Thursday, December 23, 2010
Friday, December 17, 2010
what are the implications of increasingly widespread use of social media?
Twitter. Blogspot. Formspring. Facebook. Myspace. Xanga. These commercial website have been taking over the internet for years. As soon as we get used to one website, another one pops out begging us to use them. We can’t help but to give in. We love the thrill of being able to post pictures, comments and statuses. We love the power to be friends with who we want to be friends with, and block the people that we hate. This is the revolution we have been waiting for. The internet is taking over our society. We find ourselves more concerned with checking Facebook, than going out and doing something of use. We spend countless hours on the computer every day ‘creeping’ on the people we envy, or viewing pictures that our friends have tagged us in. We find ourselves so obsessed with updating the latest news in our lives, posting comments that agree with other friends, or tagging pictures of a weekend gone wrong. This is why we are consumed by these websites. The more popular these websites get, the more people join. The more people that join, the more popular the website gets. We are constantly advertising these websites for others, and we don’t even realize it. Websites like these are taking over, and nobody knows.
Earlier in this class, I learned that if Facebook was a country, it would be the fourth most populated country in the world. That’s not the fourth biggest state in South America. That’s not the fourth biggest city in a state. That’s the fourth biggest country in the entire world. What kind of a world do we live in where Facebook controls our lives to the point that so many people have activated an account? That Facebook has enough users to be a country? That’s huge. The internet continues to get more and more popular with every day that passes. As the days go by, more and more things are added to the internet, and taken out of any other kind of media. For example, most newspapers are now available on the internet. Yes, it helps save trees. Yes, it’s a nice thing because you don’t have all this newspaper lying around your house. But, at what cost? Many people have now cancelled their newspaper subscriptions because the newspaper in readily available online, and for free. What are all the paper boys going to do? How are teenagers trying to snag some extra cash going to cope?
The widespread use of the internet continues to get worse. As more material emerges onto the internet, we find ourselves spending time sitting at our computers, watching the latest episode of Glee or Jersey Shore, rather than watching it on TV when it’s actually on, and doing something more useful. We are consumed by the internet and check it multiple times a day, really for no reason at all other than to upload a picture, update a status, or comment on someone else’s page. It’s getting to the ridiculous stage. They say with certain things, that once you start it’s impossible to stop. With the way things are going, I fear we will all become addicted with the internet more than we already have been, and life will start to be lived virtually rather than for ourselves.
Earlier in this class, I learned that if Facebook was a country, it would be the fourth most populated country in the world. That’s not the fourth biggest state in South America. That’s not the fourth biggest city in a state. That’s the fourth biggest country in the entire world. What kind of a world do we live in where Facebook controls our lives to the point that so many people have activated an account? That Facebook has enough users to be a country? That’s huge. The internet continues to get more and more popular with every day that passes. As the days go by, more and more things are added to the internet, and taken out of any other kind of media. For example, most newspapers are now available on the internet. Yes, it helps save trees. Yes, it’s a nice thing because you don’t have all this newspaper lying around your house. But, at what cost? Many people have now cancelled their newspaper subscriptions because the newspaper in readily available online, and for free. What are all the paper boys going to do? How are teenagers trying to snag some extra cash going to cope?
The widespread use of the internet continues to get worse. As more material emerges onto the internet, we find ourselves spending time sitting at our computers, watching the latest episode of Glee or Jersey Shore, rather than watching it on TV when it’s actually on, and doing something more useful. We are consumed by the internet and check it multiple times a day, really for no reason at all other than to upload a picture, update a status, or comment on someone else’s page. It’s getting to the ridiculous stage. They say with certain things, that once you start it’s impossible to stop. With the way things are going, I fear we will all become addicted with the internet more than we already have been, and life will start to be lived virtually rather than for ourselves.
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