Glassworks
  • home
  • about
    • history
    • staff bios
    • community outreach
    • affiliations
    • contact
  • current issue
    • read Issue 26
    • letter from the editor
    • looking glass spring 2023
    • interview with Raina J. Leon
    • interview with Sarah Fawn Montgomery
  • submit
    • submission guidelines
  • looking glass
    • through the looking glass
  • editorial content
    • book reviews
    • opinion
    • interviews
  • flash glass
    • flash glass 2023
    • flash glass 2022
    • flash glass 2021
    • flash glass 2020
    • flash glass 2019
    • flash glass 2018
    • flash glass 2017
    • flash glass 2016
    • flash glass 2015
  • media
    • art
    • audio
    • video
  • archive
    • award nominees
    • read and order back issues
  • Master of Arts in Writing program
    • about Writing Arts at Rowan University
    • application and requirements
  • newsletter
  • home
  • about
    • history
    • staff bios
    • community outreach
    • affiliations
    • contact
  • current issue
    • read Issue 26
    • letter from the editor
    • looking glass spring 2023
    • interview with Raina J. Leon
    • interview with Sarah Fawn Montgomery
  • submit
    • submission guidelines
  • looking glass
    • through the looking glass
  • editorial content
    • book reviews
    • opinion
    • interviews
  • flash glass
    • flash glass 2023
    • flash glass 2022
    • flash glass 2021
    • flash glass 2020
    • flash glass 2019
    • flash glass 2018
    • flash glass 2017
    • flash glass 2016
    • flash glass 2015
  • media
    • art
    • audio
    • video
  • archive
    • award nominees
    • read and order back issues
  • Master of Arts in Writing program
    • about Writing Arts at Rowan University
    • application and requirements
  • newsletter
Glassworks

Facebook: Fact or Fiction?

11/1/2016

0 Comments

 
Picturephoto by DonkeyHotey via Flickr
by Rachel Carly

As a nation, we are entering an election year that is monumental. Although many negative things can be said about the debacle that is the 2016 Presidential elections, one potential positive among the wreckage is the public’s newfound engagement with politics. From signs littering the lawn of your neighbors to your distant cousin’s misinformed Facebook rant, the spread of opinion, policy, and (hopefully) fact is both accessible and widespread. People are keeping close eyes on both candidates, sharing news articles, conspiracy theories, and data to demonstrate a candidates worth or prove a candidates incompetence. While it is encouraging that so many people are taking interest in politics and the progression of society, where is this information coming from? And more importantly, does the public care?


Picture
After the first debate of Clinton vs. Trump I was mindlessly scrolling through my morning news feed. Picture of someone’s baby, picture of someone’s dinner, “Trump Threatens to Skip Remaining Debates if Hillary is There” – Whoa, hold on… I clicked on the link that my Facebook friend had shared. I was redirected to the New Yorker website, to a satire column called “The Borowitz Report,” and saw that the article in question was written by Andy Borowitz, a well-known comedian and satirist. I breathed a sigh of relief realizing that this article was, in fact, satire, and then the initial panic reignited when I realized that this Facebook friend, someone who I thought to be an informed, well-educated individual was sharing this satire article as fact.

In this world of instant-gratification, unyielding access to information, and a growing need to connect we are facing new obstacles when it comes to research and facts. With one click of an “app” or scroll through a site we have access to a portal of unfiltered information. The power that goes along with that is as immense and awesome as it can be damaging. Although we are able to share media with family and friends around the world, we are also able to press an instantaneous “share” without checking sources or even reading the article. While we are able to connect with like-minded others and spread news in the present, we are also able to circulate information without considering ethical ramifications or responsibility.

This mishandling of research and the blurred lines of facts is not limited to only the political season. Scare tactics, outdated material, and unattributed facts constantly circulate on Facebook feeds. I’m sure everyone has once been deceived by the posts that read, “WARNING: Facebook is becoming a public entity” which asks you to share the post repeatedly to keep your images private. And every summer at least one person shares the familiar picture of a shark fin peeking out of the water reading “Sharks spotted along the coast of Jersey Beaches!” Not remembering that this same picture has been shared last summer, and the one before that, and the one before that…


Picturephoto by Laura Pasquini via Flickr
At its best, social media can be a wonderful platform to connect, learn, and unite. At its worst, social media is a vat of unattributed, unfiltered material that can dilute and damage information. We are becoming a society that cares about the quantity of news over the quality.  Whether it is skewing the public’s perception of a politician or convincing you to stay home from this year’s summer vacation we are setting ourselves up to be too easily manipulated. 

Social media can often be likened to the childhood game of whisper-down-the-lane, where the first person says one thing which is modified in the transition to the next person and travels down a winding line of children until it comes out the other end an unrecognizable, confusing phrase. This was a silly, fun way to pass time and portray to children the issues with spreading rumors and secrets. However, we are no longer children and it is no longer silly and fun.

It cannot be argued that social media is not a useful tool for pleasure, boredom, and connecting. I am an avid social media supporter and have seen the great power that it holds over us and the wonderful things that can be accomplished through its various uses. It is an important tool that, when used correctly, can be efficient and reliable. However, when it comes to research and the spread of information, social media is not, and should never be taken as, an authority. We did away with the card catalog, we digitized, and then we stopped doing research and let our misinformed, distant family members on Facebook do it for us. When it comes down to it, social media is a collection of sources and like all sources, it needs to be evaluated for its accuracy, currency, and purpose before being verified.

Do not let your Facebook feed be your main source of information, do not let a 140-character tweet determine your vote or the direction of our country. The stakes are too high to be careless with research and our country is too important to be informed by satire. 



0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    September 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    October 2014
    April 2014
    January 2014
    March 2013
    February 2013


    Categories

    All
    Art
    Audio
    Bestseller
    Bibliotherapy
    Books
    Bookstores
    Career
    Cartoons
    Censorship
    Characters
    Cliche
    Code-switching
    Comedy
    Comics
    Controversy
    Culture
    Dyslexia
    Dystopian
    E-books
    Editorial
    Education
    Emoji
    Encyclopedia
    English
    Facebook
    Fandom
    Fanfiction
    Fantasy
    Fiction
    Film
    Future
    Gamebooks
    Gender
    Genre
    Google
    Grammar
    Habits
    Halloween
    Health
    Identity
    Journaling
    Kinesthetic Learning
    Language
    LGBTQ
    Library
    Literacy
    Literature
    Manga
    Marginalia
    Media
    Mental Health
    Multimodal
    Music
    New Media
    New York Times Best Seller List
    Nihilism
    Nonfiction
    Normalcy
    Nostalgia
    Obscenity
    Op Ed
    Opinion
    Pandemic
    Podcast
    Poetry
    Politics
    Process
    Pronouns
    Publishing
    Race
    Reading
    Rebuttal
    Research
    Rhetoric
    Rules
    Science Fiction
    Search
    Self-publishing
    Sequels
    Series
    Sexism
    Social Media
    Spoken Word
    Sports
    Standards
    Storytelling
    Student Writing
    Superheroes
    Teaching
    Technology
    Television
    The New York Times
    Trigger Warnings
    Trilogy
    Video Games
    Visual Novel
    War
    Wikipedia
    Workshop
    Writing
    Young Adult
    Zines


    RSS Feed


Picture

glassworks is a publication of
​Rowan University's Master of Arts in Writing
260 Victoria Street • Glassboro, New Jersey 08028 
glassworksmagazine@rowan.edu
​All Content on this Site (c) 2023 glassworks
Photos used under Creative Commons from RomitaGirl67, ** RCB **, George Fox Evangelical Seminary