In 2016, you’d think everyone would be connected on the World Wide Web through social media. That’s mostly true, but in our Castleton University community there’s a range of users – and some are tuning out.

“I think it’s a distraction,” said junior Kristi Lachar, who deleted her Facebook page about two months ago. “Social media can be beneficial and bring awareness to a lot of things, but I also think it’s very negative.”

Junior LeeAnn Senecal said she too thinks social media is becoming less appealing.  

“I think social media is more negative than it is

positive anymore,” she said.

Senecal uses a range of social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram. She gets fed up with Instagram the most and said she has to delete it for a couple days to give herself a break.

“I deleted Instagram because of two reasons; the first is due to the negativity and the second is because it’s a distraction. I spend too much time on it,” Senecal said.

Professor and Chair of Business Administration Peg Richards uses social media for personal and work related reasons.

“I use my Facebook more for family, people I went to high school with, and college. Reddit I use more for political research. If I use my Twitter at all, it’s for work,” she said.

Richards likes social media and thinks it adds to the dialogue. She likes face-to-face communication, but thinks with social media you can pick up a lot of information.

Fellow business professor Ed Dansereau teaches a course called Social Media Marketing.  Dansereau uses all the big platforms of social media like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and a few others.

“I think social media is fun. From a professional standpoint, I think it’s different from regular marketing,” said Dansereau, who added that he uses social media for personal and work related reasons as well.

“With a traditional ad you’re kind of broadcasting it. With social media, you have to be more human and interrelate with people. I think it’s a cool twist,” said Dansereau.

Richards and Dansereau shared that they would like to get a course based on social media to fit into the Social and Behavior Understanding frame.

“It would go with other communication classes because it’s the more current way of communicating,” said Richards.