Daniel Rottlaender | Reporter
From Print [October 20, 2015] | Legacy

Social Media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Yik Yak have changed our daily routine significantly since the 2006 rise of the two social media giants: Facebook and Twitter.

Most social media focuses on providing an opportunity to communicate and socialize with friends, share life stories, or play silly mini games to pass the time, however, some cowards who are, driven by self-dissatisfaction, use social media as an outlet to take out their anger and insecurities through bullying either classmates or random strangers they’ve never even met before.

The terrible problem of cyber bullying has caused social media to be critically evaluated and publicly discredited on the air waves—more specifically in various newspaper and magazine columns often written by self-appointed “internet experts.” Of course, social media has its dark sides that are important to consider, but it is just not possible to measure all social media platforms by the same yardstick. Many of these so-called “experts” forget about the wonderful possibilities of LinkedIn.

LinkedIn, founded in 2002, was created with the purpose of professional networking and has gained more than 380 million users worldwide since it started. What distinguishes LinkedIn from most common social media networks is the fact that neither cyber bullying nor the opportunity of posting content anonymously have reached LinkedIn yet. This is due to the fact that LinkedIn’s main purposes are to grow an individual’s professional network and to provide an outlet for professional publications.

College students as well as professionals are able to reach out to and keep up with former employers, co-workers or even companies that the individual would like to work for in the future.LinkedIn is the untouched glade in the ever darkening forest of social media and will hopefully continue to connect people without providing an outlet for pitiful human beings who use bullying to distract themselves from their own sad lives.