Social Media: Future or Fall?

There are many things that have impacted this world but no influence has caught fire and spurred so much change in so little time as social media. Social media, while unheard of in just the early 2000s, has expanded exponentially- the very word is connected to phones, internet, television, magazines, computers, and virtually any way that the populous connects with each other (which nowadays is pretty much everything we own). Social media has connected people from opposite corners of the world and has given voice to those otherwise unheard. But is this change for the better? Or does the fast-paced journey we are now on lead to a crash course.
While there are undoubtedly many assets to the expanding cyber world, the unseen end at the end of its growth may prove to be more disastrous than good. If you ask the average person under, say, 30 years old, more likely than not they will have a Facebook account. Facebook, while originally (and successfully) meant to connect college students to their peers, has grown exponentially to include unnecessary applications and features that do more harm than good. The most common instance of this: pictures. It is well known that any possible employer can find you very easily on Facebook, hunt down your pictures, and then hire or fire you based on what he or she sees. This is just one example of how ‘private’ things in life are being distorted by social media.
There are many other instances today that show the darker, less desirable side of social media. Take Twitter as well. You Tweet about how annoying your boss is and your followers see it. Perhaps they re-tweet this. In a matter of seconds hundreds of people have already seen your spur-of-the-moment venting on your boss. The worst part? More likely than not, he has seen it too. On Monday you get a very nasty conference call and then you are among the many that are unemployed.
These are just a few examples but similar stories of how privacy is abolished can be retold by countless who have become victims of the out-of-control social media network. In the process of connecting millions of humans, glitches and corruptions have poisoned the good that has come from the revolutionary network. And this is just the early stages of social media’s development. Imagine the future (the very near future, actually). Social media will be following everyone. Maybe it is implemented at work. Perhaps instead of calling home to tell someone to pick up milk you access video calling which is viewable by anyone and everyone by the right means.
While social media has merits, I fear that at the rate it is going, all human privacy will be eliminated if we are not careful with our new responsibilities that are attached with the privilege of being alive in this day and age. It has also become apparent that many will ignore these responsibilities and rules that accompany this industry. I believe that the surge in social media needs to slow down, or else we will not be able to keep up with the demands that accompany the new network.