So my head­line is a top­ic that can be dis­cussed or ar­gued from now un­til thy king­dom come.

Let’s face it, since the emer­gence of the in­ter­net and so­cial me­dia, the way we com­mu­ni­cate and con­duct our busi­ness has trans­formed in ways we may not have imag­ined 15 years ago or less.

The in­ter­net and so­cial me­dia pro­vide peo­ple with a range of ben­e­fits and op­por­tu­ni­ties to em­pow­er them­selves in a va­ri­ety of ways.

Young and old peo­ple can main­tain so­cial con­nec­tions and sup­port net­works that oth­er­wise wouldn't be pos­si­ble, and can ac­cess more in­for­ma­tion than ever be­fore.

My moth­er, at age 71, is in touch with fam­i­ly mem­bers and old friends more than ever be­fore. She can find cook­ing recipes and flower arrange­ments as well as tune in to her favourite mu­si­cal artistes at any time of day and night while she chills out in the com­fort of her home.

So­cial me­dia net­work­ing is help­ing peo­ple to de­vel­op a voice and build­ing trust, be­com­ing in­de­pen­dent, bet­ter learn­ers and ex­plor­ers. With a sim­ple web con­nec­tion, you can speak to peo­ple in many oth­er coun­tries.

This has brought many con­nec­tions be­tween fam­i­lies, friends, and be­tween fans and ath­letes. With all that aside, there is al­so the side that we don’t al­ways like to talk about. The neg­a­tive end or what may be per­ceived as that based on how you see it.

In Au­gust, JJ Redick, the Philadel­phia NBA star, want­ed a re­set. Like many oth­er sport­ing per­son­al­i­ties, so­cial me­dia was his way of stay­ing cur­rent with the news and keep­ing up with the re­ac­tions and the re­ac­tions to the re­ac­tions. But then he de­cid­ed to erase all his once-beloved apps in­clud­ing his pri­vate In­sta­gram ac­count.

Not long ago, Redick says, he re­flex­ive­ly pulled up so­cial me­dia with­out think­ing about it or even re­al­is­ing it. "It's a dark place," he said of so­cial me­dia. "It's not a healthy place. It's not re­al. It's not a healthy place for ego"—he paus­es slight­ly—"if we're talk­ing about some Freudi­an shit. It's just this cy­cle of anger and val­i­da­tion and trib­al­ism. It's scary, man."

For many of us, it be­comes in­stinc­tu­al now. You’re at the red light, stand­ing in line wait­ing to place your meal or­der or await­ing the next avail­able bank teller and your phone is with­in reach, you’re steer­ing in­to it. Even if you walk out of a room and leave the phone on the ta­ble you re­main aware of where it is. It is an ex­ten­sion of you.

I can still re­call the first day, a na­tion­al team head coach laid down the rule that no mem­ber of the “So­ca War­riors” in­clud­ing staff can turn up at the meet­ing room or for meals with his cell phone. There were times I was for­tu­nate to be let off the hook be­cause my role with­in the team was cen­tred around com­mu­ni­ca­tions. But most times I had to ei­ther step out or leave the phone off.

There are lim­its. The 76ers are one of sev­er­al teams in the NBA that have tried to im­ple­ment "phone buck­ets" or "phone bags" on oc­ca­sion dur­ing team meals. Put the phone in the bag and, you know, have re­al con­ver­sa­tions. "I've been on teams where you lit­er­al­ly don't talk to each oth­er at din­ner," Redick says. "Just six guys on their phones."

In our lo­cal sport­ing world and every­where else it’s com­mon to see peo­ple locked in­to their de­vices.. one the bus, the plane, at the ta­ble. In many ways the love of so­cial me­dia is un­der­stand­able. It of­fers ath­letes a sense of con­trol over the mes­sag­ing, a slice of own­er­ship over their pub­lic im­age. It can open doors and en­ter­tain the mass­es. But how much is too much?

Na­tion­al Team man­agers and team cap­tains use What­sapp groups to com­mu­ni­cate on im­por­tant mat­ters. Peo­ple pro­mote “good vibes” through shar­ing post­ings and im­ages. Teams are putting more ef­fort in­to build­ing a fan base on so­cial me­dia and in­ter­act­ing with fans and that's all good.

"It's this gen­er­a­tion's cig­a­rettes," says Steve Mag­ness, co-au­thor of Peak Per­for­mance and coach to some of the top dis­tance run­ners in the world. "This is where we're go­ing with phones." The deep­er prob­lem, Mag­ness points out, is that we can't vi­su­al­ize the dam­age that mind­less scrolling through Twit­ter, In­sta­gram and Face­book does to our brains.

The more peo­ple you speak to, from top per­son­al­i­ties to the dress­ing room jan­i­tor guy, the con­sen­sus is clear that phone use has nev­er been more preva­lent. It gives al­most every­one a voice that can be heard any­where on the plan­et as com­pared to a cou­ple decades be­fore where the on­ly peo­ple even know­ing you had an opin­ion would have been your im­me­di­ate mates around you or your fam­i­ly mem­bers. Some see it as de­creas­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty lev­els and de­stroy­ing so­cial skills.

So there are the pros and cons of so­cial me­dia, one out­weigh­ing the oth­er per­haps. Once you hit that but­ton, you can’t re­tract what's been said. Or once your at­ten­tion is fo­cused on the phone, you can't get back the mo­ment that passed just be­fore your eyes, un­less of course, you're Phil Con­nors in "Ground­hog Day" and can re­live the mo­ment. It all comes down to if you’re ma­ture enough to use it or have knowl­edge on its con­se­quences.

Shaun Fuentes is a for­mer FI­FA Me­dia Of­fi­cer at the 2010 FI­FA World Cup in South Africa. He is al­so cur­rent­ly a CON­CA­CAF Com­pe­ti­tions Me­dia Of­fi­cer and has trav­elled ex­ten­sive­ly be­cause of sport and me­dia over the past eigh­teen years. He is al­so a cer­ti­fied me­dia train­er for ath­letes.