This class has been more valuable for me than I originally thought it would be. I thought that I would take the class as just an excuse to add three extra credits to my semester. However, New Communication Technologies has turned into so much more. I never really thought about how I used social media to gain an understanding of the world around me. This is something I never really paid attention too. Taking this class has taught me just how integral social media has become to our day to day life.
Society has grown to depend on social media as a way for communication, education, and entertainment. Whether someone uses these technologies in these ways or not, they are still affected by them. It has become very rare that someone doesn’t have any form of social media, so these people who don’t are often seen as a minority and the regular media portrays them in this way. Some companies will look at people’s social media when they are looking at them as a potential employee. When it comes to people who use social media as their main way of receiving news, it’s important to remember that they will often get bombarded with a lot of various false information that gets spread by people either intentionally or by accident.
How information is spread has changed a lot over the creation of the internet. Everyone has a voice and the unfortunate side effect of that is everyone has a voice, even if their opinions do not line up with your own. This has lead to a lot of arguments, and with these new clashes in opinion, there has been an increase in smear tactics used amongst everyone. People will spread cherry-picked, or even false information in an effort to discredit those who they do not agree.