Essay Roughdraft

In order to write about social media and my identity I have put through it, it is important to understand what social media means. One thing is that compared to the tradition word “media” social media is not really media. In reality social media is more of a communication place, a place for interacting with other people and a platform of networking. While the media how it used to be referred as such as television, radio, and print were designed to deliver ads as long as using relevant content with those ads. So they vital difference here is that social media is a place for communicating and relationships not a place for ads.

            Now with this in mind I want to bring up the movie “The Social Network”. It is a movie about how Facebook came to be. I personally really like the movie and would suggest it to anyone who is curious about it, but in the movie one of the big conflicts was based around the fact of money. Mark Zuckerberg (the founder of Facebook) and his friends were having constant arguments on when to allow ads onto there website. Now Mark’s friends put the money in from Mark to make the website so it was obvious why they wanted to put ads on right away so they were able to get there money back. Mark on the other hand wanted to wait so people could understand that his website was made for people to keep in social connection with each other, and he didn’t want people to think that it was about making money. So back to the point I made in the paragraph above, what we call social media now was made for communication not as a source of media. People through time has changed that from “social network” and got it confused with “social media”

            There are many types of social networking out there and I personally don’t care about any of them. I did have a MySpace and I do have a Facebook. Did I want either of them? No. In middle school when people started to get MySpace accounts I never wanted one, but it became soon obvious that if you didn’t have a MySpace that means you were out of the groups. In order to not feel left out I was forced to make a MySpace then going into high school when Facebook became much more popular I tried again just not to get into it. I stopped getting on MySpace and I said I wasn’t making a Facebook. As time went on this proved to be a harder and harder task as more people communicated through Facebook I was left out of several things. Then even the school started to use Facebook and Twitter to communicate with students and say important things like upcoming events and homework. So eventually the inevitable happened.

I had to just on the bandwagon and get a Facebook.

            My Digital life is actually pretty difficult to say exactly, because of how much I don’t like it. I looked at my timeline to see my activity and this I thought this really proves how little I do on Facebook, besides just check to see what is going on. Since April I have made 1 status changed, and that is it. Everything else has been me replying to other people’s messages or replying on comments that I was involved in. I have owned a Facebook for over 5 years and I have never uploaded a picture to Facebook. Every picture I have used has been from me getting tagged from pictures other people have uploaded. I change my profile picture around 2 to 3 times a year and the only reason I do that is so people think      

I look like this                            Instead of this

                     

  

I was actually planning on deleting my Facebook account once I went to college but guess what? I need to have some sort of social networking account for this class.

            Now I know many people love Facebook as I want to spend the time to talk about why do people like Facebook? What positive things has Facebook done for us?  Some people like it because they like to follow celebrities. Others use it so they are able to stay up to date with current events. Then there are people that just want to meet other people that have common interest, but if you take all those reasons an add them up, it still is less then the number one reason why people use Facebook. The number one reason is because their friends like it. So I know there are many people that have gone through the same situation that I have.

So the question is, is society becoming slaves to Facebook? In many ways I say yes. People being pressured almost forced to use it. Then to use it, it pretty much tries to convince you to give out all of your information.

            Now I cannot argue against Facebook without knowing the other side. I am open-minded to the fact that Facebook has many great things it can do for the world even. President campaigns are now expanding through social networking sites. It helps people know about foreign affairs, which allows people the knowledge to do more and to help more. Facebook helped spread the awareness of the earthquakes and tsunamis that hit Japan and since the awareness was raised, more and more people sent donations as help. I also know that there are almost countless other ways that Facebook can help society and even help the world.

            My problem is that I do not see enough people using these good aspects of Facebook. There are just too many people using it just to post about pointless things and to many people just sitting their posting bathroom mirror pictures. This is why my opinion of Facebook is negative. Can it change? Yes if people start using Facebook to its real potential then Facebook has the potential to be one of the greatest things invented mankind, but as of right now I view this and all other social networking sites as a downfall of humanity.