family or friends or even companies that they wanted to reach out to.

However, in the last few months, instead of people catching up with others on Facebook, or tweeting something that can help their personal brand, they are posting a series of complaints almost regularly. It has become an easy, get-out-of-jail-free way for individuals to passive-aggressively voice complaints on a status to hundreds of people rather than to contact the organization directly to solve the problem.

Ultimately, social media has become one of the largest complaint outlets, and these days it is more common for an individual to voice a negative experience they had rather than a positive one. I would much rather see someone posting about an uplifting event rather than why they had a bad experience at a restaurant that night. Instead of posting for everyone to see, why not just call the restaurant manager personally, rather than try and get attention by persuading everyone on their friends list or followers not to go that restaurant? A lot of times, if it is a large organization, it is very difficult to get a problem solved via social media. It is a great source of information; however, if an individual has a specific problem, a lot of times large organizations will not be able to respond in a timely manner or even at all.

Furthermore, future employers are always looking at potential employees’ social media accounts. It would be much more beneficial to that person to have information on those accounts that boosts their personal image and personal brand rather than a constant stream of complaints.