By Jim Johnson
SouthernPigskin.com

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Social media and modern technology are both a blessing and a curse in the ways in which they have affected college sports.

Its not your fathers college football anymore.

Since the turn of the century, the use of socialmedia, on account of so many advances in modern technology, has become widespread. These days, every teenager with a cell phone is on Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and whatever else, since a new app pops up just about every day.

There are grown men with full-time jobs and families to support that waste their timescrolling through high schoolers Twitter pages just for a hint of where they might spend their college days. No, seriously. Normally productive members of society spend hours, during the weeks leading up to National Signing Day, sifting through memes andvines and whatever other nonsense the top prospects see fit to share with their followers.

There are probably thousands of NCAA recruiting violations committed every week by averagefans who tweet at recruits. The NCAA prohibits anyone, besides authorized staff, from contacting recruits in person, online, or on the phone, in an effort to entice them to go to a certain school. But its hard for a lot of people to contain themselves.

Neverin history has the average fan had so much access to players and recruits. Many fans are probably not familiar with the rules, either, but in the eyes of the NCAA, ignorance is no defense.

There is, of course, a lighter side to the relationship between college football andsocial media. Anytime anything big happens, Twitter cblows upd with an outpour of various takes, pictures, and videos. If some Division III school that youve never heard of scores on a hook and ladder, the play will be all over the web within minutes. WhenJameis Winston fumbled against Oregon, the meme of NBA player Lance Stephenson blowing the ball out of his hand had gone viral before the ball was snapped for the next play.

Now, more than ever, a platform exists for instantaneous online cfame.d There are countlessuntalented Twitter philosophers and comedians with multi-hundred thousand person followings. The followers sit by with bated breaths, constantly refreshing their feeds, waiting for these accounts to feed them recycled jokes, or misattributed inspirationalquotes. This sort of unwarranted fame brings about a sense of accomplishment and is probably part of the reason so many millennials have this delusion that they are special and deserve to be treated as such.

So if even the most regular, average millennials are plagued by this school of thought,surely this generations elite athletes will suffer from it as well. This is why its such an ordeal now whenever top athletes announce something as simple as where theyre going to school. An 18-year old picking up a logoed hat and placing it atop his skullnow, apparently, qualifies as an event worthy of nationally televised coverage.

Get this: Cardale Jones, two weeks ago, held a press conference at his old high school, not to announce his declaration for the NFL Draft, but simply to tell everyone he was goingback to school. This is the world in which we live. A world where a redshirt sophomore quarterback, who has only started three games in his career, gets that sort of attention just to let us know hes going to stick around for another year.

Social media and modern technology are both a blessing and a curse in the ways in which they haveaffected college sports. Its the reason ESPN had, seemingly, 24-hour coverage of Johnny Manziel for months on end. Its the reason fans now have more access to their favorite players than ever before. Its the reason high school athletes believe theydeserve a nationally televised press conference to announce their college decision. Its the reason players now have a voice on the societal issues that mar this countrys greatness. Its the reason your favorite teams star has more distractions than everbefore. Its the reason a simple hashtag can lead to an ill, bedridden child meeting his or her idol. The internet giveth and the internet taketh away. Regardless, its here to stay and we all have to get used to it.

Now stop reading this so you can get back to stalking high school athletes on Twitter.x8b