While growing up, I remember being allowed to use the computer for educational purposes only. Whether that be typing up an essay, printing pictures for a poster project, or playing math games, my parents made sure that I did not wander to the mysterious and infinite world wide web. When I reached my pre-teenage years, I was instructed on how to use the internet for research for essays and projects. It was not long until all of my peers were bragging about their new myspace profiles. I begged my parents to let me create a Myspace page, and when they said that I couldn’t, I decided to make one anyway. Although i resented my parents at the time for trying to limit my time online, looking back I can appreciate the time I spent away from the screen. I finally jumped on the Myspace bandwagon as Facebook was taking over. My Myspace profile was subpar at best, so I deleted the profile, and focused on picking the perfect profile picture for my new Facebook page.
As I became online friends with many of my offline friends and started communicating via Facebook, I realized that the site allowed for easy sharing of thoughts, pictures, and videos with friends. I took to posting funny quotes and pictures on different friends’ walls and could even post statuses about my thoughts or feelings in the moment. I eventually received requests from people that I was friends with very early in my life, and realized that the site would make it extremely easy to stay in touch with old friends and keep updated on their lives.
Recently, Facebook has largely become a source of real-time news for me, as explained in Paul Levinson’s New New Media. Whenever I log onto Facebook and scroll down my news feed, I learn something new. Whenever a celebrity dies, an amazing movie comes out in theaters, or the newest viral video is discovered, I am bombarded with status updates about the newest fad. Facebook members are constantly posting their opinions and having debates on current events for all to see and contribute to. Before I even have a chance to check other websites, Facebook updates me with everything that I need to know. I know that if I ever have an obscure question that cannot be found through Google, I can post the question on Facebook and the answer will be quickly answered by one of my many hundred friends. The sheer amount of people that are members of Facebook contribute to the perks of being a member. It’s almost like having a giant email database of everyone in the world that you can access any day, any time for your own personal gain. Facebook is revolutionary and will be around for many more years to come.
Twitter became a popular social media site a few years ago. For some reason, I never understood the attraction to a site that was focused around posting short snapshots of your day to day life. If I ever posted my thoughts on facebook, it was a heated rant about something that had happened to me or heard about in the news. I was never one to post short status updates about my incredible pancake breakfast or how many calories I burned at the gym today. Recently, I caved into the peer pressure and created a Twitter account. Although I am not obsessed with the site like some of my other friends, I do enjoy checking the site to see what celebrities and my friends are thinking about. I like knowing that people take pleasure in reading my posts.
As explained in New New Media, Twitter relays information immediately. A few days ago I was notified via Twitter that classes would be cancelled due to excess snow and ice before I recieved any emails or text messages through the SB Alert system. This further proves how immediate the relay of information through Twitter is. If a person types a few sentences on Twitter, the message will be sent immediately to all of that person’s followers. Email requires slightly more effort, because the user is forced to type the emails of every person that he wants or needs to alert. Facebook is just as immediate as Twitter, however Twitter limits the character count of each message, forcing each update to be short, sweet, and easy to scroll through. Facebook posts can be bulky and large, forcing a person to scroll down many pages before reaching the update that they were looking for.
Facebook and Twitter are both great resources for news, media, and social purposes. Both have pro’s and con’s, but in my opinion are beneficial to society.