Social Media, In the Future

In the future social media will change by becoming more closely connected to the user. For example in the future your social media identity and your real identity will be exactly the same. To further elaborate in this current age people do not put completely accurate information on their social media accounts because they prefer to keep certain things private. I believe in the future social media will become so popular that your social media account will be how people how identify and perceive you. Therefore someone will be putting more accurate details about themselves because there social media accounts are a mirror of themselves. Lying about yourself on your social media account will be against the law because it will be considered similar to lying about yourself on your driver’s license or health card.  In this current time many employers will check your Facebook page before hiring you.  However in the future all employers will check your Facebook page before hiring you. This also applies to any other situation where you have to apply for something. Another example would be applying for a mortgage or to a university. In the future literally everyone will have some sort of social media account. Not having a social media account will be considered weird and old fashioned.

Specific technologies that will most likely gain popularity or emerge will be smart phone implants. People already use smartphones to better access social media. For example most modern smartphones give you access to a Facebook app that lets you receive Facebook notifications and updates on the go. I believe in the future people will have their smartphones implanted into their bodies. This way they can have constant access to social media and they will never lose their phones. 

In conclusion in the future social media will become so popular that it will be recognized by everyone as an essential part of there lives.

Social Media, Potential for Social Change?

I do think that social media has the potential to bring about real social change. The main reason I believe that is humans are naturally social creatures. This means they will always try to form bonds with people that they don’t even know. The key to social change is cooperation between large amounts of people. Social media is the perfect outlet for this type of communication. 

Based on my conclusion I disagree with the view of Malcom Gladwell who is a well-known author in the area of social media. Malcom believes that social media is built around weak social ties and that these ties are not strong enough to bring change.

To further prove my point there have already been many examples of human beings tapping into their natural sense of community to bring about world change. For example in Lebanon, social media was one of the driving forces in bringing down the government there. The citizens of Lebanon posted videos and articles of the government’s unethical and wrong actions. The government has no control over social media. As a result they could not censor the citizens of Lebanon. The videos and articles helped the people of Lebanon truly realize how bad things had gotten. This led to a protest which led to the overthrowing of the government.

As mentioned above social media is free from government censorship. This means that if someone posts something incriminating about the government on a social media site the government cannot censor that information. Other forms of media do not have this same advantage. For example the CBC is a crown corporation and is government funded which means the government can decide what the CBC presents.

In conclusion social media has the potential to bring about real social change because of the nature of people and because social media is free from government censorship.

Social Media, An Increase or Decrease In Quality?

I believe that social media has increased the quality of news and information. Social media just like the free market is based off of competition. For example when a company is faced with competition from another company its market share is at risk. This causes the company to improve their selection of goods and services in some way in order to maintain their market share. This same principle also applies to the way news companies and social media operates. 

Social media allows everyday people to become their own news reporters. This influx of news sources has created large amounts of competition for news companies. This increase of competition has forced news companies to increase their quality and accessibility of their news in order to compete. 

News companies have increased their quality of news by integrating twitter into their news programs in order to appeal to a larger audience. For example the CBC has their own twitter feed and often addresses questions by their twitter followers on their television channel. News companies have increased accessibility by introducing podcasts so people who don’t have the time to watch their television show or listen to their radio station can still receive news information. News companies also has their own facebook page as well so people can learn about what’s happening with the CBC while there on facebook.

By combing the social media and news companies together people get to experience the best of both worlds therefore creating the highest quality of news information. 

Here is a link to the CBC’s twitter feed if you are interested: http://twitter.com/cbcnews

Social Media, A Fad Or The Biggest Shift Since The Industrial Revolution?

I would honestly say that social media is not just a fad but really is the biggest shift since the industrial revolution. My reason for this conclusion is social media has completely changed the way society operates by changing the way people communicate and share information.  For example people can communicate with other people in a very causal and informal manner. This also allows people that are far away from each other to develop and maintain high level relationships. Before the invention of social media doing these things would be much more difficult and perhaps not possible at all. An example of this would be having a friend in Egypt and only being able to talk to him through conventional means such as phone, mail etc. The problem is calling someone long distance costs a lot of money and with mail you don’t really get a true sense of how the person is truly living. You don’t get to learn how they are feeling from an hour to hour basis. You also don’t get to see as many pictures of the things they are doing. Not to mention you and your other friends cannot communicate with that person as easily and receive all the same benefits mentioned above. In conclusion social media has changed the way people communicate which puts it on the same level as the industrial revolution for changing the way people communicate as well because the telephone was invented and was made available to the general population during the industrial revolution.

Just like the industrial revolution which changed the way people work, social media has done the same thing. Social media has vastly expanded the e-commerce industry by allowing marketing personnel to market their products much more effectively online due to the increased amount of social media users. Companies can now open up their own social media accounts and better communicate special sales and discounts to people. Essentially social media has changed the marketing industry which puts in on the same level as the industrial revolution for changing the manufacturing industry. 

I'm not the only one who agrees how important and life changing social media has become, check out this article by the CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/airplay/episodes/2011/06/20/vancouver-riots-signal-new-era-for-social-media/