Athletes and Social Media: Where is the line drawn?

A topic surrounding the Sports industry that I believe has an impact now and will have a greater impact down the road is social networks. Since the inception of the Internet, the World Wide Web itself has introduced us to a new era of exposure and interaction. With the way that technology has improved over the last decade, the Internet has taken us all by storm. We are all amazed and consumed by the access given to us provided by the Internet. Media has then been exploited as well and has surged to lean on social media sites as an outlet.

            The more interesting aspect for me of course is how it has affected Sports. Growing up as a kid, I recalled not knowing what the faces of some of my favorite athletes looked like. I knew of them, but never had a sense of their looks or anything besides their sports. The bigger and more popular athletes were of course sponsored in ad’s, commercials, marketing materials, etc. As time went on and into the early ages of the Internet, it brought on the exposure I spoke of. Some of the guys I though of, I could now match a face with. I could now easily search for things about athletes that I wanted to know. Long before I knew, I could read stories about them, and maybe not only about them but maybe their friends and families too.

            After a while it then transitioned to social networks and media access. Fast forward to today in 2016, and I can access very personal aspects about my favorite athletes in seconds. I have parts of their lives at my fingertips as ling as I have a smartphone. I can see pictures of their family on Instagram, and see their thoughts on current sporting events on Twitter. This also has a direct effect on the images of some of these athletes. Now we know more about them and sometimes it is not what we wanted to know. The media protects them as these perfect “stars” with lavish lives, but their personal stories tell something different. What an athlete posts on these networks can damage them. It can cause young athletes to ruin their futures or veteran athletes to ruin contracts on sponsorship's. My question is, when it comes to social media in ports, where do we draw the line?

Depression and Sports

    

A topic that I would like to discuss in this post is about athletes and depression. Lots of athletes deal with depression on so many levels because of various reasons. Those reasons can range to various topics but two that are common are post-career depression and injury. Both of these topics include the conclusion of an athlete’s career. For the most part, most of these athletes do not realize that they cannot play their game for the rest of their lives. Some of them prepare well for that conclusion, most of them do not. As for injuries, it is uncontrollable and can be mentally draining.

            The affect of an injury could be long-term or short-term. There has been the recent news and media coverage of the concussion issues in the NFL. Majority of them are long-term which has become a major concern for athletes and their families. Linked to CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), the repeated traumatic hits taken during the game have caused many issues with current and former athletes. In some cases leading to suicide or changes in attitude leading to anger. Some injuries are short-term injuries that may be career altering. These injuries lead to the depression of athletes and sometimes take their minds completely out of focus within their respective sports. Injuries are inevitable but I believe there should be better opportunity for athletes to cope with these injuries.

            Besides injuries, there is the post-career depression. I know about this personally because it was something I dealt with personally to an extent. I was a fairly decent High School football player and collegiate player. Injuries lead to a position change in High School, which would eventually change my love for the game. I was not having fun anymore and decided to end my playing career after one year of college football. Upset and depressed that I would no longer be playing, I did not know where I was heading in life or what career path I would choose. I then realized that my calling was to still be involved in Sports just not as an athlete. There are plenty of other athletes that I know personally who have dealt with similar instances. It can be a really troubling experience for some.