Our generation is accused of being technology obsessed. We are killing newspapers. We are killing broadcasting. We are pushing away from tradition but is that such a bad thing?

Does it matter that the way I found out coaching legend Joe Paterno died was because of a mass of tweets, or that I knew we had an earthquake in our little area of Kansas because of a Facebook post?

Either way, I am still getting the information almost instantaneously, but more than that, I get to gauge the reaction of the people I know. I wanted to see what they were thinking about the incidents, not that it had occurred.

When the Denver Broncos won the first playoff game this season, I was using social media to take a look at what people were saying. It is amazing the different comments you see from everyone.

I knew my friends in Denver were cheering, my friends in Kansas were jeering and that my friend across the world had no idea what my posts even meant.

With Joe Paterno, it was a different story. I wasn’t looking at the fact that he died. I could see that story on any news website. I wanted to see what people were remembering him as.

Surprisingly, the posts were not demeaning; they were not saying how awful the scandals were or even mentioning them. In fact, many of them defended him as a person and what he represented in the sports community.

The posts were saying how much he won, how much he loved football and how he would be remembered forever by Penn State.

I thought Twitter would be a different story because I follow a wide range of professional athletes and sports coverage outlets, but it was more of the same reactions.

There were professional athletes remembering him in his prime and encouraging communities to appreciate what he has done.

Social media is destroying an industry but it is also the quickest way to read into how people feel and what they are thinking during major events.

I don’t search the web for the facts, I search for opinions, and within those, why people are responding the way they are.

We live in a world that is more connected than we could have ever imagined, but it is because of this that we are being more encouraged to share our opinions.

Deep down, it feels good to know people read what I write and can form their own opinions on the information that has already been shared.

Major events are seen differently than they were in the past. Being across the world from a disaster does not mean it won’t affect the people you are around. If anything, everyone will be more likely to respond.