I personally use it to keep in touch with family and friends, and keep up to date with things I find interesting, like my favourite bands. It's definitely more convenient for small businesses to reach a larger audience, considering that it's free advertising. It also helps larger businesses stay more directly in touch with their consumer base.
On the other hand, social media is a tool not to be taken lightly. There comes great responsibility with having the power to connect to anyone, upload any picture, or post any statement. It is slowly teaching people to be more careful, and exhibit better judgment when deciding what they want the connected world to see.
Would the world today be crippled without it, though? Not really. People would just go back to getting their news from the TV, radio, newspapers, internet, etc. Connecting with others would revert to just phone calls, instant messaging, emails, essentially slower methods of communicating. The world would just be a little slower, and go back to being more private. And of course, TMZ would be out of business.
Those are some very interesting insights you have. I agree that it is very convenient for small businesses to be able to have platform to be able to start off on instead of having to pay ridiculous advertising fees to get their business any sort of publicity. Although i believe it is useful for large businesses as well. It can be nice for consumers to be able to communicate with a business, whether it be Facebook or Twitter, and give feedback to big businesses on their products. I suppose that it would still be manageable by sending a letter to the company but being able to post review in a public setting and having other consumers able to see the kind of feedback a company is receiving and make a more informed decision on whether or not to support this company can be very helpful as well.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the world could get along without social media, possibly, but then we would also miss out on all the great art forms, be it music, video, paintings or sculptors, that have been created by people and posted on social networking sites. If we didnt have social media we could have missed out on probably the worlds largest collection of art in history. I for one wouldnt want to miss out on that, even if it did mean TMZ wouldnt exist anymore. =P
Good job with the post. Some good points you have made. I Agree that it is very convenient for businesses to keep contact with there clients. I think if social media went away it will take a huge blow. I think people now a day are so caught up with celebrates what they are doing and also with Facebook and twitter. I don't think that it will go back to normal that easy. I think we need to slowly decrease social media ease people back into the older means of getting news.
ReplyDeleteStill very good post
I do say Karissa. I would have to politely disagree with this. I believe that the world would be a much different place without social media as it has now shaped the younger generation and how businesses around the world interact with them. The feedback from the end user of products has also caused products to go in directions the world would never have seen if not for social media.
ReplyDeleteHey Karissa! You raise some very good points in your blog. It was definitely a good read. I would have to agree with most of your post, although I would have to disagree with the part about how society wouldn't be crippled without it. If social media had just disappeared, it would be hard for people to revert or adapt to new (old?) ways. It would be like if you took a person out of society and told them to survive in the wild on their own.
ReplyDelete~ Peter
Interesting views on the matter. I especially like how you point out that social media in itself is not the biggest shift since the industrial age. I am too lazy to find out if there is any ages between the Industrial Age and the Current Digital Age; but if there is not, than the Digital Age as a whole is the biggest shift... Not just social media.
ReplyDeleteIn light of the types of jobs formed from social media, I would have to disagree with the fact that social media would have a small effect if it suddenly disappeared. People would revert back to slower forms of communication, but I don't believe the impact would be so small to those who built a career on these types of communication.
ReplyDeleteOther than that, I agree with you. Nice post.