Jasmine Parham
Staff Writer
Social media is an outlet that many people use whether young or old; however, many in the younger generation gravitates more towards the Internet world than most adults.
According to Pew Internet Center, 81 percent of adults between the ages of 18 and 29 are Internet users compared to the 63 percent of 30-49 year olds and 34 percent for ages 50 and above.
With so much media influence, young people can lose the need for interpersonal communication. Prince Duren, a speech communications professor at Jackson State University wrote and produced a play about this issue.
The piece, “Caught in the Net,” tells the story of a young, conservative woman that gets caught up in the Internet world so much that she forgets what truly matters. In doing so, she gets involved with someone she met online, not knowing that he was underage. Nevertheless, she takes a spontaneous approach and as a result makes the biggest mistake of her life that eventually results in having sexual intercourse with the other person. This decision and the ramifications turn her world upside down.
The moral of the story is that not everyone online is trustworthy; therefore, people should be very cognizant of what they post, whom they talk to, and the actions they take.
Like the girl in the play, many teens get so caught in the net of the web that they forget the importance of being safe online.
“I think social media has been a detriment as far as relationships go because we no longer have face to face conversations. A lot of people hook up and date socially. When it’s time for us to do the natural interaction, we don’t know how because we text so much there’s no real conversation,” said Duren.
Duren believes that relationships in today’s age reflect that of a poem written by Paul Laurence Dunbar entitled “We Wear the Mask.”
“We’re not necessarily who we are, we’re who you want to see us as, because we wear the mask,” said Duren.
On the other hand, some JSU students believe that social media can only negatively affect a relationship if those people allow it to happen.
Jalia Lee, a sophomore biology/pre-med major from Mobile, Ala., is one of those people.
“I feel like social media’s influence on dating is not the best. Sometimes it really does ‘go down in the DMs’ and there’s no trust or honesty to the situation, but if you and your partner both
respect each other and have an understanding of what’s right, you should be good,” said Lee.
As technology continues to advance in this social age, face-to-face communication may become even more rare.
