Should People Use Social Media to Get Their News

Kailynn Shaw, Reporter|October 3, 2017

Social Media is an everyday hobby for many people. You can get in contact with anyone from around the world and news is easily shared. News can be shared on many sites such as, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat. They post all the latest celebrity gossip and current events. There are other mediums that can be used such as TV stations and channels like News 10, CBS News, or CNN that tell you less of the celebrity gossip but more on the topics of highly critical news. Getting the news from both TV and social media is a good way to get information.

“In 2016 85% of people over sixty-five watched TV to get their news.”

As of August 2017, 43% of Americans go online to get their news and 57% watch TV to get their news. More people who are the age of sixty-five or older watch TV but since 2016 it has decreased. According to www.pewresearch.org, in 2016 85% of people over sixty-five watched TV to get their news. In 2017 it decreased to 82%. This kind of decrease has happened in multiple age groups.

With social media today all news that is featured on TV, there are accounts that post breaking news stories and important announcements for people who missed the news. Posting the stories should be easy to access if they have internet and something to use to view the internet. There are, however, disadvantages.

“I think there are advantages and disadvantages,” said Jordan Wilkins, senior. “Some advantages are you can get laughs out of it or become famous but some disadvantages are you can get haters and people criticize you based on every little thing.”

With television news, the stories are more reliable, there are less distractions, and also with online news, there’s a risk of off-topic information.

“I think that watching the news on TV it’s a good thing to be honest, because that way you don’t have to be confused on whether or not if it’s false information,” said Wilkins.

Social media is a great way to get quick information that is important, but TV seems to still be the most popular format of news. Televised news has better reliability for honesty, and the only way you can get distracted is if you change the channel.