Sahar Mahmood, Author at The Orbital

The recent Cambridge Analytica scandal and the #DeleteFacebook trend that followed, have posed important questions about the price we pay for social media. What do we really pay in return for a social internet that is ‘free of charge’? Although we don’t pay with actual currency, an argument can be made that we pay with our data. But do the benefits of using social media outweigh the costs? Todd Rosenblum, a former secretary to the White House under Barack Obama, outlines how social media companies collect our personal data as a commodity in exchange for letting us use the social media platform and its services free of a monetary charge. The more we use the platform, the more details we provide and the more third-party advertisers pay for it. However, such a willing exchange of our person...

As we welcome in the new year, it’s an important time to reflect on the previous one. Our ups and downs, our successes and our failures. One important thing to reflect on is our use of social media. Research shows that there were approximately 3 billion active users of social media, 2 billion of which were avid users of Facebook alone. It brings a large number of benefits and is clearly the most preferred form of communication these days. However, it’s important to know that social media comes with a lot of downsides too and so should be used with caution. Social media has many advantages. First and foremost, it gives us the ability to connect with people from all over the world, quickly and in real time. It helps us maintain strong relationships with friends and family and gives us the...