My perception of social media is that it is the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution. According to Miniwatts Marketing Group’s statistics, the world had an estimated population of 6,930,055,154 in 2011 from which 2,095,006,005 people had internet access on March 31, 2011 (Miniwatts Marketing Group) . With this many potential senders and receivers of communications, social media has become viral. People are uploading videos and pictures of all types of events such as the riot in Vancouver, BC. Some of the rioters have been identified by the authorities with these videos and pictures as evidence. In part this was thanks to people tagging them on Facebook or other types of social networking sites.
The moment online communications went from being a one-way ideal (one-to-many such as any old website giving readers information but not allowing them input) to two-way communications (many-to-many such as Wiki sites where the information is mainly researched and generated by users of the site), it was the beginning of a new era; the era of cheap, affordable, and fast global communication, the era of social media. You are able to talk to friends and family back home face-to-face via software such as Skype or Msn Messenger for free, even when you are abroad, as long as you have internet access. No more long distance charges, waiting for e-mail replies, or worst, waiting for overseas mail. The only concern may be bandwidth usage charges, but that’s another topic of its own.
So basically I believe social media to be an amazing evolution of communications. You can find feedback on people, places, products, etc, all within a few clicks of the mouse (and a little bit of typing). There is, however, a bit of bad that has come along with it. Since social media has started, cybercrime has also increased. More and more people are getting caught up in scams and getting computer viruses; sending/receiving illegal contents such as child pornography or copyrighted materials. But one thing I have learned in my life experience so far is that you must take the good with the bad. The pros of social media far outweigh cons.
Jonnathan Duguay
Works Cited
Works Cited
Miniwatts Marketing Group. World Internet Usage Statistics and World Population Stats. 20 December 2011. Web. 12 January 2012. <http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm>.
