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“Social media has invaded the personalities and personal time of individuals”: Michael Jordan Contrasts His Career With Tiger Woods With The Advent Of Twitter, Instagram

Ashish Priyadarshi
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Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan played during a time when social media didn’t exist, something the NBA legend is very thankful to this day when comparing his career to Tiger Woods’.

The digital age has had a massive effect on the way sports, games, and most importantly players are covered and looked at. People are free to write, Tweet, or post whatever they want about whoever they wish.

There are, of course, both ups and downs to this, but Michael Jordan is definitely happy that he didn’t have to deal with all the ‘toxicity’ and pressure social media has brought upon athletes in the current era of sports.

Also Read: “LeBron James And Anthony Davis Title Window May Be Shorter Than Expected”: Why The Los Angeles Lakers Stars Are In A ‘Win-Now’ Mode

Michael Jordan Speaks Up About How Social Media Could Have Altered His Career And How Tiger Woods Dealt With It

Jordan played much before social media took off, and he is extremely happy about that fact. In an interview with Cigar Aficionado, Jordan revealed how he felt about this notion, even brining up Tiger Woods in his answers:

“Tiger [Woods] played at his peak somewhere toward the end of my career. Then, what changed from that time-frame to now is social media — Twitter and all those types of things. And that has invaded the personalities and personal time of individuals. It’s to the point where some people have been able to utilize it to their financial gain and things of that nature. But for someone like myself — and this is what Tiger deals with — I don’t know if I could’ve survived in this Twitter [era], where you don’t have the privacy that you’d want and what seems to be very innocent can always be misinterpreted.”

You can watch the full interview here:

Several current day NBA players have also spoken up about how social media has made for a very dark and troubling environment in the league. J.J. Reddick would say:

“It’s a dark place. It’s not a healthy place. It’s not real. It’s not a healthy place for ego — if we’re talking about some Freudian sh*t.”

Kelly Oubre would also add:

“I hate it. It’s a generational thing, I would say for sure. It’s something that I really don’t like — the stereotype about my generation.”

Indeed, one of the biggest shortcomings of social media is the adverse effect it has on the minds of people. Sitting through and reading negative comments, posts, or whatever else can become very troubling.

More than that, there are always people who find a way to mix up stories and portray a convoluted sense of what actually happened, just like Jordan mentioned.

Players are often torn apart, and the mental effects can be severe. It’s probably why Jordan feels like he couldn’t survive in this era as the game was completely free of the madness that is NBA Twitter back then.

Also Read: “Bradley Beal is likeliest to land with Jayson Tatum on the Boston Celtics”: NBA analyst speculates that Warriors’ trade package for Wizards star is not good enough

About the author

Ashish Priyadarshi

Ashish Priyadarshi

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Ashish Priyadarshi is The SportsRush's content manager and editor. Ashish freelanced for 1 year in the NFL division before taking on an editorial role in the company. He then tacked on managing content while adding on a writing role in the NBA division. Ashish has been closely following the NFL and NBA since the 2012 season when the Patriots lost the Super Bowl and Derrick Rose was at the height of his powers. Since then, Ashish has focused on honing his knowledge for both leagues in, even writing crossover pieces. In his free time, Ashish is an avid basketball player, he loves to watch movies and TV shows, immersing himself in the cinematic world. Ashish studies computer science and data science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and would love to mesh his love for sports with his technical skills.

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