Social Media

Hey all of you blog-o-lotters! (Lauren Treiman you're welcome)

So I was sitting down scrolling through Facebook for the billionth time (I know starting a sentence with a preposition - how horrendous) and I started to think about how much time I spend on social media, and how much time the world spends on social media.

Obviously this isn't anything new. People analyze social media and it's addictiveness all of the time. I think that social media definitely has some benefits. For example:

• The new messaging platform on Facebook allows for easier group communication, and along with it endless meme sharing capabilities. I actually read an article recently (in my efforts to try to keep up with technology) about Facebook's messenger. It was talking about the entire history of messenger and how they are hoping to start a new gaming platform within messenger. This would make a "portable" arcade system, and it would work better than past versions because in the past everything was in Java or something that needed browser capability to really work well. But, now they are utilizing bootstrap and HTML5 and apparently the games are much better built. They are expecting that when they finally launch the games in America (they have been launched in some countries in Asia), that it will be a bit hit? I use the question mark because I think that Facebook and it's gaming platform is really a thing of the past. Maybe that's just a personal opinion, but I think it is a smarter choice for Facebook to continue to move more towards a market place. This is an inference I'm making based on the updates the've made lately, but either way I think it's a great idea. If you'd like to learn more about the new games in messenger, you can find the article here.
• Unlimited amounts of cat videos for my viewing pleasure that can be accessed 24/7.
• Events and planning are much easier through Facebook events, and often you will actually miss out on events if you don't check your Facebook because that is the only place that some social media coordinators are posting about events they are having... I actually want to expand on this a little bit. I think it's kind of crazy that so many things are dependent on Facebook now. I've tried so many times to delete my Facebook account so that I won't mindlessly scroll through several hours a day, but then I can't because I won't be able to keep up with events for the ten different school clubs and organizations that I am a part of. It's a little bit frustrating, and honestly I think that Facebook thrives on that fact. I think that all social media sites have a little bit of a messed up mentality when it comes to social media and addiction. Even BuzzFeed is writing articles now a days that are all "click bait." All of these major companies are making the big bucks based on the fact that if given the opportunity, we will mindlessly scroll our lives away! It's a shame that such a successful industry has been built on this (or is it?).
• And finally, social movements. I think that Facebook is a great platform for change to happen. Where else are you immediately connected to so many people from your present and your past in an immediate way? After the election, Facebook was definitely responsible for so many protests to get the word out, for many people to voice their opinion and to share information of hate crimes, and also to spread false information... Yeah, that's definitely the downside to Facebook as well. Out of every ten articles that I scroll across, how can I be sure that any of what I am seeing is actually the truth? Where is the fact checker? Is that just click bait or did Bernie win the presidential election? There's so much misinformation out there and it's honestly a little bit frightening that so many people are willing to soak it up entirely (and share with others) articles that they aren't even remotely sure are accurate. But, then again I guess this accompanies the idea behind our generation. We are a part of the tech era, it's the "Age of Information." And that's the kicker, no one ever specified wether this was true knowledge or mis-information.

So while analyzing my favorite pros about social media, I also discussed most of the things I find wrong with social media. I told you it'll take a little while for my writing skills to get better! Honestly I'm just excited that I put some sort of research into a topic relating (not entirely) to technology just for my own benefit. 

Anyways, that's my thought of today. Now time to go celebrate by mindlessly scrolling some more (joy). Thanks for reading, and I'll catch you next time!