Where will Social Media go into the future?

Where will this fast pacing trend lead us? Will it lead us to another World War or will it bring the world together? Will it help us end some of the problems in the world or will the world watch through the media as our world collapses? Many of these questions can be predicted from the evidence around us, but the future is unknown to us. As Jared Diamond said in his essay in, "The end of the world as we know them", "Unlike any previous society in history, our global society today is the first with the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of societies remote from us in space and in time".  He means it's not too late for us to learn from all the mistakes that the world has made.  We can change our habits and make social media more of a tool, then a weapon.  We can use this new world as a safe world from all the harms of Earth.  We need to start now for the future of humankind.

Connections

In Mitchel Social Media blog, he makes a very good point on how social media is helping out with the disaster of Hurricane Sandy.  In any disaster such as Hurricane Sandy, Social media is a great resource to learn what's going on.  It keeps everyone informed on the situation and it evens gives you the option of helping out if you want too. Plus with such a disaster happening, awareness of natural disasters will rise in the public getting people more prepared for upcoming disasters.

The mind control advertisments on kids

Schlosser, E. (2011) Kid Kustomers. In S. Cohen, 50 Essays (pg. 353-358). Boston: Bedford St. Martins.

 In the essay "Kid Kustomers" by Eric Scholosser shows us how advertisers draw kids into buying their product. Since many parents are working and spending less time with their kids, the only option they see fitting is to spend money on their kids giving advertisers an advantage. Children find these products in Children's clubs, the internet, and the television. There are children divisions in many of the major ad agencies who only focus on kids. They observe children's fantasy lives and apply it to their product. With this the aim for most of their advertising is to get children to nag to their parents on buying them what they want.

Dealing with threats from the Virtual World to the Real World

Chamberlin, T. (2012, November 4) Links between social media and crime surge as Facebook referenced in thousands of offences logged by police. The Australian. Retrieved by http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/links-between-social-media-and-crime-surge-as-facebook-referenced-in-thousands-of-offences-logged-by-police/story-e6frg6n6-1226509825963

The police of Queensland, Australia logged 5,000 offences that Facebook was involved.  One example of many such events was an assault of a mother which was led by a heated argument on Facebook.  Crimes that link to Facebook are many of the following: prostitution, murder, stealing, drug offences, stalking, kidnapping, and trespassing.  The Right to Information laws revealed that Facebook is linked to 19 murders, 12 attempted murders, 728 assaults, 542 sexual offences, and 370 fraud cases.  This is cased by putting too much detail on Facebook of your personal life which is information to others now.  Detective Superintendent Brian Hay worded it perfectly describe the situation with the crimes linking to Facebook, "The more you put out there, the more you put a target on your back.  This idea of being private on the internet is a redundant notion.  We've got to accept that it is very real, tangible and could come back to bite you."

Social Media Bullying

EMC Editorial. (2012, October 25) Social media a double-edged sword when it comes to bullying. EMC News. Retrieved from http://www.emcfrontenac.ca/20121025/editorials/Social+media+a+double-edged+sword+when+it+comes+to+bullying

Just this past few months, the world was met by a girl named Amanda Todd whom commit suicide from being bulled people over the social media.  After this incident everyone's eyes opened to this concept of bullying over the social media.  The idea of bullying isn't anything new that we have learned from, but the type, tone, and ferocity has changed when you mix both bullying and social media together.  Once you have been caught in this mixture of tormentors, its difficult or impossible to get out.  When an outcome like Amanda Todd comes out there's always a positive side out of these sad consequences, it's that society can review this situation and learn how to intervene when something like this happens.  Everyone has a role to play when i come to bullying because social media is making it easier for bullying. But if we use this tool correctly we can use it to make it easy for us to stop bullying.    

Social Media is a useful tool to fight crime.

Kent, J. (2012, November 16) Police Scan Social Media to Fight Crime. NBC Connecticut. Retrieve from http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?expire=&title=Police+Scan+Social+Media+to+Fight+Crime+|+NBC+Connecticut&urlID=496135002&action=cpt&partnerID=1127115&cid=179734571&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcconnecticut.com%2Finvestigations%2FFacebook-Twitter-Instagram-Social-Media-Police-179734571.html

Connecticut's police departments are now tracking post, pictures, and check-in's in applications such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc,. to solve crimes.  The best information used by criminal investigators are friends and followers that people have whose privacy settings are not very secure for their privacy.  Police take everything that the social media has offer them to stop crimes, but while police use there tools, criminals have these tools as well at their bidding.  In the police departments they have a squad of officers called matrix officers whom build undercover profiles  and interact with criminals online.  Captain Geoff Morgan from the Branford Police Department tells us that in the past two years, social media is a useful tool to gather evidence and suspects towards cases.

Facebook vs. Earth

WARNING: CONTAINS LANGUAGE. VIEWERS DISCRETION ADVISE!!!!!

Well one idea i want to pull out of this video and put on the plate is what you post on facebook, would you really say it in the world that we live in today.  A lot of people these days put their whole life and thoughts on facebook and feel that the virtual world is a safe place to share all of it.  Well those people are don't see that the virtual world and the world they live in are one of the same, but there's one difference, everything that's in the virtual world stays in the virtual world.  Meaning everyone will know parts or most things about you and with that knowledge people can morph it into their own thoughts.  Well continuing along with what you post are the check-in's or posting your current location, why would you want the world to know where your at.  I see post where people post there location of where they are at their house.  Well after that everyone knows where your house location is so the whole world of creepers and strangers can come visit you.  When these many things can happen, I think the Earth is safer, Facebook.