I’m going to start by saying I am guilty of occasionally getting my news off social media. It’s the fastest way to get the hottest gossip and know exactly what’s going on with the world. Who’s canceled, what celebrity passed away, and just in general what there is to keep up with in pop culture. However, when it comes down to the news stories on Snapchat or even the news section on Facebook, I find it annoying.
That said, I am not saying that all news from these sources is bad… I’m just saying that most of the time it is just clickbait. Whenever I see the headline “___ Confirmed” followed by any sad or heartbroken emoji, I do my best to avoid clicking on it. I do this only because nine out of ten times, it is a story that is not nearly as interesting as they made it seem, or has nothing to do with what the title was talking about. This is usually in stories about celebrities from the Snapchat subscription page for PinkNews. It’s simply a waste of time to click on an article that is just clickbait and totally off from any truth. I also try to steer clear of Snapchat news because it is always filled with a ton of advertisements that you cannot skip over. On both Facebook and Snapchat, there can be an unnecessary amount of ads, which can be something that causes me to get frustrated if I have to wait through thirty-second clips just to get to the part of the news that I clicked on the article for. Understanding that some people need the clicks to get a raise, or just pay the bills still doesn’t justify making up unreal stories just for their benefit. In my opinion, it takes less time to watch a news channel or go on to a trusted page to get more information.
While mentioning this, I’d also like to add that sometimes politics sneak their way into the story on many forms of social media. This can make it seem like false information or can even deter people from reading the source as in some cases people strongly base their readings on the political beliefs of a source. In general, these sources just make it more of a hassle to get useful information, which sets people up to avoid news in general and become shut off from the world. Overall, this is why I feel like it is useless to try to find news from social media sources.