Students who participated in the 34th Annual World Affairs Seminar pose together in front of the Storer Ballroom building last Wednesday. Courtesy photo

SHEPHERDSTOWN — Last Wednesday morning, Shepherd University’s Storer Ballroom opened its doors, as the home for the 34th Annual World Affairs Seminar. The seminar, which focused this year on “Social Media: The Challenges and Opportunities at Local and Global Levels,” once again drew attendance from Morgan County, Berkeley County and Jefferson County high school upperclassmen.

“A total of 120 student service club members and student leaders participated from six [Eastern] Panhandle high schools: Berkeley Springs, Hedgesville, Spring Mills, Martinsburg, Musselman and Washington,” said Rotary Club of Shepherdstown representative Peter Smith, noting that the seminar was founded by his club and the Rotary Club of Martinsburg.

The students, accompanied by 10 faculty advisors, delved deep into critical thinking, regarding the topic of the pros and cons of social media, with the help of four experts in the field. The first expert, Bonnie & Bill Stubblefield Institute for Civil Political Communications at Shepherd University Senior Fellow and Shepherd University Professor of Communication Matthew Kushin, discussed the question “Does Social Media Actually Make Us Happy?”

“The single best predictor of human happiness is the quality of social relationships in people’s lives,” Kushin said, noting statistics from 2019’s World Health Report on the subject. “Research consistently shows that face-to-face contact is associated with increased happiness. Scrolling feeds on social media predicts declines in happiness — this was found to be the most common type of social media usage. However, interacting with others over social media does not lead to a decline in happiness — interacting on social media is like face-to-face interaction.”

Jefferson County Schools Director of Technology Jennifer Rowan’s talk on “Tapping the Value of Digital Citizenship in Learning Today” similarly highlighted the importance of community on social media. However, Rowan branched out into explaining the value of reflecting this value, through following digital etiquette practices.

Bonnie & Bill Stubblefield Institute for Civil Political Communications at Shepherd University Executive Director Ashley Horst further built upon this topic, in her talk, “Civility in the Global Village.”

“Social media has the opportunity to help us create meaningful connection, share diverse perspectives and build strong communities — all unhindered by geography and enhanced by technology that overcomes limitations,” Horst said, before encouraging her audience to endeavor to maintain civil interactions with others online, because most differences are much more complex than they look on social media’s oversimplified surface. “Our lives are a daily experiment. Your attitudes and opinions are shaped by hundreds of factors over your lifetime. Humans learn and change over time. People make mistakes.”

Along with the three speakers currently working in the field related to their talks, the seminar also featured a fourth speaker, who could closely relate to the students, age wise. Shepherd University Communication Major Michea Dawson took the stage at the front of the ballroom to offer a student’s perspective on “Navigating Modern Social Media.”

A panel discussion and debate, moderated by Rotary Club of Shepherdstown member Richard Anson, featured all four speakers answering questions related to the seminar’s theme.

Following the panel discussion, the participating students broke off into discussion groups and then presented the results of their own discussions in a final plenary session after lunch. Each group was asked to develop two initiatives related to the seminar topic, and the participating service clubs at the schools were encouraged to follow up on these initiatives with mentoring support from Shepherd University communication majors and their own school’s student advisors.

Along with the Rotary clubs and Shepherd University, the seminar was also co-sponsored by Phi Beta Delta Honor Society for International Scholars, according to Shepherd University Communications Executive Director Dana Costa.