“Charlie Garman is writing an article for The Times-Delphic at 4 a.m. the morning it’s due because he is a bum.” A true statement, a sad introspective and… a Facebook status.
It’s true that in today’s society so obsessed with spreading information via the Internet, that we have been dubbed by some as living in the “Attention Age.” There is no doubt that social media is more than a trend, but a revolution.
The term “social media” applies to any content that can easily be observed and shared using certain technologies such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg and so on. Each platform has certain notable features, advantages and disadvantages, and the debate continues to rage on whether these mediums are good or are nuisances. Only one thing is for certain: there’s no longer anything that contains “too much information.”
Facebook is an extremely popular online social networking directory that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload unlimited numbers of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet. College students make up the majority of Facebook members, using the site as a resource to stay in touch with friends both on campus and back home. According to the Drake network designation on the site, there are over 500 Facebook users in the Drake 2012 graduating class alone. In short, it’s pretty hard to find a student here on campus that doesn’t use this Web site.
Another wildly popular method of sharing your thoughts with the world is Twitter: an online instant messaging system that lets a person send brief messages of up to 140 characters to a list of followers with the click of a button. Launched in 2006, Twitter was designed as a social network to keep friends and colleagues informed throughout the day. However, it soon became widely used for commercial and political purposes to keep customers, constituents and fans up to date as well as to solicit feedback on their daily encounters and activities.
Writing a weblog, or blogging, is yet another extension of the social media universe. Users can utilize a medium such as WordPress to share any thoughts they may feel the need to show the world. Blogs serve many purposes, from personal journals to online newsletters to good old-fashioned ranting. One person or a group of contributors can write blogs, while the content can vary from commentary and observations to_ opinions. Blogs may include images, audio, video, links to other sites and even a search function for finding earlier entries.
So are these Web sites useful, a distraction or both? Like most vices, your answer would depend on who you ask. The average social media user can tweet or facebook (yes, they’re verbs too) in moderation without experiencing any significant loss of production in other areas of life. Of course, that doesn’t mean you couldn’t find anyone who spends more time telling the world what they’re having for breakfast than they would on a midterm paper.
The assorted forms of social media certainly provide a good deal of advantages to the user as well. For example, if a person wants to keep in touch with friends and relatives living half a world away, they’re only a click away with Facebook. A professor wishing to keep her students updated on class assignments and notes outside of office hours and class sessions can simply set up a class blog using WordPress and post all relevant information for the students to access in the comfort of their dorms.
Whether used for good or evil, social media is here to stay. So tag some pictures, jot down an impromptu haiku or just look for something to LOL at. But most importantly, don’t forget to tell a friend.
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