Social Media today has a huge impact on everyone’s day to day life whether it is Facebook, Twitter or any online posting. Our whole day revolves around updating our statuses or checking the social trends. Social Media has already changed so much in the past few years, but I think that it will grow even more as the Baby Boomers become more involved and learn how to use it. It will become second nature and no one will think any differently that it is being forced upon us. I think it will change drastically because now it is integrated in everything we do. Watching the news even our favorite shows they tell you to ``tweet`` and stay connected. It allows companies to advertise themselves freely and using it to receive feedback on how to improve their business. Even having a course like Social Media it will increase the awareness as we grow up and use it to our advantage to be successful business associate. As social media changes in the future they will instill in our brains that we need to keep up with the movement and get us to try new things. Some trends that I would add to the mix are the popularity of these smart phones and how everything you could possibly think of can be done. Searching on the web, playing games and even managing your bank account why would you have to think for yourself anymore everything is at your fingertips. New applications like Instagram will definitely gain popularity because everyone likes to take pictures as milestones to their day to day life. This application allows you to add it to a feed and look at other pictures of the people you decide to follow. As my last posting in my Social Media class I am looking forward to see all the crazy new ways inventors decide how to update technology and use it to their advantage.
Tuesday 10 April 2012
Monday 12 March 2012
According to Malcom Gladwell, a well-known author in the area of social media, social media are built around weak ties and real social change can never come from loose networks of people that do not know each other. Do you think that social media has the potential to bring about real social change?
I believe that social media definitely has the potential to bring about real social change, and it already has with the use of social networking sites. It has helped change the way people think about social interactions. Social media has a great way of getting up to date news on important events that happen around the world. When people update their facebook status or tweet about disasters or charities in other countries it brings awareness around the world.
Many facebook users have a lot of friends and it is just easier to get the word out by sharing or liking a cause than picking up the phone and calling all of your friends. If regular ordinary people use social media in a good way it can bring real change to everyone’s lives. Recently this youtube video called KONY 2012 has brought a lot of attention to the mainstream American social media, in a matter of 48 hours it got over 50 million views. It was a video that inspired millions to fight the cause and donate money to help stop child soldiers in Uganda. Videos like this can just show you how important social media is to us these days and how much it can help.
Non-Profitable originations use facebook also to get people to ``like`` their cause to get online donations. Many famous celebrities don’t realize how powerful social media is and how they can also use it to help out. By using twitter they can post a link and millions of their followers can see and raise awareness to really make a change. Obviously social media can bring negative effects to how people view life by posting bad reviews or talking rubbish, but if we use it the right way we can all make a difference for a better community.
Tuesday 7 February 2012
Do you believe that social media has increased the quality of news and information or decreased it?
The latest news scandal breaks, or a tragic natural disaster takes place, the first thing people do nowadays is taken to social media, to add their own personal opinion. For example “On Nov. 3, 2008, the day before the US presidential election, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama had 2,379,102 Facebook supporters while Republican candidate John McCain had 620,359. Obama had 833,161 MySpace friends and McCain had 217,811. Obama had 384% more Facebook supporters and 383% more MySpace friends than McCain.”[1] Through social media even topics that bore most people like politics can be brought to the forefront. Whether it’s through a tweet, share or like, news and information is popping up everywhere on websites we visit every day, and now even in the palm of our hands! Smartphones increase the volume of information being sent and received because they’re usable on the go. As the amount of information and news being shared through the convenience of social media continues to increase, I believe the contents quality becomes questionable. When we turn to the internet for a report or personal interest, it can take a minimum of three different sources to establish the truth, or an opinion of our own. Websites like Wikipedia contain user-generated content, that can be edited at any time, and tend to create false and biased information. Along side Wikipedia most articles are written from the point of view of one person, expressing their personal opinions and feelings. With the advances of social media it isn’t always negative, the amount of information and news placed effortlessly in front of us has made many people that were regular uninformed individuals, into knowledgeable caring and opinionated citizens of the world’s topics. Social media’s main purpose seems to be participation, giving people the ability to share from all over the world and well on the go. Regardless of the content quality or creditability, the average person’s curiosity will continue the circulation of information and news true or false each and every day. Whether it’s a tweet, like or share, there’s something interesting to be found out there for everyone.
[1] ProCon.org. (2012, January 5th). Are social networking sites good for our society? Retrieved February 7th, 2012.
Monday 9 January 2012
Perception of Social Media
Social media is definitely not a fad and it will continue to grow and take over the views of how people see media. It gives the user instant up-to-date information in what they are searching for. Social media websites like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr allow everyday users to be connected with their friends and family as many times a day they want. They can post on each other’s wall tweet at their friends and share pictures with the world at a click of a button. This is useful to stay connected with what is going on in your life and your friends and families life. Social media can be used to keep in touch with news, sports and whatever you are interested in you can be informed. Business and Celebrities use these social media as tactics in promotion and marketing. Celebrities use social media to let their fans know what they are doing and let them know a little information in how they live their everyday life. Many businesses promote themselves on twitter or make Facebook pages to keep their costumers informed in deals or promotions. The internet has grown rapidly over the past few years and businesses use social media to their advantage. Social Media has changed the way in how the world works by making everything so easy to access. Anywhere you get internet access you can quickly see what everyone is doing and people enjoy that. Since social media is so popular now the younger generation will pass it on and it will become even bigger than we imagine. It is crazy the endless possibilities and ideas that they can come up with to make social media even better. It is just amazing to think of what can come of social media in the future and how it will change everyone’s life completely; for the better or the worse no one knows….
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