Question 5

            There are far more senders and messages in the world now than before social media, or even the Internet.  The Internet changes both who is sending and who is receiving these messages.  Twitter has shortened the message considerably.  By only allowing 140 characters, Twitter forces users to say what they mean and mean what they say.  Twitter became a huge phenomenon and has since waned, however many still use it as a mass texting service.  Sites like Facebook and Myspace have changed the way society looks at friendships.  Life is not a popularity contest, yet many now treat it as such.  The messages we send out over the Internet can reach far and wide, and cannot be taken back.  We have to be aware that everything we say whether good or bad may reach those who the message is about.  Some companies have found the value in this and use social media as a way to communicate with their customers.  Some have found that they are not well liked, while others have used complaints to make their products better.  Without social media, these companies might have never known that they were doing something wrong, till sales dropped, and even then they would not know exactly why.  A face to face conversation is private, and intimate, since only those who are present for the conversation ever hears it.  With social media this is not the case.   Anyone, anywhere can access the conversation at any time, forever.  Even if the account where the conversation took place is deleted there are ways to find it long after you think it is gone.  There are contextual clues to the meaning of our words that are lost on the deaf ears of a computer or phone screen.  Many texts unintentionally convey the wrong message because the receiver misunderstands.  Using symbols, “emoticons”, and shorthand like “lol” help to assuage these misinterpretations, however once something has been mistaken it can be difficult to fix.  The channels that we now use for communication are vastly different from those used just a few years ago.  By moving to a more connected Internet life we have distanced ourselves from intimate one on one situations, to open forums where anyone with Internet access can see and hear our most private thoughts.  That is if you are foolish enough to put them out there.

            The assignments for Thursday were nerve-wracking.  I felt like I was missing something by having to wait for “tweets”.  I thought that it was difficult to concentrate in my other classes because I was worried about checking my email for instructions.  I think that this midterm has been a clever use of social media, and I appreciate what you can do with it; however I do not want to go through this again.  There was something I felt like was missing, because I was thrown into the library all alone with this looming deadline and vague instructions.  If the email had been waiting for me, which I found in my other email account, I think I would have been more comfortable with the assignment.