Mehr Singh Co-Sports Editor Amidst talks of the negative affects social media is having on our world today, such as newspapers and magazines becoming digitalized, these last weeks have proven that as society becomes modernized, social media may actually be the tool that allows the youth to voice their opinion freely. Egypt has successfully gotten rid of Hosni Mubarak, after a long thirty years. But what are the different factors that started the entire revolution? A facebook page by Google executive, Wael Ghonim calling for the people of Egypt to rally together and protest the oppressive regime. Interestingly, Egypt banned facebook, twitter, and other social media the people used in organizing the revolution, probably afraid of the impact they knew the facebook page would have on the people of Egypt. Eric Schmidt, a Google executive, said, social media like facebook, “change the power dynamic between governments and citizens in some very interesting and unpredictable ways.” At Latin, the students’ use of social media has proven to change the dynamic between the students and the administration. Latin students have used social media to rally support and express opinions that have been suppressed. Just last year, when Latin was going to cut the hockey program, students created a “Support Latin Hockey” group on facebook to garner support to keep the program. What happened? Latin’s hockey program is still going strong. Recently, L.A.W. created a page, “Truth and Beauty Week” encouraging students to participate. Sophomore, Amanda Orenstein explained Latin’s success with social media saying, “It is an easy way to express ones opinion, and it’s really easy for it to spread from one person to an entire community.” Social media has evolved from merely being a source of connecting with people, to a tool, which creates a deeper connection, between strangers. Social media has now been established not just for social purposes, but to give those whose voices have been silenced, a second chance and a worldwide platform. Freshman, Jen Costa, brought up another advantage, saying, “ It’s a good way for youth to express their opinions, because it lets them get their opinion out to more people faster.” While it may be easy, effective, affordable, and fast, of course social media also has disadvantages, which stems from its misuse, but as senior Daniel Egel-Weiss said, “ Of course there will be issues, like when people get caught posting something they shouldn’t, but the good outweighs the bad. And as far as Latin is concerned I absolutely think it’s been good. From a social aspect it is so much easier to communicate with everyone and from an educational stand point it’s a great way to talk about assignments.” Moving forward, while some oppose the dependence we have on social media today, it seems as junior Dylan Levin said, “ social media is a great way for this generation to take action on their opinions and communicate.”]]>