When you ask a lot of older generations about social media, they typically grumble about how it’s bad for you and how you would be better off going into the backyard and playing with sticks. However, despite the many superstitions you may believe, social media isn’t so bad and can actually be a good thing.

One benefit is in the workplace or at school. Social media can be used for improving connectivity between students and co-workers. Social media can help people keep in touch and up-to-date about information, events, changes, and more. It can be shared in a few taps, then sent to everyone involved. Also, social media can help you organize the tasks and to-dos you need to do and help direct and maintain work flow, whether in the work place or at school.

Another good thing that can come out of social media is that it helps people with similar interests get together. When you go to school or do other activities, you can get together with people that share a fondness for things that you like, but when you get online, your possibilities expand greatly. Many individuals are online at one point, even late at night; the odds of you finding someone that shares the things you are partial to skyrockets. Plus, information about hobbies and interests are easier to view and find, since it’s typically displayed for many to see.

Even though there are so many good things to social media, it’s still thought of in a negative point of view. The main reason that social media gets such a bad rap is due to the misuse of it. When you go online, you may see cyberbullying, an unfortunately common thing across the internet today. You may also see inappropriate displays. While the issues of social media are well known, many people forget the fact that it’s not social media that causes all of this, but the users of the social media. Social media is not running itself but is being ran by people, so any issues with it is the people’s fault, not the media’s.

Sometimes the main issue can be clouded by beliefs and opinions, not facts. Social media’s bad rap is an example of that. In the end, we ought to try to take measures to have better media etiquette, rather than blaming the media itself.