With social networking comes strengths and weaknesses that we all observe today and with that comes the necessity of responsibility in technological use. Some ways that social networking is useful in any setting is communication. Corporate wise, communication on these modules on a specific level, like a network for only those who work within a certain department of company or who works for a specific business in general. This can be great on the Facebook format, where we see people who can only join a specific network if they have ties to it and can post on group or network only walls or feeds. Personal wise, family, friends, and online acquaintances who enjoy the same interests or whatever else, can have discussions amongst each other. For family and friends, lets say if a person lost their phone, they could alert family or friends that they did so and keep in contact. With online friends, they could keep in contact through media like Flickr and Twitter to keep in contact and know whats going on in each other's lives. Another way in a business sense, is to advertise for current and new customers. If a company has a social media presence, this is usually taken of by its own department of media relations or PR, public relations. Where its the social relation manager and workers jobs to get brand presence out there, reach out to new customers, keep in contact with old customers, and basically to generate tons of interest in a brand or company, however and whenever they can. This is usually done everyday on places like Twitter, where a brand has personnel like the social media managers who answer queries, post new news about the brand, and help with customer service with online orders and issues.
These are all great benefits but they also extend to society as a whole. Its this idea of communication amongst everyone and sort of promoting a loose sense of democracy, in which, everyone has an opinion and can voice it on any of the social networking websites. They could post videos, photos, documents, etc. Not to mention, on twitter, there was an Amazon problem where they red flagged and removed LGBT community books from their bestseller searches due to them being "adult situations" but with other romance novels not being flagged, it showed a sort of sexist-orientation discrimination. In the New York Times article for the story, there was "nearly two days of angry online commentary, particularly on Twitter"(Rich, 2009). Meaning people constantly spoke about it that news reports and newspapers like NYT and critics picked up wind of what was happening. Just think that without social media, a lot of discrimination or issues would in fact, go uncheck or necessary up to the minute news would have to wait until it surfaces on newspapers, online publications, magazines, 5 o clock national news (which only hosts mostly sensationalized national news, not so much local) and not to forget, the news now has a link with Social media to discuss in a segment what is trending hotly on twitter and other social media formats. This is evident in the fact that with that same news awareness picked up by the New York Times, made it become a headline in the fact that "Thousands of Twitter users included the tag “#amazonfail” in their messages on the subject, pushing it onto rankings of the most popular topics on the site and drawing in other users" (Rich, 2009). This shows the importance or emergence of media on society and news.
But with such freedom can come the hatefulness or problems of society that in fact, rears its ugly head online and why the necessity of reporting links of spam and abuse with moderation from site monitors is needed. People's privacy in lieu of information and data leaks, hacking of accounts especially social media accounts to seek information about a person (stealing of passwords, which may be common passwords used across a span of webpages), bullying or belitting others online that dont share the same opinions, stereotyping someone through how their profile picture looks, or content on their social media pages, internet trolls that cause havoc and do all of things listed before, and the real life relationships that can deteriorate because of so much time spent with virtual friends or strangers that you sometimes have no clue who is behind the screen. With so much time spent on the net, "today’s youths may be missing out on experiences that help them develop empathy, understand emotional nuances and read social cues like facial expressions and body language" (Stout, 2010). They can become so engrossed on this fantasy or escape from reality online that they might ignore the reality that is really online. What also results is they may like virtual reality better than the real world, essentially preferring online people who they feel cannot hurt them from behind a computer screen and can lose touch with communicating one on one with a real person, and lose those charismatic skills.
With social media there is upsides and downsides to its uses and effects as a result of those uses. If I were to say something about the future of this technology, there will be a lot more uses, sometimes connecting with people entirely online like apple applications of Facetime or conference calling without actually meeting the person will become the norm. But you cannot really get to know the person and their gestures that hold their underlying motives and personality, or aura in a sense. I think with these negative uses with good moderation and the education of technology and different walks of life people will have the new generation, these technologies can be a big help within the confines of society and be a place where people can continue to interact. But hey, maybe Twitter can include games that people can play amongst each other, or graphic games like an XBOX live or such, where a mass amount of people can play and discuss not only the game but things they are currently experiencing in life, sharing jokes, and the latest episode of Survivor or Big Brother.
Works Cited
These are all great benefits but they also extend to society as a whole. Its this idea of communication amongst everyone and sort of promoting a loose sense of democracy, in which, everyone has an opinion and can voice it on any of the social networking websites. They could post videos, photos, documents, etc. Not to mention, on twitter, there was an Amazon problem where they red flagged and removed LGBT community books from their bestseller searches due to them being "adult situations" but with other romance novels not being flagged, it showed a sort of sexist-orientation discrimination. In the New York Times article for the story, there was "nearly two days of angry online commentary, particularly on Twitter"(Rich, 2009). Meaning people constantly spoke about it that news reports and newspapers like NYT and critics picked up wind of what was happening. Just think that without social media, a lot of discrimination or issues would in fact, go uncheck or necessary up to the minute news would have to wait until it surfaces on newspapers, online publications, magazines, 5 o clock national news (which only hosts mostly sensationalized national news, not so much local) and not to forget, the news now has a link with Social media to discuss in a segment what is trending hotly on twitter and other social media formats. This is evident in the fact that with that same news awareness picked up by the New York Times, made it become a headline in the fact that "Thousands of Twitter users included the tag “#amazonfail” in their messages on the subject, pushing it onto rankings of the most popular topics on the site and drawing in other users" (Rich, 2009). This shows the importance or emergence of media on society and news.
But with such freedom can come the hatefulness or problems of society that in fact, rears its ugly head online and why the necessity of reporting links of spam and abuse with moderation from site monitors is needed. People's privacy in lieu of information and data leaks, hacking of accounts especially social media accounts to seek information about a person (stealing of passwords, which may be common passwords used across a span of webpages), bullying or belitting others online that dont share the same opinions, stereotyping someone through how their profile picture looks, or content on their social media pages, internet trolls that cause havoc and do all of things listed before, and the real life relationships that can deteriorate because of so much time spent with virtual friends or strangers that you sometimes have no clue who is behind the screen. With so much time spent on the net, "today’s youths may be missing out on experiences that help them develop empathy, understand emotional nuances and read social cues like facial expressions and body language" (Stout, 2010). They can become so engrossed on this fantasy or escape from reality online that they might ignore the reality that is really online. What also results is they may like virtual reality better than the real world, essentially preferring online people who they feel cannot hurt them from behind a computer screen and can lose touch with communicating one on one with a real person, and lose those charismatic skills.
With social media there is upsides and downsides to its uses and effects as a result of those uses. If I were to say something about the future of this technology, there will be a lot more uses, sometimes connecting with people entirely online like apple applications of Facetime or conference calling without actually meeting the person will become the norm. But you cannot really get to know the person and their gestures that hold their underlying motives and personality, or aura in a sense. I think with these negative uses with good moderation and the education of technology and different walks of life people will have the new generation, these technologies can be a big help within the confines of society and be a place where people can continue to interact. But hey, maybe Twitter can include games that people can play amongst each other, or graphic games like an XBOX live or such, where a mass amount of people can play and discuss not only the game but things they are currently experiencing in life, sharing jokes, and the latest episode of Survivor or Big Brother.
Works Cited
- Rich, M. (2009, April 13). Amazon Says Error Removed Listings. New York Times. Retrieved November 11, 2014, from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/technology/internet/14amazon.html
- Stout, H. (2010, April 30). Antisocial Networking. New York Times. Retrieved November 11, 2014, from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/fashion/02BEST.html?_r=0
No comments:
Post a Comment