Social Media over the last 5 years as taken over our lives
and has millions glued to home pages waiting to see what Joe ate for breakfast
or why Jane was late for her bus. Sites like Facebook and Twitter have become a
more common place to communicate or express your opinion on whatever you like,
than say calling a friend or family member on the phone. Like it or hate it,
Social Media is here to stay.
Just take a look at a day in your life, how many times is
there some form of Social Media right in front of you? Cell phone… check, advertisements…
check, TV… check, links on most web pages to a form of Social Media… check.
Just to name a few. Everything now ties Social Media into it; you almost can’t
get away from it!
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Well it all depends how
much of a dependency Social Media is on your life. Can it be abused? You bet. But
it can also be used for very beneficial reasons. Look at what happened in Egypt
in January. Facebook and Twitter were used over cell networks as a means for
people to tell their stories of the protests and the true accounts of what was
happening day-to-day. It gave people a freedom of speech that otherwise wouldn’t
have existed. On the flip side, what about the recent riots that dominated Britain
for over a week? Again Twitter and Facebook were used as a means for rioters to
coordinate looting, violence and planned movements to avoid police. BBM on RIM’s
Blackberry devices is also worth mentioning as one of the primary means for
this coordination in Britain, but it’s more of an instant messaging service,
than Social Media.
I could spend all night posting opinions on the good and bad
of Social Media, what it should be used for or what it shouldn’t be used for. I
can debate if it’s here to stay, or if it’s just some new fad that will fade
out with time, but I won’t. And I really don’t have to, you can see for
yourself. Try going a day without seeing some form of Social Media. I bet you
can’t. Just look below this post, there's links eagerly awaiting you to click.
