Internet Cultured: Social media’s interwoven presence in our real lives is a vital tool for societal progress


Jessie Chang | Daily Trojan

Over 2.5 billion people worldwide use social media to share their lives — spending time with friends, sharing news stories, traveling, eating at a trendy restaurant, going to college and so on. What we don’t talk about, however, is how this constant engagement with others’ lives affects our own.

I, like many members of the Gen Z, was raised on the internet. I got my first computer at age two. I (by watching YouTube videos at age five) learned how to play the guitar. Heck, I even tried making videos myself as an adolescent (a truly cringe-worthy part of my past that follows me everywhere). This past summer, I interned for a company where my sole job was to increase the company’s online presence by making content for social media.

Quite literally, the internet is a part of me, and I don’t know who I would be without it, which is sometimes a scary thought. Of course, as many people have noted, there are both advantages and disadvantages to one’s constant presence on social media.

Yes, comparing my life to others’ lives via social media — whether or not I’m consciously doing so — has taken a toll on my mental health at times (a topic reserved for another column). On the positive side, though, I firmly stand by the notion that the internet is key for people to become modern, globalized citizens, which will ultimately create a more harmonious world. In other words, the internet gives us the opportunity to become “cultured” if we explore outside of our echo chambers, allowing us to understand ourselves and others better.

For instance, Twitter — my personal favorite social media platform — is often considered the frontrunner for discussing current events and their implications. When there’s breaking news, Twitter is the first platform I look at to pull articles from a variety of sources, gauge the public’s general reaction and, or course, see how users have already watered down the situation into a meme. From a journalistic position, Twitter can be an excellent means for gaining diverse perspectives on an event, but that’s only if users chooses to branch outside of their viewpoint.

Along those same lines, liking and retweeting things to prove awareness lends users to become passive social media activists, which is one of the biggest problems with social media.

Twitter, nonetheless, has become society’s main tool for direct public conversation with political leaders, celebrities and other figureheads, creating unprecedented access to information. It’s just up to us how we utilize that information for better or worse.

Additionally, the internet and social media have opened up vast opportunities for work and education that did not exist 10 years ago. For someone like me, this new opportunity holds a special place in my heart because I wouldn’t even be at USC without the internet. Having been raised in a small town in Florida where most people spend their entire lives, my addiction to YouTube — though it definitely damaged my eyesight — exposed me to places and lifestyles different from anything I could have encountered in my sheltered hometown. As a result, I fell in love with Los Angeles, despite never visiting it until I was accepted into USC. I wanted nothing more than to attend a university where my passion for internet culture and content creation could manifest into something real.

The power the internet wields in our personal, professional and political lives is fascinating because only decades ago, the whole concept of social media seemed absurd. The fact that we can pull up the president’s Twitter account and see that, yes, he really did just tweet that, or that someone can start an entire career by posting photos on Instagram invites a world that once seemed unreachable to be closer than ever before. It’s phenomenal and terrifying at the same time, and that’s why it deserves to be discussed.

So, I bring you the first installment of my column, “Internet Cultured” — an invitation to explore our collective online world and understand how the content at our fingertips affects our real lives. If anything, I want to blur the lines between life online and life offline to demonstrate that the power of social media isn’t just in what you present, but in what you follow through with. Here’s to making new connections, both on-screen and off.

Rowan Born is a sophomore majoring in journalism and law, history and culture. She is also the social media editor of the Daily Trojan. Her column, “Internet Cultured,” runs every other Tuesday.