In the past years social media has become such a focal point in college athletics. Most of these recruits coming out of high school are very big into social media. I would figure its hard not be when you have all of these fans of different schools following you and tweeting at you to attend there school. In the past when social media wasn’t as big, not as many people probably knew much about the recruits coming out of high school. Now, these kids of 17-18 years old are dealing with stardom before they even arrive in the college athletic circuit. Having this much spotlight and popularity at a young age is probably a lot to deal with. Every little thing you say or do can be criticized or taken the wrong way.
Social Media will make you think twice about something you tweet or post on Facebook, because you know there are so many people watching you. There have been many social media scandals and people forced to delete their twitter accounts by their coaches for something they had posted. For example Cardale Jones the former quarterback of The Ohio State 2015 National Championship team, back in 2012 when he was a third string quarterback he tweeted “Why should we have to go to class if we came here to play FOOTBALL, we ain’t come to play SCHOOL classes are POINTLESS”. He was forced to not only delete his tweets but his whole account for not abiding by OSU’s social media policy. He has since rejoined twitter and is now a pretty big hit for his tweets.
This is just one of many incidents that have happened due to the stardom and popularity these teenagers & young adults receive.
Social media rules everything – or at least that’s what it seems like. The policing of individuals on social media by the institutions they are a part of I think brings up an interesting question of freedom of expression. On one hand individuals have the right to write what they want, but on the other hand they must realize that they can be held responsible for what they say. An extra amount of pressure is put on college athletes because they are the face of some of their schools. They must realize that what they say on social media will reflect on the institution they are representing. Now whether or not that’s fair, given the whole corrupt institute of the NCAA, is a completely different discussion but when it comes to social media athletes – just like anyone else- need to understand the ramifications of their social media posts.
Social media etiquette is a term or soon will be a term that will become part of our every day vocabulary. Eventually people will realize (shockingly many haven’t) that their posts on social media are a representation of their beliefs and a representation of who they are. When tweets or pictures are posted, people are immediately opening themselves up for criticism. Cardale Jones and his teammates are more than free to talk about how much they loathe class and deservedly so as they have been blessed with natural athletic talent that voids a need for going to class, but Cardale, and all people, need to realize that social media is not and will not ever be a platform for people to be expressive about their beliefs about anything as it will just cause problems. There is a time and place for everything.