With the surge of social media in our everyday lives, it has impacted us in a multitude of ways ranging from brilliant benefits to costly consequences. We sometimes overlook how social media has impacted our connection with our culture.         

There are students who don’t use social media as avidly as some of their fellow peers and they feel that social media did not help strengthen their connection. It was so insignificant that they began to shift away from social media. 

“It made it better, there is a healthier connection, I see less propaganda about certain groups,“ Faiza Roushon said after leaving some social media platforms. 

Let’s go a bit more in depth on what kind of propaganda there is. These propaganda target specific groups of people and they contain very stereotypical descriptions of these groups. 

“Well I’ve seen some reels on Insta stereotyping brown people and the norms that are applied,” said Emily Tiwary, “For instance, arranged marriages or the idea that girls shouldn’t get an education,“.

This displays a negative aspect of social media. Where people have the ability to spread hate about other groups and it impacts people’s bond to their culture. 

“I’m brown and if you know anything about brown people it’s that they apply gender norms,” said Tiwary.

Tiwary comes from a brown background and witnesses the stereotypes of her culture.

Here she is being reminded of what repels her from her culture and doesn’t promote an idea of bondage with culture.

However, social media can bring people together because they can be connected with the people of their background. 

“I use my phone a lot to be in contact with my family back in Bangladesh and they tell me a lot about my culture and what it means to be Bangladeshi,” Imtiaz Chowdhury said.

Not only that but technology can remind people of what makes their culture special. Social media can promote the influence of culture.

“So, in terms of social media I think posting more information regarding that or making informational stuff would help,” Tiwary said. 

Overall technology has made us somewhat distant to our culture but like with many other things, it also helped us become closer. It’s a matter of how we can utilize technology to help benefit us in recovering our cultural spirit and become united with it.