Social media is everywhere. For those of us in the millennial generation, it can often seem completely normal to spend hours of each day picking and perusing our social media website of choice. Even when they are not the main thing on our minds, our online profiles are only a few taps away.

As many point out every day, social media is not just about connecting with old friends and following our interests. It also allows for us to communicate — sometimes not so productively — with complete strangers. Predictably, these communications often focus on well-known figures, including celebrities, politicians and even college athletes.

Some college athletes receive more fame and attention than others. Likewise, the reactions of these players vary a great deal, from those that simply ignore the haters to those that actively participate in senseless Twitter attacks.

One young man — who responded in what is probably the worst way to social media criticism — is the University of Iowa’s Zach McCabe. The senior forward for the Hawkeye basketball team failed to make a shot that would have resulted in a tie late in last Saturday’s matchup between Iowa and Wisconsin, and was promptly attacked on a personal level via Twitter.

Tweeting back a message containing an expletive with the recommendation that his critics “suck a fat one all of you.” McCabe has since deleted the tweet and apologized, but his response is not going to be forgotten.

Iowa coach Fran McCaffery and several Iowa State players have publicly defended McCabe. ISU coach Fred Hoiberg also addressed the issue of social media saying, “It’s a joke that people can sit behind their computer and take a stab at a young kid that’s out there doing the best that he can.”

Hoiberg is absolutely right. When institutions or faceless groups like “the Cyclones” are called out and attacked, it is one thing. With no single person shouldering all of the criticism, such statements can be relatively harmless. When a living, breathing person — especially a young man or woman — is targeted, hate-filled or derogatory comments become much more sinister.

Of course, in athletics, hate-filled and derogatory comments are nothing new. Deafening cheers that would make a sailor blush have been heard on courts and fields around the world, even at the college level.

What makes social media different is that there is no reprieve. While duking it out in a game, players are distracted from most fans’ calls. After the game, when athletes go home, though, they are now subject to the same — if not worse — kind of atmosphere, albeit displayed on a screen and not in roaring chants.

College athletes are not babies, and do not need to be coddled. They are people though, and even the staunchest of us can be worn down by constant attacks on our personal lives.

This has led some teams, recently including the University of Iowa basketball program, to simplify matters by banning players from going to social media sites during their playing season. Other teams, such as Hoiberg’s Cyclones, are instructed to be careful with what they post and, perhaps more importantly, read. Whether or not a program forbids its players from taking to their online profiles, as Iowa State’s Melvin Ejim succinctly said, “It’s unfortunate, but it’s part of the game now, it’s not going anywhere.”

To all of the college athletes out there, it is not fair and we truly are sorry, but until sports fans can learn to act like adults, or a better system of online filtration is implemented, it is best to turn a blind eye toward the critics of social media.