Social media does more than just give us something to do between Netflix episodes and provide hilarious cat pictures. It is a way to connect and collaborate with the people around us. It serves as a medium for modern relationships. It’s how you can get away with not calling your mom for three weeks by posting something cute on her Facebook wall.

However, like all good things, social media has its down sides. Even aside from more extreme instances of misuse it can serve to divide friends and whole communities.

Additionally, it has been reputed to have potentially negative effects on academic performance. I can personally attest that my current GPA has taken a BuzzFeed arrow straight to the knee.

One recent example of the potentially-damaging interpersonal effects of social media was the Great Dress Scandal of 2015.

You see, no matter where a person comes from, there are some things in life we here at Washington State University all share. A heartbeat. A love for the Cougs. And a vehement opinion regarding the color palette of a certain blue (or gold?) dress.

Arguably, never before in a long and storied history of girls taking camera-phone pictures of clothing has one incited such rage and controversy. However, with exponentially increasing technology and one ambiguously lit photograph, the Internet managed to take a dress and bring much bigger issues to light.

Such as the fact that our friendships are not as strong as we had thought, considering that sometimes all it takes is an inanimate piece of cloth to divide them.

This outrage is not confined solely to Tumblr and oddly-lit department stores. Similar fury can be found every day on social platforms like Yik Yak, where anonymous users shout to the void their opinions and observations, and vehemently argue with or down-vote their critics.

What’s more important is not just that we now have a wealth of cyber-hotbeds that can take the littlest thing and blow them out of proportion. People have and will always find ways to express their discontent or differing opinions on any and every issue.

I am sure even cavemen would leave the occasional passive-aggressive charcoal note.

Just because we now have a slightly more efficient manner of arguing doesn’t mark the apocalyptic end of healthy social interaction, it simply provides a more effective and oftentimes hilarious means of getting the argument over with.

Regardless of whether you think the dress is blue and black, or whether you need to get your eyes checked, at the end of the day we are all Cougs, and the only color selection that is truly wrong is purple and gold.