Introduction...

Today social Medias, cellphones, and TVs play an important, powerful, and dangerous role in our lives. We have become more dependable on technology and less eye-to-eye communicative, slowly we’re losing the need of human interaction, we don’t even use our phone to make calls like we used to, now we prefer to send a text message, post something on Facebook or Twitter , and send e-mails to communicate with others. I think these technologies and social medias have improve the way we communicate, it allows us to be in contact with people away from us, make new friends, create new networks, it help us to create and design ideas, share them with the world, and get feedbacks. There’s so many advantage in social Medias as well as disadvantage the excessive use of these technologies can lead us to depression, isolation, it takes our focus and concentration away from us. Social Medias as Facebook and Twitter can destroy our life; we tend to believe whatever we see online and we don’t realize how much these insignificant post influence in our decisions. I guess that why marketing is being so effective on people. One of the biggest issues with social Medias is that affects our sense of reality. Social Media allows us to create our own profile, and we tend to copy this profile into real life, although those fakes’ profiles are based on our real ones, they’re not real. Social Medias, TVs, and cellphones are addictive; is hard to ignore them, but like everything else in life, there are two faces of the coin, and we just need to find the correct balance.  

"Television: The Plug-In Drug", By Marie Winn

People predicted TVs would be a way to congregate families together. They thought the bonds between the family members would get tighter. When TV first came out, they were pretty expensive, but after a few years most of the families had two or more. What happen after the invention of television was the opposite of what they thought it’d happen. Today most families have a TV in each room, even in the kitchen, that way moms can cook and watch their favorite TV shows. Instead of bounding, TV separates us from each other. It breaks family rituals and isolates us from them. TV affects kids and teen, when they spend so much time in from of a TV they learn to respond to imaginary characters, but they don’t know how to interact in an eye-to-eye conversation, and lose the ability to learn from reality. TV can be very pleasant at the end of the day when you get home, it may help you to relax, but it’s even better when you watch TV with your family and use that time to bond with them. The TV effect on you and your family depends on the time you dedicate to watch TV, and time you dedicate to communicate with them.

"Games" By Steven Johnson

           

In this essay Johnson argues that videos games can improve child development. Videos games allow kids and teens to be in touch with new experience,  in a three dimensional way without exposing them into emotional or physical damage. It improves your visual memory and manual dexterity.  He also clarified that reading is the best way to gain knowledge and improve or intelligence, because through reading we exercise all our cognitive functions; encoding and saving the information that we are receiving and then retrieve it. Both videos games and books required concentration and attention, so maybe videos games does help. From my point of view I think video games have its advantage, but kids get obsess with those games that they forget about the books or anything else outside the three dimensional unreal world. Johnson explains that in an imaginary world where video games where invented before books, people will prefers games and they’d think that books can lead people to isolation, because they will only focus on paper and words, in the other hand videos games are an open world. However video games can also lead kids and teens to isolation, because the unreal world, where you can be whoever you want and do whatever you want is so much better than reality.   

Do We Control Social Media or Is It The Way Around?

I really liked Sara post “Liking is for cowards. Go for what hurts”. The topic it’s similar to one of my post. We are mixing reality and what is not real. People are forgetting the act of conversation, today we prefer to communicate by messages. Suddenly everything we need is in our pockets (our cellphones), contacts, friends, information, and so on. We spend more time with our cellphone that with anyone else isn’t that crazy? We prefer an unhuman gadget than a human being. Friendships are ending, because I didn’t like your post or I didn’t follow you on Twitter. Couples break up because someone posts something about your boyfriend/girlfriend and you, and the rest of the people just believe it. We’re not living our lives, instead our smartphones, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, the list is endless; those things are living and controlling our lives.

Social Media, The Good and Bad...

Link: http://socialmediatoday.com/syed-noman-ali/608781/social-media-good-thing-or-bad-thing

Social media had improved our relations with other people making possible the communication between two individuals not matter how far they are apart. It allows us to share our ideas and spread them among the world. It allows us to ask people about their opinion and give them feedback. It helps us grow as a business person, helping us to make networks, and also help us to develop ideas and make them real. Social Medias also has its bad effects, such as isolation, some people spend a huge amount of time on their Internet, is crazy how smartphones have change our society, now we have the ability to do so many things with the touch of our fingers, anytime, anywhere, but it’s also addictive. It’s very bad distraction, we stop focusing on our classes and our job that at some point when we get home we don’t pay the attention that our families need.  We spend so much time using our cellphones that we don’t notice what’s going on around us. Cellphones are a powerful, but also dangerous tool.

Social Media and Friendships

 

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-solis/social-media-obstacle-to-_b_3815356.html

I think the biggest misunderstanding with social media today is friendship. These new social networks allow us to have hundreds of friends, but trying to keep the friendships without making feel bad your friend is the hard part. Today people can contact you any day, at any time, from any where, but if you don’t call or text back they will be really mad at you, because we care for what people think about us, and if we don’t like something they post, they’ll feel bad, and may also end the friendship. People also take very personal when you don’t follow them back, or when you don’t leave a comment on their Facebook. We need to understand that if you don’t receive a call or text back is maybe because that person is busy or just forgot, and if one person don’t follow you back that doesn’t mean she or he is not your friend. There’s a huge difference between I don’t like you, and I don’t like what you post.

Cyberbullying and Teens.

Sloviter, V. (2011). Diagnosis: Social media syndrome. Pediatrics for Parents, 27(5), 30-31. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.proxy.consortiumlibrary.org/docview/894263469?accountid=14473
 Pediatricians are not only looking for health issues, but also making sure that the kids are not suffering “Facebook depression”.  Social Medias as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and such are part of any teen life. Now they have the access to any information, although it has its advantages, it also has its disadvantage. The Internet allows us to share too much information about ourselves, and although teens are very knowledge about social media, sometimes they left footprints that other people can use against us. Cyberbullying had developed, years ago it used to happen face-to-face, the kids had the opportunity to fight back, but now with the use of Internet people can say anything about you and spread it behind your backs. Cellphones is another new way of bullying; teens are engaging new dangerous behaviors, like sending and receiving nude photos. Doctors are observing that Internet is causing isolation, depression, aggressive, and may lead them to commit suicide. 

There’s a protection act for kids called COPPA, which says that kids under the age of thirteen need their parents ‘permission in order to have an online account, but how safe is this? Easily kids and teen can click the “yes” button, agreeing they are thirteen years old or older. Parents need to keep their eyes open is easily for kids to have access to the internet with all the new gadgets out there, not stop the kids from use technology, but just an eye on them.

Kids, Teens and Social Media

Miller, E. (2009). Kids, teens and social media. KidScreen, , 19. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.proxy.consortiumlibrary.org/docview/225312018?accountid=14473

Kids and teens are more in touch with social media than anyone else. Kids naturally prefer the face-to-face communication, and as they grow up they start getting into more technology and the use of social media. Teen use social media as their main platform of communication, because society is always creating something new and cool, which teens are attract to. Kids and teens like to have fun, create things, and share them with their friends. Many kids and teens of the same age behave similar; they do what their friends do. When a social leader uses, do, or say something new, everyone thinks is a cool thing, so everyone repeats what the social leader do, who’s define as the person that makes friends easily and is usually in charge. I think we can compare social media with fashion, we all want to obtain what’s in and ne, if we don’t then we are not considerate “cool”.

We're Calling Real To What is Imaginary

Cirucci, A. M. (2013). First person paparazzi: Why social media should be studied more like video games. Telematics and Informatics, 30(1), 47-59. doi:10.1016/j.tele.2012.03.006

 Link: First person paparazzi

In this article the author compare social media and video games; similarities between video games and social media. When we created a Facebook, Twitter account, or a blog, we were asked to make a profile, filling out questions as age, race, gender, name, and could be fake or real. As well in video games we create our own profile, in which we could be whoever we want, but we usually identify with our online profile, because is a mirror of our identity, but the one we want everyone to know. The goal of Facebook and others social networks is to be someone, gain popularity with our friends and family, through social media we act like our own paparazzi. On the other hand the goal of video games is to become the hero, and a hero is always popular. So both are base in the same context, but the problem is that we’re losing the sense of identity and reality. Often people built their own identity to fulfil their real one, sometimes they are not satisfied with whom they are, because of stenotypes. The other problem is that we call “real” to what is “imaginary”, because we prefer the unreal world, and the imaginative profile based on stereotypes than the real one. This affects our offline identity, we’d start acting base on our online profile and how people expect us to act. It’s necessary to accept who we are, and start living the real world.

You May have Internet addiction disorder, and Don't Know It

Rhea, D. (2009, Nov 24). Social media magnifies internet addiction. Journal Record. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.proxy.consortiumlibrary.org/docview/259556501?accountid=14473

An addiction is a compulsive physiological and psychological need for a habit. What we didn’t seen coming was the development of social medias as an addiction, and most of us suffer this kind of disorder in some level. Social networks as Facebook and Twitter are listed as one of the 10 most common addictions. Dr. Melvyn Preisz, professor in psychology says that we are so attached to these networks, because we probably lack of some psychological need, but not everyone present this disorder. There are some signs, like hiding the amount of time we spend using our computers or cellphone to avoid the reality, those kinds of things let us know that something is wrong, and it needs to be fix. On the other hand Dr. Vicki Wyatt argues that social media addiction is nothing new, it has something to do we our age problem of compulsive behavior, and everyone has a piece of obsessive-compulsive disorder inside. The point is that it really exists, people can get addict to social media to a point of isolation, where your smartphone becomes your life, and your life disappears. This disorder is known as Internet addiction disorder, abbreviated (IAD). Psychologists are still debating if it should be include in next edition of DSM-V, which is the psychological manual for mental disorders.

Social Media and Marketing Effects.

The varieties of technologies that had been created and now are available to anyone had change and shape our society. What we do, what we think is influenced by social media. Social media has change the concept of community, now we can communicate with people that’s usually around us, and the people far away from us, and that maybe we had never meet, but we share same kinships. Social media is a powerful tool that has been given to anyone, to discovery, create, communicate our ideas and make them true, real, and better. This video pretty much says that we can do anything with social networks, and we see it every day in marketing. We had become a weak target for marketing, because social media not only affect, but had shape our thinking and behavior. I think social media has been an improvement for marketing, but it also has the power to destroy it, a negative comment from Facebook, twitter, or any social network could cause the end of any brand.   

Social Networks, Not So Bad After All

Wilson, C. D (2013, August 02). Making Connections: Higher Education Meet Social Media. The Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 45(4), 51-57.

Link: Making Connections

The creation of social media was mainly as a way of communication, but who would thought of how useful social network has turn out. Many high school and universities professor use networks such Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and YouTube to challenges our thinking and create a free flow of ideas, plus is a great way to learn, not only teach the students within the course, but also anyone that wish to learn about the class. This is a powerful tool that allow us communicates and make our lives a little bit easier, and less stressful. Now we don’t have to go to a classroom, we can study from our computer, tables, or our smartphones at any time. Human beings have created an obsession with social media, but we also have found a technological tool very useful for our daily life. I agree with Wilson about the future, the social network is young, and still need more development, but some day we will able to get in touch not only with professors, but also with financial-aid officers, tutors, and program advisors.