It wasn’t until my senior year of high school that I became less “social”. I remember prior to my senior year I was the entertainer of the school. YES! everybody knew me as the comedian. It was almost irresistible for me not to make people laugh. Always cracking jokes in the back of the classroom, distracting my classmates, and not paying attention was my M.O. My behavior was indeed very annoying and frustrating for my teachers for several reasons. One reason was because they barely taught the class and the other reason was because they knew what I was capable of. At my expense, it wasn’t like I didn’t know or couldn’t do what was being taught, I simply was too distracting, not only to myself but for most students in the class. Looking back on days like this its funny because I’ve grown so much.
Social media has provided new means that have allowed people to be increasingly reliant to cell phones, laptops, computers and all high tech gadgets that are effecting our daily lives.
Communicating with friends at that time consisted of texting in class or passing notes to your crush (image that!) Both were private unless you were caught of course. But now communication has indeed upgraded. The upgrade as we all know are touch screen phones. I think for most people upgrading to an iPhone or an Andrioid had to be to one of the best feelings in the world.
Going to bed late texting my friends and “phone cuffing” with my crush until I feel asleep was another great feeling. Waking up to a low battery and my headphones all knotted was epic!
With these thoughts in mind I can only imagine the envy that some elders feel as they watch us youngsters on our “communication gadgets” while we chat through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Video chat, and other social sites. These variety platforms for communicating is what keeps youth in touch with one another and up to date with all that is going on in the “youth world”. The trend of being global and moblie will forever continue being that the way we communicate now is very different to the way people prior communicated. “Over he next five hundred years, writing evolved to become a more powerful and expressive medium”(S. 15).
In a book I’m reading, Writing on the Wall the author, Tom Standage discusses how people before our time communicated. He writes: “Romans communicated with one another by writing on walls [literally], papyrus rolls, letters, and other use of documents”. It’s funny how back then the Romans would literally write on walls as a way to communicate and now when you post on Facebook you’re “writing on someone else’s wall”. History has its way of repeating itself doesn’t it.
It may come as shock to some people that writing letters is still a common way to communicate. In Standage’s book he also mentions that communicating with others wasn’t private “everything was open to the public”. If someone wanted to send a message privately their best bet was to incript a code that only they and the other person they were sending the message to could understand.
The way I communicate most of the time is face to face, texting, and on the phone. I engage in social media (very seldom) from a personal and professional standpoint, but I wonder how social media will operate in the future being that our generation (us youngsters) communicate and spend majority of our time on social media.
Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are all social media platforms fads, just like IBM, clones and soon enough tablets and “smartphones”.
Passing notes are now morphed into video chats and on the phone interviews, which have grown to be the norm. These platforms are brainwashing us, but not many people are aware of this. This has enabled new ways of communication and information sharing which have also drastically change they way people interact with one another. For example, people would rather have a conversation through text, or private message rather than face to face.
Again, the question still remains, what will social media in the near future look like?
Certain things in the social media world have become tedious which exapliains my reasoning for not spending majority of my time on social media sites. For instance, I use Instagram more than I do Facebook for various reasons. One reason is because Facebook has changed a great deal and it became annoying to me. Frequent posts on my Facebook timeline would consist of fighting and twerking videos. It also got to the point where people would post the most IRRELEVANT things such as “bout to hop in the shower”, “I want to go to the store, but I’m too tired” just to prove they were online. Constant posts such as the ones I’ve mentioned were too much for me and I had no real purpose for being online, so I deactivated my Facebook page and downloaded Instagram.
When I post on instagram, which is not often, I post about things that I can relate to. Specifically, one of my post stated; “FALL IN LOVE WITH TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF, MIND, BODY [AND] SPIRIT”. That post was relatable to me and how I am as a person. This quote is what I live by. I have to takecare of myself before worrying about others. This post says to me that it is okay to be selfish at times, especially when it pertains to self.
Another reason why I prefer Instagram rather than Facebook is because of its limitations. A video on Instagram is limited to 15 seconds whereas on Facebook there is no limit. Endless and pointless videos of people fighting for silly reasons, girls and guys (mostly girls) twerking for “likes” and attention was something I didn’t want to see on a regular basis.
The way things are portrayed on social media now, I can take a wise guess as to how things might be in the future. We will live like the people on that old time T.V. show, The Jetsons.
I bet in less than 20 years we will look back on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all the other popular social sites just like we look at our elders or people who have or make calls on a flip phone or a track phone.
Everything we use and do now as a way to communicate feels normal, but in all actuality it isn’t. Can we snap out of this technological world before its too late? It’s YOUR call!
