New media, ever evolving
and continuously morphing is all around us. From the Internet overall to micro
blogging sites, new media allows on-demand access to content anytime, anywhere,
on any digital device as well as interactive user feedback, creative
participation and community formation around the media content.
Upon initial thought of
what new media I use on a daily basis my gut response is just Facebook as a way
to keep in touch with friends and family. Given more thought, it more of a
small list including my iPhone, Gmail, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Pinterest,
YouTube, Linkedin as the other main sites I use on a day-to-day basis.
Social media communication
tools have profoundly changed our lives and how we interact with one another.
When you just wake up and open your eyes, you don’t have to walk outside to get
the newspaper, just take your phone and scan the Internet or your newsfeed on
Facebook. If you want to listen to music or see a music video just go to
YouTube. Our friends on social media are increasingly becoming trusted sources
of information through social media. I can’t recall how many times I was
informed of something because a friend of mine posted it on Facebook.
Social media has not only
influences how we meet and stay in touch with people, its influenced how we
reveal ourselves. Before the goal with communication was to reveal very little,
now the shift is to be more transparent with our thoughts and feelings, to
reveal our humanness. Some using today’s social media communication tools as if
it was their own personal diary, where some tend to share too much.
These social media
communication tools and the constant sharing of information allow me to have
access to so much content. This increased content allows me to take it all in and
develop my own perspective on events of topic on social media sites.
However, with this inundation
of content it is difficult to weed out what is credible from what is a hoax,
scam, opinion, or just incorrect information.
I think social media has
both positive and negative influences? For me it allows me to stay in touch
with those I want to remain connected to despite not living close together. It
keeps my up on what’s going on in the world to include breaking news events.
On the other hand the
constant sharing of information tends to overwhelm me to where I tend to not
want to engage or pay attention to the information scrolling across my screen. It
some cases it forces me to disengage for periods of time.
It will be interesting and
a little scary to see the evolution of new media and how our society
communicates with each other.
I really enjoyed reading your blog. I like how you mentioned that social media is enables us to reveal our humanness in a more open and transparent way than many older modes of communication. I also agree with you that having access to such a wide array of content gives us the ability piece together unique insights and perspectives that would not have been possible for us to form otherwise. However, as you pointed out, this also runs the risk of giving us information overload causing us to tune out much of the information we may be receiving. This can have a particularly adverse impact when our efforts to tune out false information tunes out the truly valuable information along with it. Often, it is difficult to distinguish the two from one another because they look so alike in the new media environment. Hopefully this course will teach us how to decipher which information we should be tuning out and which information we should keep. -P. Fernandez
ReplyDeleteAddie - I agree with you that social media can be overwhelming. I like the positive aspects, but like you, I wonder the long-term effects on how kids will grow up and interact with others in the future.
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