Blog Project
1)
One concern concerning new media is that you
never know who you are really talking to. Social Media is great for connecting
with family and friends and even meeting new people through the vastness of the
internet. The problem with this is that anyone can make a profile pretending to
be another person for whatever reason this may be. Some do it to protect their
identity for the proper reasons of not wanting their personal information to
get into the wrong hands, while others do it based purely for malicious intendment.
This deviant activity can range from a whole variety of things, such as
starting online arguments for fun. Another possibility would be a person
creating a false identity in or to win another’s affection and create deceptive
online romances. These people are more commonly referred to as a “catfish.” It
is easily over looked how complacent we have come when browsing over social
media sites. With Facebook and Twitter both surpassing their 5 year anniversaries
respectively, many of their users take them for granted and have come
accustomed to a lack of authenticity in online profiles and identities (Mier). As social media grows older, its users must
also become more comfortable with the uses of it and be more knowledgeable and
understanding of the negative effects. It is up to us as internet users to take
basic precautions when surfing the seeming less endless supply of information
across the internet. The internet is now owned by any one person(s) or company so
there are not any rules in place, just an unwritten law that most people
follow. It is relied upon us to be aware and make the internet/social media
sites a safer place for us all.
2)
As cell phones have progressed to what we call
smart phones, the availability of the internet and social media sites have
increased. With these various apps have been created such as ones that are
shortcuts right to your favorite social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.
With these social media sites right at our fingertips via our smart phones, the
problem of how much time is being spent on these sites arises. This has been
noticed by many especially work places that’s why many places of employment
have rules implemented that cell phone use is prohibited. To some this may be
the largest drawback of social media but others see this as just the evolution
of the “water cooler talks” (Wade). This is a very valid point because it is
not as if before cell phones and social media everyone was a productive worker,
working at maximum efficiency. Yes social media sites to cause many to spend a
duration on their 8 hour work day searching through the numerous posts of their
peers, but how does this differ from talking to your co-workers for endless
amounts of time about the game last night or how much distaste you have towards
your boss. Also just about all of us
have worked with a cigarette smoker who every half hour to an hour has to go
outside for their periodic smoke break. While social media does kill productivity
among some, productivity has been being crippled long before in many shapes and
forms. Social media just happens to be the newest way so what better way to
talk about it other than through social media sites (kind of ironic if you think
about it).
3)
One thing that people need to be hesitant about
when using social media sites is that anything you post can leak out. Perception
is everything when you are trying to build your social profile both in the
digital and real world. What may seem like a harmless night out with some
friends could be seen as a potential red flag to employers. With advancements
in technology and social media, there is no such thing as privacy. Just about
everyone has access to a camera and a platform in which to share their photography
skills in the making. Think before you post. Just because you feel strongly
about something, think of the repercussions that may come along with it. A
personal opinion about a certain race or religion may seem valid to you, but
once it’s posted for the world to see, you are allowing yourself to be judged
by all. There is certain information you don’t want to put out on social media
especially personal information as stated by Ieng-Fat Lam when they said “Disclosing
personal information in online social network services is a double-edged sword.
Information exposure is usually a plus, even a must, if people want to
participate in social communities; however, leakage of personal information,
especially one's identity, may invite malicious attacks from the real world and
cyberspace, such as stalking, reputation slander, personalized spamming and
phishing.” (Lam). Lam and her team would go on to collect information from a
site called Wretch which is the largest social networking site in Taiwan and
the results they found were astonishing. In 592,548 effective profiles that were
collected, the first name of 72% of the accounts and the full name of 30% of
the accounts could be easily inferred. The age of 15% of the account holders
and at least one school attended by 42% of the holders could also be inferred.
If you think of the basic application for just about anything in your life, most
of the information that you are filling out you unknowingly put out to the
masses. What on the outside may seem harmless as being friends with your mom on
facebook, if you dive deeper you can see that she puts her maiden name up so
friends of hers before her marriage can find her. Now any person looking to
steal your indentify can easily find this and all depending on how much information
you leak, this person now has your name, date of birth, hometown, schools attended/graduated,
mother’s maiden name, names of pets and possible likes and dislikes. With all
this information on hand a criminal can use this for all sorts of wrong doing. It
all comes back to the think before you post method and you may be able to avoid
the hassles that come with identity theft.
4)
Cyber bullying has become a large focal point of
negativity over the past couple of years. With news stories popping up all over
the place of teens committing suicide because of harsh words said to them
across the varying social network platforms. There are many statistics that go
into the negatives of cyber bullying and how much of an affect it has on today’s
teens. Internet Safety 101 has found that 85% of youth ages 13-17 have a social
networking site. Of that group 52% of their parents worry that their child will
be bullied over social networks and 1 in 6 parents know their child has been
bullied over social networking site. One million children alone were harassed
or threatened on Facebook in 2011. Girls tend to bully more (59%) than compared
to boys (41%). With social networking sites it becomes a lot easier to bully
because you can do it from the comfort and safety of your home, also to most
kids they don’t think it will get back to them as it would if said in a
classroom or school hallway. Reasons kids seem to resort to cyber bullying are
to show off to friends, to be mean, to embarrass people, for fun or
entertainment, they deserve it and last of all to get back at someone. Whatever
these reasons may be, none of them are acceptable. Bullying has been around for
just about as long as schools have been around and it almost seems like it is human
nature. The real problem is not the bullying because that is seemingly always
going to be there but more of how kids handle it and go about things. Bullying
seemingly leads to that child taking it out on another or in even worse cases,
suicide. So as opposed to educating kids on cyber bullying I believe that we
should educate on how to handle being bullied because in reality if a child
learns not to take things being said to them to heart it actually lowers the effectiveness
of bullying. This is my personal opinion but if bullying doesn’t affect someone
than bullying is more likely to die down to a certain extent. It is the same as
if someone is to make fun of you for being an orphan even though you are not,
you really don’t care, and the same can be done with bullying. Teach kids self acceptance
and not to worry about the thoughts of others and we will see a different
school life for a lot of kids.
5)
When on the internet another thing and maybe the
key thing to be aware of is false information. With all the new forms of social
media and the large number of people that amass them, false information can
spread like wild fire. For example a story that is prominently in the news
right now is the details on the missing Malaysia Airlines jet. One of the most
damaging rumors to come out of this story was shortly after the jet that was
carrying 239 people was that it had indeed landed due to an emergency
(Pepitone). This is terrible because it was not accurate information and there was
loved one and friends waiting to hear news of what may have happened to the
plane and if they read this, they may have gotten their hopes up. Another large
rumor that spread via social media was the status of Barrack Obama’s
citizenship. Many rumors have circulated about our president being that people
now have a platform in which to try and ruin ones perception and credentials amongst
the public.
6)
Most of you have heard of a little app called
Instagram. If you haven’t, it is time that you check it out. Instagram is a
neat little app that allows you to take photos and share them instantly with
all of your followers. What makes Instagram even better are all the filters and
styles that you can apply to your photo to make it look as professional as you
want. There are many compelling arguments for Instagram but I think Nate Bolt
states it best when he says “The real clever part of Instagram is the audience
component. Most articles tend to focus on the social or community aspect of the
Instagram app, but labeling it a social networking tool is a mistake, because
it’s not just social. It’s about having an audience for what you produce, and
participating in an audience for other peoples’ photos.” To break Instagram
down, just about anyone can take professional looking photos and share them
amongst people who happen to be into that type of photo via hash tags. What
makes it popular is the supply and demand. You take a picture of a cat and
throw in a “#cat” to your photo, anyone looking for cat pictures may come across
this photo now. The convenience of it is that it uses your smart phone so now
there is no longer a need to carry around that brick of a digital camera in
order to capture great photos.
7)
Another big up and coming apps is Snapchat. I
recently have become a part of the Snapchat community and I am a fan. Being
able to contort my face to any number of weird looking shapes, take a picture,
and send it to friends with a clever little caption is a lot more fun than
texting and more personal. Some of the reasons why Instagram has caught on with
the masses are that it is easily accessible, increased engagement with people,
maintained privacy of users, pictures speak louder than words, not too much censorship,
and you are able to share moments as they come (Scott). I find it very common
to send a Snapchat my friend’s way with the same message I was going to text
them but instead a goofy picture or video of myself comes with it. We all love
things personalized, it makes us feel more special.
8)
This may not be considered new media to some
being that it has been around for quite some time now but to me videogames fall
into the new media category due to the fact that they are ever evolving and
becoming more and more interactive with our social lives. Years ago you would
play videogames in the comfort of your house and that was about it. Now with
the internet there are whole online worlds built and predicated on people
interacting with each other through one another’s avatar. I myself am a gamer
and I love that face that I can turn on my Xbox, send a party invite to my
friends who are online and play away. Many of my friends have moved throughout
the country but now we can throw on our headsets and party up and play some Halo
and it is as if we are sitting next to each other on the couch even though we
are separated by thousands of miles. Videogames are one of the biggest if not
the biggest industries in the world. In 2010, the economy was in dismal
condition but videogames sales alone amassed a staggering $18.58 billion
(Elise). It has become more and more evident just how large the gaming industry
and how broad it is, that is why you see more and more videogames being made
into movies. Also companies have realized the potential audience there and have
started to advertise in videogames. You can be walking an apocalyptic wasteland
and stumble across and tattered billboard for the new Dodge Charger. So despite videogames having been around for
some time, they have still adopted to the modern society to remain relevant. I
even read an article in one of my gaming magazines a couple years back that a
couple was married over the World of Warcraft mass multiplayer online (MMO)
game. That is pushing a little too far if you ask me but whatever floats your
boat I guess.
9)
Another up and coming social media site is
called Thumb. “Thumb is a social media site where posters are able to get
instant feedback from other users. Users can post questions and ask for
feedback about clothes, movies, music, books and recipes. Other users can give
them a thumbs up or thumbs down in seconds and post additional comments.”As
stated by SheDaye Brown. This is a pretty cool idea especially if you are sick
of Facebook. It is an alternative where you can reach a broader group of people
besides just your friends. I find this very helpful for something like movie so
you don’t have to spend your hard earned cash to see a movie and find out it
was not up to par with what you were looking for. Instead you can ask others opinions
and get feedback instantly on what they thought about it because to me movie
reviews are never very helpful. Some of the worst reviewed movies I thoroughly enjoyed
because I am not a snobby theater or cinematography major so certain lighting
or camera angles don’t really matter all that much to me.
10)
One last social media site that is also on the
up and up that has caught my attention is Medium. Medium is a blogging platform
where people can express themselves how they like and their audience is already
built-in (Brown). Writers can publish their stories in which they are connected
to others with similar stories or content. These other users then can give
feedback and critic your work for you and maybe give incite on how to enhance
your work. I find this great for if you have ideas build up or story boards
that you want to get out there to see how others would react to it, it is
almost like a sample group. Instead of jumping into something head first you can
through your work out there to see how others who share a common interest in it,
react and give feedback to it. Me personally I consider myself very comedic. I
have actually performed once at a standup comedy event which was completely spontaneous
but that’s a whole other story. I have been told by many of my teachers and
professors if school doesn’t work out just go into comedy (as if there is a
school or classes to take for that). One I find intriguing with Medium is that I
can write up a comedy skit and then post it and see how the “crowd” reacts. If
it is actually funny or if it misses its target. This to me is a great way to “proofread”
your work before diving in completely.
Works Cited
1)
Bolt, Nate. Why
Instagram is so Popular: Quality, Audience, & Constraints. Tech Crunch.
page<http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/27/why-instagram-is-so-popular/>. Web.
27 November 2011.
2)
Brown, SheDaye. Four up and coming social media sites you have never heard of.
Sundial. page<http://sundial.csun.edu/2014/02/four-up-and-coming-social-media-sites-youve-never-heard-of/>.
Web. 5 February 2014.
3)
“Cyberbullying Statistics.” Internet Safety 101.
Enough is Enough. page<http://www.internetsafety101.org/cyberbullyingstatistics.htm>.
Web. 2010
4)
Elise,
Abigail. Video Games and Social Media.
Social Media Week. page<http://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2011/10/video-games-and-social-media/#.UznTzPldWuI>.
Web. 25 October 2011.
5)
Lam,
Ieng-Fat, and Chen, Kuan-Ta, and Chen, Ling-Jyh. Involuntary Information Leakage in Social Network Services. page<http://www.iis.sinica.edu.tw/~swc/pub/information_leakage_socialnets.html>.
Web. 12 February 2014.
6)
Mier,
Joe. Fake Identities in Social Media.
Masters of Media. page<http://www.mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/2012/11/14/fake-identities-in-social-media/>.
Web. 14 November 2012.
7)
Pepitone,
Julianne. Social Media Spread False
Reports of Safe Landing. NBC News. page<http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/missing-jet/social-media-spread-false-reports-safe-landing-n48081>.
Web. 8 March 2014.
8)
Scott,
Mark. 10 Reasons Why SnapChat is a
Success. Socialmedia Today. page<http://socialmediatoday.com/docmarkting/1980881/10-reasons-why-snapchat-success>.
Web. 11 December 2013.
9)
Wade,
Jared. The Risks of Social Media:
Decreased Worker Productivity. Risk Management Moniter. page<http://www.riskmanagementmonitor.com/the-risks-of-social-media-decreased-worker-productivity/>.
Web. 23 September 2010.
