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In this modern era where technology is continuously evolving and progressing towards a more technologically advanced future; a more digitally inclined society that allows us to transcend the physical and geographical boundaries between people, there is bound to be a downside alongside all the convenience and entertainment it has given us. The cons are primarily experienced in social media websites/apps since the majority of the people on earth are using at least one social media website/app. We can all agree that social media has brought us a lot of benefits that have made our lives more convenient and entertaining. Through social media, we socialize with other people, such as our friends and family members from different parts of the globe. We also use it to be informed of our community’s latest happenings and news. Even companies and various sectors of the government are using social media not only to inform the people of their activities and latest endeavors but also to promote and make themselves known to the world. Furthermore, educators use social media to inform the students of the schedules, activities, and other information about their classes essential for their education. Most educational institutes around the country have practiced this since the beginning of the pandemic. Despite all the benefits that social media brought to us, we can’t say that it is a good thing since the more we use social media, the more we are drawn to it, making us addicted, which can ruin not only our physical and mental health but also the relationships and bonds that we have cultivated in real-life.

In the technologically advanced world, where technological progress made the access to the internet and other digitally inclined devices transcend physical and geographical boundaries and cultural differences between people, there is bound to be a gap between individuals, societal classes, businesses, and even countries with varying backgrounds and their capability to access information and use communication technology. This gap is called the “Digital Divide”, which refers to the idea of “being left behind” in digital knowledge, skills, and accessibility. In the past, having access to smartphones and the internet is a luxury that only those in the upper class can afford, and the digital divide at that time only refers to a person’s ability to possess these things, but as time passed by technology also evolved and became more accessible for everyone throughout the world, changing the whole concept of digital divide into who has greater, or less internet bandwidth, or who has the skills to utilize it and who has not. The digital divide is very evident in the new normal, for a lot of activities that are usually done face-face were now done online as a compromise to continue their services. The gap that is already very wide before the pandemic, has widened even more because of the limited interaction amongst individuals, greatly affecting a lot of major sectors of our society. The influence of the new normal has also reached the domain of education; schools were forced to halt face-to-face classes in fear of the transmission of the virus, but a new way of learning that was safe was presented, which is online learning. Online learning is the most suitable way of teaching in the new normal since it allows students to learn, and interact with their classmates, and teachers without risking their health, this is also true for the teachers, and all the other members of Universities, since they were able to keep the school in business amidst the pandemic. Nevertheless, we can all agree that access to the internet, and devices, required in online learning, needs a hefty sum, which not everyone is capable of providing. Furthermore, internet bandwidth plays a major role in online learning since it affects the amount of data a connection can send and receive at the same time. This is important for the students who rely on the internet to continue their education. This leads me to believe that the benefits that online learning can provide are favorable to the privileged and will widen the digital divide between individuals, and those with less access to the internet and other digital devices will be left behind in the digital literacy race.

The modern era is distinguished by the massive influence of the internet, allowing communication, and information to be accessible whenever and wherever across the globe. The power of the internet can be harnessed by portable electronic computing devices such as smartphones, Tablets, Laptops, and smartwatches, because of their ability to use the internet in an efficient manner. That reason made social media websites and applications more accessible for the people, making communication, and sharing, locating, and creating information a lot more widespread, and vast on the internet. The usage of the internet has been increasing since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, because with the use of the internet the people were able to continue interacting with one another, ignoring geographical locations. This allowed a lot of people to continue doing their jobs, and studies in an online setting, despite the pandemic. The media was also not safe from the miracle-like capabilities of the internet, and allowed the formation of a young, growing type of interactive media that is digital and internet-based (e.g. YouTube, Facebook, Netflix, Twitter, etc.). The new media not only allowed users to access vast amounts of information and news, but it also made interaction between users possible, which allowed online communities to take form. Despite the vast amount of available information in social media, a lot of people are still using the traditional media when it comes to gathering credible information, because there is a lot of misinformation and disinformation circulating on the internet that is influencing the users, which may cause harm. This allowed traditional media to survive despite the growing popularity and influence of new media. There are still a lot of people that are relying on traditional media when it comes to gathering credible and factual news, the majority of these people are from the old generation. They believe that the new media is too complex for them, and that the new media is full of content that goes against their beliefs. Moreover, when they're gathering information using traditional media, they don't need to exert more effort investigating the credibility of the news or information, since if the information is misleading, biased, and fake, they won't be included in the first place. I believe that the only disadvantage of traditional media is their lack of interactivity and accessibility for the netizens, but I believe that those disadvantages were solved, since the growing popularity and influence of new media made the convergence of traditional and new media possible, creating a more efficient and effective dissemination of factual and credible information.

The social era was massively influenced by the internet, allowing communication and information to be accessed in real-time and anywhere across the globe. The internet holds a vast amount of information, making it easier for the public to access information about anything they want, but the massive quantity of information doesn't prove its quality. As a matter of fact, there is a massive amount of misleading, and biased information circulating throughout the internet, which can potentially cause harm and chaos to the public. In addition, there are also some news formats that spread biased, and not credible news. In this social era where misinformation and disinformation are very common, we can really appreciate the importance of Information Literacy and News Literacy. Information Literacy gives us the ability to evaluate and analyze the quality of information, which makes us immune to misleading and biased information because we can analyze and evaluate if a piece of information is based on credible sources, and the information is elaborated properly. Furthermore, being information literate lets us use information in an ethical, and effective way, preventing us from becoming sources of misleading and biased information, which might mislead the people that will read the information that we will share.

The Media and Government play a great role in our society since any statement they release can potentially change the views of the people in our society. The government governs our society, maintaining order and leading us to prosperity, while the media informs the public about information regarding a topic, including government affairs. Some of these information are in favor of the government, talking about the works, and improvements the government has done to make the lives of the citizen better, making them look good to the public, increasing their favorability, and reputation, which will increase their reappointment for the next elections. But not everything goes in favor of the government since there are also a lot of media that are set on unearthing, and sharing the corruption and other illegal deeds done by the government officials, which causes bad blood between the media and the government. The media in the Philippines is a combination of two "Normative Theories of the Press", which is Libertarian Theory, and Social Responsibility, because I was taught that the press in the Philippines is free from any control of the government, and promotes freedom of expression, but they must take full responsibility for the information they release, but I know for a fact that what was taught to the public is not completely correct.

The people of this generation have been exposed to the wonders of social media, a communication medium where anyone can share, create, and locate information whenever, and wherever they want, but not all of the information is factual and credible, some of them are fake or based on biased opinions. Being an information literate allows you to have the ability to locate, and evaluate whether an information is factual or not, which is very helpful in maintaining the credibility of the opinions that you have created based on the said information. It is also important to have the ability to produce communication using different media formats, because it allows you to be more versatile when it comes to sharing information. A different media format can be used to share, or locate information depending on your business. If a person wants to gather information about something, it would be bad to recommend social media sites, instead, we should tell them to gather information from online news sources (e.g. rappler.com), since the purpose of those websites is to spread factual and unbiased information. Gathering information in social media sites is just borderline irresponsible since those media formats have a lot of fake and biased information that might mislead you, especially if you're not an information literate.