Welcome to my new blog, which will be looking into the future of social media and its impact on society.
The world is changing faster now than it ever has before, and this acceleration of change shows no sign of slowing anytime soon. Social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, have existed for a miniscule amount of time, yet are already having a major impact on the planet.
These impacts are yet to be fully realized, but there are clear pros and cons for the emergence of social media. With new creations and ways of communicating continuing to surface at warp speed, it is becoming even more important to assess and predict how these mediums influence our lives.
Nobody can argue with the fact that social media has already caused monumental shifts in communication and beyond. It has brought the world closer together, and has simply bypassed political and economical structures that have existed for decades and even centuries in some cases.
There are very few corners of the earth that social media hasn’t touched, and while it is still up for debate whether or not that is a good thing or not, it definitely illustrates the power it holds.
Social media holds so much power because they all operate underneath the ‘Coasean Floor’*, meaning that for completely free, people can work together, create and share things, and even destroy things, as we have seen with social media led riots and protests across the globe.
An perfect example of creating and sharing are ‘memes’:
This is one of the more thought-provoking memes that you will find while scrolling down your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or other social media feed, but I think it highlights one the negative aspects of the digital age we are entering is producing. Is our technology on the verge of surpassing us? Has it already surpassed us? What are the implications of this?
The video below discusses how new technologies may be affecting our mental health.
Social media has already changed the way we look at the world, but what does it hold for us in the future?
It probably won’t be too long before we find out…
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“Coasean floor”, the phrase coined by Clay Shirky in his book ‘Here Comes Everybody,’ refers to:
New New New Media 