New Communication Technologies

When I first started in New Communication Technologies, I really wasn’t sure what to expect, but now I have a better understanding of how the modern technologies that are becoming more and more advanced each day are affecting not only how we communicate to each other, but how those actions are having bigger and bigger affects.

Seeing how far our cultures have advanced into these machine reliant beings is at first alarming but seeing just what we can do with this innovative technology is incredible.  We are capable of so much now.  We can share funny pictures, alert others of dangerous situations, or even just talk about our interests through others online.  We are in an era where everything is online.  We spend all our time online and live our lives through screens.  This isn’t a terrible thing though, this allows us to advance and to push our society to its limit.

The whole Facebook incident really frustrated me.  We were able to dive deeper into the topic which opened my eyes to just how much we blindly trust the internet.  Of course, we know not to trust the Nigerian prince who is asking us to send him money through our email, but a company as big as Facebook, I think we all expected better from them.  This really showed me that I should not just be a blind sheep who follows whatever is available.  I need to study, do research and try and look at the bigger pictures instead of just accepting what is right in front of me.  I also loved that this class allowed me to expand my source finding skills.  I was not very good at finding scholarly sources before this class, but now I feel like a pro.

The most interesting part of this class to me was that we did not only focus on the news side of media, we were able to talk about memes, social media, and sides of communication that I never thought would be discussed in a college level class.  The impact that social media has had on our world is immense.  We cannot live without social media anymore.  It is so impactful that the thought of losing it now would seem like a massive loss.  We can spread a lot of information quickly and effectively if done properly.  Of course, this power can be abused easily and people who are not internet savy might fall prey to these scams, but overall, the internet is an important asset that should never be taken for granted.

Overall, I learned a lot more from this class than I was expecting.  I now have a stronger understanding of how our world is changing and how the internet and social media is helping to shape the future of our world.  I really enjoyed being able to talk about memes and such, but really being able to take a step back and evaluate our world and how things are changing is something incredible.