The Impact of Social Media in our Lives

The youtube video Social Media Saves Valentines Day,shows an exaggerated view of  how our society is becoming increasingly reliant on social media.According to Ombono,a digital marketing firm, if Facebook was a country,it would be the third most populated of the world.The fact that so much our lives is spent online, leads me to  believe that the video is totally plausible. But what is being online? 15 years ago, for the masses, being online entailed be hunkered over a PC in your home or library. Nowadays you can be online while standing in a line waiting to ride a roller coaster and share that experience with your friends via your smartphone. Internet-enabled devices are increasingly proliferant in this day and age ,so more and more people have an online presence. Being humans,we like to share our experiences with others , and this natural instinct has sparked the boom of social media sites.

We use social media to get opinions on what we should buy, where to travel, food recipes,etc. But how much is to much? I believe usage of social media cripples creativity and causes the phenomena of following trends to be more widespread . As Social media continues to revolutionize the way we communicate,it will at  the same time cause our society to lose important social skills along the way. The movie "Surrogates"  shows a world where everyone has  purchased remote controlled humanoid robots through which they interact with society. These fit, good-looking, remotely controlled robots ultimately assume their life roles, enabling people to experience life from the comfort and safety of their own homes. Is that what we are heading towards?Time will tell.

Pro vs. the Joes: The Future of Media

 The future of the media consumption will be greatfully impacted by the proliferation of amateur (The Joes) generated content. Nowadays the  average citizen is able to write blogs, posts videos, and have their content amplified around the world at the click of button. According to WordPress, a blog host, over 100,000 news blogs are created everyday and an average of 500,000 posts are written daily. A significant portion of that number is from amateur or citizen journalists. I believe this sets a dangerous precedent for our society. 


As a journalism student who is an ardent researcher of the goals and methodology behind the "citizen journalism movement", I have grave concerns. Professional journalists are trained from their basic courses in college to vet sources, strive to provide an objective view, and to critically analyze topics from a wide variey of perspectives. Many amateur or citizen journalists tend to write based off opinions and unreliable sources. Then they are able to spread their "tainted" content across the internet with ease.


A great example of this is the BP Oil Spill in 2010. A fake Twitter account @BPGlobalPR was created to mock BP efforts to clean up the oil spill. It posted tweets like "Think about it this way, the ocean is like root beer and oil is like ice cream. We just made America a giant rootbeer float!" The popularity of the account soon soared to 20,000 followers versus the real BPs account of 4,700. BPs attempt provides updates about volunteer efforts, links to video clips and procedures meant to plug the leak spilling oil into the Gulf of Mexico, was overshadowed by this rogue account.  The person who created the false account had no respect to ethical /moral codes of journalism and helped spread disinformation around the web.

Initial thoughts

It's 2012. Gone are the days of snail mail, land line phones and VHS tapes from 1992. Social networking, Internet communities, and new media have changed the way individuals communicate with the world. For instance, I no longer wait by the mailbox for my monthly phone bill: I get a notification on my smartphone. I connect and collaborate with people who have similar interests on Google+. Facebook. Facebook then formally introduce myself on Skype or Oovo. Often times when I hear breaking news, it is on Twitter and not on the front page of a newspaper. I watch movies on Netflix and Hulu that are available on demand. I can write a blog ,tweet,or a post on Facebook that influences millions of people . This concept of interactivity launched radically changed society and challenges me to consider the evolution of how I interact. My frequent usage of social media has changed my life in profound ways, even on a daily basis. Here are two examples.

1. The Way I Influence People – According to the social media analytic website Klout.com, I influence over 3,000 people every day. I'm not a movie star, a mayor, or a music artist. I am just an average citizen. In fact, I'm just a 22-year-old public relations student a small christian university in a rural town of Kentucky! However when I share my photography(check out magnificofoto.com) and other content on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter, I connect with a network of people around the world that has come to value my opinions and beliefs.
2.  How I Communicate with Family and Friends -I also use social media to keep up with my friends and family. I am in the Air Force and I come from a military family. Throughout my lifetime, I have moved around several times due to military service and built a large social network. The creation of instant messaging, websites like Facebook, Skype, Facetime and Myspace was a blessing for me. These services allowed me to keep up with everyone in real-time. When my father was deployed to Iraq, I was able to video chat with him via Yahoo messenger. Over 20 years ago when our nation was involved in the Gulf War, though, this would not have possible. It is amazing that I am able to share my daily life with family and friends all across the world.

Conclusion

Time has shown that social media shaped interaction in the 1990's and early 2000's. Reason has it that a pattern like that is likely to continue. I believe our society is drifting more and more toward where our online lives will dominate our real lives. As we've seen, it already has a strong hold on us. We are able to trade stocks via the internet,telecommute, watch religious service via video feed, see our children via webcam applications on our smartphones and place online grocery-orders to be delivered to our homes. In my opinion, human interaction will continue to decline as we head in 22nd century because of social media. Whether it be for the better or for the worst,only time can tell.- Gerry James