Tweet Tweet

Screenshot of my first Tweet I posted, retrieved 22 March 2016.

When I first heard about what twitter was back in 2009, I thought it was a twin to MySpace. I have now discovered that the social networking is a very resourceful tool to connect with other media outlets.

Although, now that I have Twitter, there is this issue where I need to constantly use all my social media platforms. There are just too many apps to try to keep on top of and if we aren't careful, we will become one ourselves.

Author, Toija Cinque, suggests that 'social networking sites like Twitter, are seen as new media, information that is generated, reserved and resolved in digital structures' (2012, pp. 13). Society is now at a time where it is exposed to too much media, mainly 'new media' or social media, that we live in the virtual world. I have heard so many individuals (mostly teens) say that they hate social media and where technology is going. Yet when we sit around a restaurant table, each of us on our thin gadgets, we don't realize that we are conditioned to use social media. Conditioned to see what others are up to and compare ourselves to them. Since being first exposed to social media, we have fixed our behaviour like this over time.

However, some of us can live without it. With the amount of 'consumer access that Africa has with the media, they lag behind the rest of the world's continents by 11% (Dumas, 2012, pp.8). And in their country, they somehow seem to stay well connected through interaction and verbal communication.

Twitter does have both equally good and bad points to it's online environment, helping us stay up to date and allowing us to speak our minds. Though it still fits into the social media category, an online space that distracts us from human interaction.

Yours truly, Kim:)

References:

Cinque, T 2012, Communication, New Media and Everyday Life, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne.

Dumas, M. Barry 2012, Diving into the Bitstream, Routledge, retrieved 17 March 2016, <http://reader.eblib.com.au.ezproxy-f.deakin.edu.au/(S(asi4pyl3go0ngowpno4b1lgy))/Reader.aspx?p=1074986&o=154&u=VHQ6ZFN%2b%2bhORsBENebs63A%3d%3d&t=1458580529&h=9439AB0FC55D7EA1B73878AEF2D918B4D83568E6&s=23709386&ut=484&pg=1&r=img&c=-1&pat=n&cms=-1&sd=1#>.