Let's take a moment to talk about the phenomenon that is hashtagging. Now, having been a high school adolesent when this new social media trend came into play. At first, I was curious about the trend, but soon after it became overused. Instead of people creating coherent and complete sentences, the caption would be only hashtags discribing whatever was in the post. The video from the article How #Hashtags Changed The Way We Talk includes the following video:
Which is a prime example of how obnoxious and tedious it has been to read the captions I previously described. Although, I do believe, when used in the correct way, hashtags can have a level of efficiency and it can be an effective way of catching peoples attention. For example, the #blacklivesmatter caused a massive social media uprise and brought the movement a large amount of attention which is the first way to move towards change. The hashtags allow people to see all the information from posts other people have made with the same hashtag which is how much of my generation follows along with large news stories. This way of following stories is efficient because hashtags spread faster than wildfire, but this does leave a lot of room for fake news to spread just as fast.
Pro-tip: take what you see on social media with a grain of salt, even if it is attached to a trending hashtag. #becareful #hashtagresponsibly
No comments:
Post a Comment