Prompts winter weather advisories as cold air moves in Friday night

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

It’s only been 16 years since the forces of social media entered our lives. But in those 16 years, they have moved from the margins — teenagers, game players, internet professionals and fame-seekers — to the center of culture. So much so that when Facebook and two platforms owned by Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, 

For many people, Facebook is the internet, so their outage stopped businesses in their tracks, paralyzed economic transactions and turned some workdays into spontaneous days off. 

What does this mean for and about us? Have we adjusted our social, emotional and economic habits in order to best support and cope with this new normal? Does social media have a greater influence than we have acknowledged? What should we do to adjust? 

Guest host Chris Farrell dug into the shifting social media landscape with Macalester College professor Ana Marie Cox, founder of Wonkette and host of the podcast, “With Friends Like These” from Crooked Media, as well as and David Larson, a professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law.

Shows

MPR News with Angela Davis

Host

Author

It’s only been 16 years since social media entered our lives. But in those 16 years, they have moved from the margins of culture to dominating the news cycle when they went down a few weeks ago. Was this shift inevitable? What influence does social media have on our lives?

 It’s only been 16 years since social media entered our lives. But in those 16 years they have moved from the margins of culture to dominating the news cycle when they went down a few weeks ago on Oct. 4. Was this shift inevitable? What influence does social media have on our lives? At 9 a.m. Wednesday, guest host Chris Farrell digs into the cultural centering of social media. 



The influence of social media on our lives

Go Deeper.

Like this?