Digital Citizenship

As we mentioned in class, digital citizenship is a very interesting topic. As social media continues to expand in our generation, more and more people are utilizing the internet. You can build your own marketing campaign online, find ways to get around your city with rideshares, and keep connections with old friends, classmates, and colleagues. Growth in social media is sometimes scrutinized however, as issues of how it affects its users and the rise in “social justice” where social media platforms act as launching pads for campaigns speaking out against a number of issues. Obviously when social media is used to speak out against something that someone likes, it can lead to disorder and arguing. While you’d hope people could handle an online argument like grown adults, they often can’t, just like real life. As mentioned in the “Internet Famous” article, social media can also spread acts of violence. The argument here being that social media creates a toxic cycle of material that goes viral, and is especially used to target women in industries. People say terrible things to other people, especially women, over the internet, as if Twitter or YouTube creates some field of anonymity. The internet should never be used for things like this, however as long as an overbearing misogynistic society exists it WILL continue to happen. Digitial Citizenship should be about users being able to grow and flourish as humans, much like you would expect from global citizenship.