We've got Facebook, Twitter, messenger and many other social networking websites. What used to be accessed only through computers can now be easily accessed through mobile phones. The revelation of the internet and technological advancements have been astounding!
Social media is new media that interacts with the public. It is transactional in nature, where feedbacks and comments are simultaneously exchanged amongst people while accessing a certain media content. The existence of social media has proven to be far more significant than functioning as social networking websites, where making relationship/network connections have been highly sought out for.
Recently, the dispute in Egypt has caused a mayhem amongst the people and for the first time in the history of Egyptian governance has such a raucous been created. Bloomberg, popular television network recently had an interview with a representive of Facebook website and complimented on how social media helped in rendering assistance to the many injured in the Egyptian dispute. Extensive footage and pictures from the unrest were readily available on the social media. As social media lacks filtering, news are reached way faster than captured through traditional media such as newspapers, press releases and even television news coverage. Help or assistance could be readily rendered to the people in need.
Hence, with the updated coverage of news and social issues, the social media is said to have been an asset in catering to the needs of the needy and people in general.
However phenomenal the internet and social media are, one should not turn a blind eye on the banes of social media. The issue of privacy and addiction to be more specific. Are we convinced that our privacy is protected based on clicking on a "restricted view" button or "customising" on who should view our profile on Facebook for example? What has the new interface of Facebook moving towards other than its perceived "cool" exterior?
The revamped Facebook interface shows conversations or comments exchanged between friends viewable to all who know either of them. What was there as "so and so commented on so and so's profile" has become a little more detailed for everyone's viewing pleasure. Now, the comments could be viewed. What was left as a choice to choose our interface, on whether we should stick to the original or update to the newer one has been effectively been looked after by Facebook itself! They have changed for us, automatically.
There is more, where comments written on Facebook wall cannot be erased because no matter how much you want to 'delete this post', email notifications doesn't stop the update to be released. So you say something mean, out of a fit, you can erase it immediately on the wall and it doesn't appear but the mean message is sent to the friend's email address. Escaped much.
The issue of privacy is feat for almost every online media as information gets passed on very very quickly and hackers are sticklers for some spam fun. We receive tonnes of spam mails on our email accounts, in different forms and this is no different on social media/ social networking sites.
According to Eric Qualman who wrote Socialnormics mentioned about Facebook privacy issues and how Facebook is still struggling to address the issue of privacy despite its accerated growth in popularity. He quoted, "even though Facebook is trying to give their users the freedom to set their privacy level, most users want something that is safe and easy to use". With the millions who are using Facebook at this juncture, they are convinced that they are being protected and do not find it an absolute need to set their privacy settings to an advance level.
Twitter, a microblog, another popular creation has caught the attention of many celebrities and we ardent followers/fans have the privilege of 'tweeting' them and they 'twit', I mean 'tweet' you back. How awesome is that right? I have a Lindsay Lohan fan for a friend (I know, shoot me) and she freaks out when Lindsay replies her tweets. "OMG! Lindsay replied to my tweet! and so did her then- partner Samantha Ronson!" Fascinating.
Jokes aside, but Twitter has although drives people to insanity, updating their status every milisecond, "oh, i just saw a fat woman trying to get out of the bus" or other frivolous updates, much of their privacy is compromised. Although it's in the control of the Twitter users to what they say/do, their very reason in subscribing to Twitter is to give every of their friends a live update of their whereabouts or happenings. Why another when you have Facebook already? Oh wait, you can follow celebs around!
This brings me to share a little 'Tweet' from famous celebrities famous Lindsay and her then-partner Samantha Ronson. Apparently they were having an argument on Twitter and it got blown out of proportion. Vulgarites were hurled and exchanges became a little toxic and uncomfortable. Everyone knew about it. It was explicit enough, thanks to Twitter. The privacy of public figures has been intervened and the notion of protecting the image and reputation of users and icons is easily questioned. Have we found new assistants to TMZ and paparazzis?
We cannot deny how the revelation of the internet and social media has brought about amazing benefits. However, as technology becomes more advanced and society progresses, new features of social media are too cool to reject but one must be aware of the extent of their involvement in them. Apart from the breach of privacy, addiction is another social concern that seems to prevail. What's next? The video just summarises it all (:
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