By: Danielle Sehnert, Contributing Writer

The advancements in technology that have been made are completely beneficial because they allow people to convey their thoughts, ideas and perspectives to a much larger audience.

They have also allowed us to broaden our horizons by giving us the gift of social media – a tool that provides a platform for many to spread new and exciting information.

These are the arguments that many millennials, including myself, continue to make.

We defend social media because we’ve known nothing else; we’ve grown up with it and grown close to it.

It has heavily infiltrated every aspect of our lives; there are college courses analyzing its role in the modern age, and its critics broadcast their disdain toward it whenever they can.

The complaints are often the same: millennials are narcissistic and lazy, which is supposedly proven by their active presence online.

Although an emporium of selfies on Instagram, frequent Tweets about their daily lives and the rallying cry of “Netflix and Chill” on Yik Yak don’t necessarily help other generations see the positive aspects of social media venues, it’s important to remember the purpose of it all.

While it is correct that social media contains a fair amount of those spreading false information, bigotry and other forms of negativity, many users use it to gain support for certain organizations, keep up with current events and spread new ideas.

Connection is a word often associated with these venues. It is the desire to be heard and to be recognized by a community that continues to drive us to use social media.