Social Media is a giant and has to be one of the greatest inventions in human history. Very few inventions could have reached so many people in so little time. However, it would be impossible for something so big to go on without there being mistakes and consequences. Whenever there’s an invention on such a grand scale there will always be a need to fix things. Look at the United States constitution as an example. It has 27 amendments some of which occurred 200 years after its inception. The articles were interesting not only because they addressed some of the problems that need to be fixed but because they were written at different times of the internet’s existence. Henry Jenkins article “Taking the You Out of YouTube” was written at the beginning of the so called “Web 2.0” era and he describes not only people’s concerns of what YouTube could become but how hopeful he was for the future of Youtube and how with the of Google than maybe people would be able to use Youtube to its fullest effect. Over a decade later and YouTube is at the forefront of the political conversation and is in many ways considered much more progressive than its social media counterparts. But of course its not without its problems.
Many of the articles share the rhetoric that Social Media can come with irrevocable consequences. The eerie ending of the Wired article illustrates Facebook as the end all be all for society. If Facebook and Zuckerberg can’t iron things out who knows who could be elected the next leader of the free world. I also found it interesting how permanent someone’s online persona can be.
All in all I am still optimistic for the future of social media; Although I don’t have a social media account of my own as of right now. I feel like social media can have a positive effect on society and can expose us to and allow us to do things we never thought were possible. I think that the creators and contributors to social media sites need to collectively change the paradigm on what social media can and should be used for and the implications of it.
