February 5, 2017
Hashtag Mentality and Today’s College Students
By Sean Mathews
We are at a point in America where much of the populace has become no more than a reactionary mob. While assorted protests may appear to be an exercise in our liberties such as freedom of speech as well as a natural desire to rebel, the reasons are more prosaic: the ignorance of our citizens, primarily the college-aged. It’s compounded by a lack of real-world experience and by social media, a dangerous combination. While a lack of understanding of the world isn’t necessarily the fault of any college-aged citizen, social media is another matter, with its use playing a special role in the creation of reactionary mobs.
Take the highly charged executive order halting Middle Eastern refugees signed by President Trump. As is the case of most executive orders, few individuals took the time to read it. Instead, the masses reacted based on what they saw on social media. Some enterprising individual created the deceptive hashtag “MuslimBan”, and the outrage began. Obviously #MuslimBan is total fallacy, because it is in fact not a Muslim ban. But social media isn’t about facts, it’s about clicks, it’s about drawing attention, regardless of one’s political affiliation. It is also the primary means of news and conversation for this generation of college-aged citizens.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/02/hashtag_mentality_and_todays_college_students.html
