“The Good and the Bad: How Social Media Affected Me as a Gen Z Individual”

 In this generation, we are now using social media platforms such as facebook, twitter, youtube, etc. to communicate and connect with other people without going outside of our homes. Due to evolving technology, we are now adapting and accepting these changes that give us a lot of benefits which at the same time, have its downside. When these things come up, we now have the capability to multitask, work faster to finish things, and to be more efficient in time. In this midst of the pandemic, many of us weren't able to go outside and should stay at home to prevent  the virus from spreading. Social media plays a crucial role in helping us stay connected with our friends and to those people who weren’t able to see us due to this crisis. Social media really helps each individual in making communication more efficient and easier for everyone.

 All along with the good side of social media, it also has its own bad side. Despite all its benefits for us, there are also potential issues that we can’t really do anything about. Social media itself is not a problem at all. But on how people will use it. These days, especially us Gen-Z, are being so exposed in social media. The worst part here is where many people now use these platforms to earn or to have other people’s approval for their appearance or compare themselves to others. The other very alarming thing about these platforms is nowadays, we rely mostly on information that we will see online. But some information there is not that accurate and will just lead us to be more confused at all. Social media platforms could also make us be manipulated. Many of us now, especially Gen-Z, spend a lot of time scrolling through social media. This is why many young ones these days are more depressed, experience  anxiety, and other  bad effects  because of what they are seeing there that might make them feel worthless or something, that isn't even true. What we need to do is we should limit and know how to control ourselves by using these platforms so that we won’t fall into its rabbit’s hole, that won’t even give any good benefits for us.

Digital divide in the new normal

 A digital divide, which hinders students from doing schoolwork at home due to the absence of internet as well as physical hardware, is indeed the main enabler of such gaps among education systems. People set out to build an understanding of data from multiple sources which put a spotlight on the digital divide, its causes, and also the inferiority of previous ones to bridge it. The COVID-19 crisis proved that the availability of computers and technology has now become essential to children's opportunity to reach education, reinforcing the vital use for a nationwide effort to contain such gaps and get it over with. Though if students have devices at home, technical problems can cause the software to wreck as well as the internet to go down. Besides that, parents and students who aren't good with technology may find it difficult to learn given the lack of access to technology and software. All of us didn’t expect the coming of the COVID-19 virus. All of us experience the adjustments with the new normal this pandemic did. As it continues, we really had to deal with the new way of learning in school such as having online classes and modular. For the past few years, technologies were not always used, we are only using those  for research, entertainment, and communication to other people. But suddenly, we are needed to deal and adapt to the new normal where we have to be more dependent on the internet than usual. 

Everything changed. From buying groceries from physical stores, we tend to buy goods and stuff now through online shopping. Another thing here is from face to face class to online classes, and remote work or the term "Work-from-home" for those people who weren't able to do their jobs physically in the time of this pandemic. Many of the students suffered from lack of things or stuff that they needed for them to be able to attend online classes. Other students stopped attending school because of the reason that they had nothing to have access to online classes. Yes, we have the alternative which is the modules, but students have different ways of learning. Many of us were not good at self-studying. This problem of our society might leave other people left-behind. COVID-19 worsen our problem in the digital divide in our society as it occurs. It is really important to break the digital divide in society to be able for those unprivileged people to have access to the information and other benefits that the internet can give to those who can access it.

“Understanding the Relevance of Information and News Literacy in the Midst of Social Era”

 In today's age of information innovation, info plays an undeniable role in which everyone is dependent. Information is perhaps the most significant source of the world's economy and even a critical part of education. With the emergence of the convergence period, media and information literacy increasingly focus on creating knowledge that motivates society to aid the process of continuous learning. Aside from a society's own knowledge, its output of media likewise plays a significant role in generating a learning community rather than an information society. A convergence period empowers society to better adapt skills in the use of technology and media to develop an information literate society through the concept of self-improvement.

  There has never been a deeper significant interest in news literacy. As information became more contaminated with a never-ending stream of fake news, misinformation, scams, rumors, sarcasm, and promotion — all are appearing as actual reporting — that became increasingly impossible to distinguish fact from fiction. While its people's trust in the news media is declining, misinformation from people has added to upsetting social patterns and startling political gatherings. Due to youths' increased reliance on social media for news, there has been an increase in media literacy initiatives aimed at supporting youth's ability to critically and consciously interpret the news. To be news literate, on the other hand, does not always imply that such knowledge and abilities are utilized in practice.

 Social media and the government, in the beginning, have a love-hate relationship between them. When social media contains criticism of the government, as it frequently does, the relationship begins to sour, and the affair blossoms when the opposite occurs, particularly when sycophancy reaches epic dimensions. In our case, we have this situation where social media is being exploited with the apparent goal of bringing about a particular conclusion in the ballots just days before the elections. Unfortunately, a lot of people criticize the government by posting something on social media. At the same time,  people also express their love and support for politicians on the same platform. As the year passed, we could clearly see the love and hate relationship between the media and the government. Many people are expressive through their dislike of the projects that the politicians have been implementing. The people in the Philippines were separated from their beliefs, which were to vote for the right person or to vote just for the sake of money. Media has been a platform where most of us express our thoughts and share our life journeys. 

Newspapers, radio, television, the internet, are where people learn the news, get entertainment and find helpful information. Mass communication increasingly is no longer filtered through elite media but rather proliferates through free-flowing citizen-based social media. Should it even be called media anymore? We like to call it youdia, which means mass communication is more and more controlled by ourselves or you. The people and the government often feel separated. Dangerously, we worry about declining trust, corruption, elitism, and tyranny, resulting in declining political efficacy. So, what brings the people and the government together? It's the media. The Freedom of Information Act allows more and more of us, citizens, to look at more information that the government would like to keep secret, prevents journalists from revealing sources even those sources tell the news that the government doesn't want us to know. This brings us to the question, what's the relationship between public officials and the media? Is it love or hate? , more appropriately should be love and hate. Politicians increasingly use the media to share stories that shed a favorable light on what politicians are doing. Yet, around every corner is a camera and a journalist ready to explore a mistake at the same time.

The Value of Being a Media and Information Literate Individua

      With the growth of social media, Filipinos have gotten enticed to the platform, particularly at a period where Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms had taken over people's life. Being literate in media and information will offer us an edge in our contemporary world today, especially in terms of giving and receiving information, as we will be able to identify the majority of false and true information in various types of media, particularly Facebook. One should learn how to ask the proper questions through what you're observing, reading, or listening to. Being a critical thinker, one must really be able to locate whether information is required or have the capacity to seek, analyze, and use that information. It is important so one is able to use current and past information in media with intelligence. For us to analyze information and decide if it is the best info for our purpose. Especially now in our situation, being at home all the time due to this pandemic really made us more likely to use the media. Many ways have been changed because of the situation that we are all facing right now like the new normal, social distancing (to prevent the spread of the virus), and a new way of learning for students (online class and modular). In this generation, technology and media plays a big part in everyone’s lives.

     Nowadays, we are overwhelmed with information, so literacy necessitates knowing what to say to oneself. At the same time, recognizing what is factual data, accurate information, fake news, and biased facts is an important element of becoming a media and information literate. There will be no ought to be anxious of utilizing media and information if everybody is MIL. We are able to make our claim choices and decisions on the off chance that we have those media information abilities. It is important to be an individual whose media and information literate because this enables us to understand the different parts of those messages that we can get or receive from television, radio, internet, and other media. This will helps us to evaluate information correctly based on one’s knowledge that will help to resolve problems or to successfully accomplish its purpose. Individuals have the capacity to precise themselves creatively and viably. It will also encourage us in thinking logically and will lead us in becoming a responsible social media user. We will have a sophisticated approach to not be easily persuaded by misleading information as a result of this, and it encourages everyone to actively participate in conversations that will improve our abilities and allow people to voice their opinions in a responsible manner. Perks is that, it helps in the growth of our society being free, self-regulating, has varied social sites with an open and accessible platform.