Evolution of Social Media

For our generation, social media is something that is an inevitable fact of life. In this day and age, things like facebook, twitter, foursquare and the like are everyday tools that are almost impossible to escape from. Personally, I am a fan of, I would say, most forms of social media. I enjoy getting facebook notifications sent directly to my cell phone and being able to check in to locations on foursquare at any moment. This, in addition to my major in communications, is partially why I chose to take this class on social media. However, I think that this sort of affinity that I have for social media is not necessarily required in order to have interest in this class. I think that most everyone, if given the chance and had enough space in their schedule, would enjoy a class on social media because of the fact that it is so present in our lives.

I can definitely understand the opposite point of view as well. I get that many people do not want to be bombarded with information from different sources at all times through every medium. I think that in the end, when used correctly and for good purposes, social media can only produce good outcomes.

Something that is not so present in our lives is the idea presented by Dr. Levinson of "new new" media. When I first bought his book for my Intro to Communications class last year I was skeptical of the title and I actually talked to someone who thought the cover of the book had a typo. After learning about what this concept actually is it definitely makes sense. I think that the first chapter of the book "Why 'New New' Media?" is one of the most interesting. The explanation that Dr. Levinson gives for his ordering of the chapters is interesting and I think that his reasons made sense at the time that the book was published, but I would be interested to know if he would order them differently today, just a year and a half later.