Dangers(?) of Social Media

danah argues in chapter four that the hype and attention focused on the dangers of the internet, while very real, were over exaggerated. She says the we experienced a moral panic over the possible dangers of the internet as the resulting social media- much like the parents of kids when comic books came out or when Elvis became popular. The media played on the fears of parents and started publishing the stories of kids being kidnapped or sexually assaulted, and though few in number and relatively rare, they garnered the attention of the whole nation. Social media was focused on next as the new way for kids to be in danger online by the media and stories about it  were blown out of proportion too despite research showing that this was not the case. Ad campaigns took statistics done by respectable research companies out of context to feed the fears of parents over their kids being on the internet. It was proven on two separate occasions years apart by the same researchers that 75% of teens experienced some type of sexually based experience online (which including FLIRTING), but only roughly 10% escalated into an offline encounter and even less resulted in sexual abuse or kidnapping. Based off this I agree with danah’s argument that there are real dangers online, but they have been over exaggerated and  misreported due to fear.
The guide to Snapchat article got everything right in my eyes. The author did not try to say what us teens used it for and openly admitted that there was a generational gap, which earned my respect for him. He covered all the main points of Snapchat, although his coverage of the discover portion was a little too overemphasized to me since many of my friends and myself only use it occasionally now. As for what I use Snapchat for is to record funny or interesting things going on during my day for my snapstory-”I have to put this on my story” is a very common phrase. I also use it to pass the time and snap my friends, and I also use it to keep in contact with my old high school friends by sending them a quick snap to show I haven’t forgotten them or to watch their story to see what they’re up to. Snapchat is a very unique, versatile, and fun social media platform since it incorporates the notion of self destructing pictures ranging from 1 to 10 seconds from person to person and 24 hours for everyone to see, private chats and pictures, live face to face videos, and even money in the form of snapcash, which covers basically everything a teen looks for in a social media platform.