news – Kristy Roschke

This week, I am doing something a little different. This week, I am going to be sharing tips I think help with being real online as well as learning the importance of sharing true information on social media.

First, I think it is vital to understand the internet is a huge place, bigger than what most people even can comprehend. There is something out there for everyone; places where people can express themselves freely, communities for specific interests, and even places where people can communicate halfway around the world.

However, there is a downside with the internet being so huge: false information. I have found social networking sites are the channels where people spew their opinions on social and political issues, and their personal issues as well. The problem I find is most people, without researching, click a lovely, little button called “Share”.

(via WarfarePlugins.com)

I found an article called “Social Media: Fake News” from Dickinson College I used to help me think critically on fact-checking my friends’ posts. I think the best way to approach a friend or family member who just shares willy-nilly would be to approach from a non-aggressive angle. Ask them questions about their beliefs of the fake sources without accusing them of being wrong, unintelligent, or not heard. I have found when people are being treated nicely, they will typically be nice back. It is important to take an informative approach because if the friend is viewed as having to take defensive measures, it can lead to a friendship being broken.

But, what if the friendly approach doesn’t work? Well, then, I resort to what I affectionately call “Plan B”. My secondary plan is to help them find flaws or holes in their argument. I do this by asking questions that are designed for simple yes or no answers.

“Do you think X has a point?” or “Will this really help?”

Once the other person can point out the flaws in their own argument, they might just start researching on their own and start sharing right information instead of spreading the misinformation to all their friends and family, making the world a better place.

Last, if none of the above works… sometimes, letting people figure things out on their own might just be the only solution for them.

On this beautiful morning, it concludes my 24-hours of studying my social media and news intake. In the following blog, I am going to talk about social media outlets that I use as well as how I feel they influence me and my day-to-day life. I start my day like any other day and wake up, grab my phone, and sit down to enjoy breakfast. The first thing I do is check my texts or group chat from my fraternity brothers. When I eat my breakfast I typically watch Netflix, specifically NCIS, which is a show based in Washington D.C. (Which inherintely comes with politics of some sort).

Typically, I watch Netflix, but, I also have a student-based Hulu account which also bundles with Spotify, my other source of media. With the student account, there are still advertisements and every so often there is one that involves something with the president, but nothing more than that. During the weekdays, I spend less time on my electronic devices, but over the weekends I have more time to myself.

As I am writing this, I struggle to find myself really being influenced or even interacting with the “regular” amount of news content. Most of my day, I try to stay off social media because I have never been a typical millennial who has to check Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram every 10 minutes.

Not being an active user of social media, I feel that I sometimes deprive myself from the current events and other newsworthy events because I am living in my own bubble of my world. During this timespan where I am being hyperaware of the content I take in as a consumer, I was able to see that I do get advertisements and some political news but they are videos lasting no longer than 30 seconds.

Whenever I have some downtime throughout my day, I like to use Tumblr and most advertisements are usually about products such as apparel or services such as auto insurance. However, I do follow some blogs there where people do reblog news posts but most blogs do not include their sources.

When I get home for the day, I typically make dinner, clean up the apartment, and do homework or I try to do something creative such as baking. For some of my baking recipes, I use Pinterest. Pinterest does have advertisements but nothing that is even close to a 2 o’clock news story.

Overall, I do not feel that news has much of an impact on me or my way of thinking. Throughout the rest of the year, I do want to increase my overall news intake to learn more about the world around me. Because of the lack of sources for most of the news media I encounter, I would rank an average of about a 2 out of 10 for credibility because I have ran into some Onion-like articles that look so real but most of the times they turn out to be satire or fake news.