Tweeter or time-waster?

When Twitter first burst onto the Social Media scene, it was a concept completely unheard of. 140 character posts and people 'follow' me?! It honestly seemed ridiculous to me. But Twitter then began to spread rapidly, with everyone I knew able to be contacted at the touch of the @ key. Since joining Twitter, I have made 56,050 tweets. A bit excessive but I guarantee most of those tweets were either my horoscope being automatically tweeted or about how I was "so bored of this train." 

I couldn't resist this Game of Thrones/Twitter crossover.

(Quick Meme, 2013)

Although my tweets about being bored were very captivating, Twitter has been used by businesses to increase awareness and to promote their goods & services. As Patrick Stafford (2010) expressed in his article, Twitter can be highly useful in promoting a business. I have seen many businesses create interest in their products or services by holding 'giveaways' or offering incentives to those who 'retweet' their tweets. By doing this, the business increases its reach to consumers and may gain more followers who will then buy what they're offering. 

Twitter is also used by governments and organisations to provide information on important events. As an avid train-catcher, I follow the Sydney Trains twitter, who post about possible delays or trackwork, so as I'm scrolling through my feed and see a tweet about a delay on my line, I can then proceed to tweet about my annoyance that I have to wait 35 minutes due to urgent signal repairs. Twitter is also used to broadcast information about natural disasters, warnings, and other urgent information. 

The future of twitter seems unclear, as many people I know have stopped using it due to so many other social networking sites becoming available every day. In my opinion, Twitter is a highly useful tool in communication important information to a large number of people, but the expanding roles of Facebook and Instagram are tending to draw people away from the 140-character delight that is Twitter.

References

Quick Meme 2013, 'Why Doesn't George R.R. Martin Use Twitter?', Quick Meme, viewed 8 December 2013, <http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3upw3b>

Stafford, P 2010, 'How Twitter will change your business', Smart Company, 30 November, viewed 8 December 2013, <http://www.smartcompany.com.au/growth/economy/6751-how-twitter-will-change-your-business.html>

Mobile bricks

My partner and I live in a small mining town in NSW. A few months ago, we moved to a property about 10 minutes out of town. This meant we had no mobile phone coverage. -GASP!- I, personally, take my phone everywhere with me and having no mobile phone coverage at my own home was a huge shock to the system. I was sitting on the lounge watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S and felt like I’d been taken back to the 90s when you actually had to talk to people (I know, the thought of talking, ugh), though my TV is slightly better than those from the 90s.

I had another shock last week when I tried to activate my new phone, but instead, my old phone stopped working too, and I essentially had two very expensive bricks in my hands. As Ingrid Richardson (2007) stated; “(the) mobile phone is customarily accepted almost as a body part or appendage.” People have grown so used to seeing people glued to their phones that no one questions it anymore. But we have to think about what this is doing to our social lives. Sure, you can call up a friend to hang out, but you can just as easily say everything you want to say over a text message. Boom, no human contact needed.

It’s a very sad, but true fact that I, along with many other people, could not live without my phone for a week. I noticed a while ago that unless someone’s phone is out of battery, out of service, or just not with them, they will be much less inclined to talk face to face. And when their phone is out of battery/service/not with them, the conversation is generally just complaining about how they miss their phone.

My opinions are coming from a 20-year-old’s perspective, which means I’m surrounded by other 20-year-olds who have grown up with this technology. Who knows, it may be complete different for a 30, 40, 50 year old who rarely uses their phone. From what I can see, mobile devices with keep evolving over the coming years and will eventually (if they haven’t already) take over our lives.

(The Meta Picture, 2012)

References

Richardson, I, 2007 'Pocket Technospaces: the Bodily Incorporation of Mobile Media', Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, vol. 21, no. 2

The Meta Picture, 2007, 'Respect the Elderly', The Meta Picture, viewed 2 December 2013, <http://themetapicture.com/respect-the-elderly/>

Blogs & Blogs & Blogs

This teaching period, I chose to study Social Media as an elective for my degree. Let's just get one thing straight; I hate writing. So why did I chose a unit with so much writing? I'm not quite sure actually, but let's see how we go. This may well turn into a farce where everyone comes to find humour in my lack of writing skills. 

Blogging. How could someone's usually meaningless ramblings be of any interest to a bunch of complete strangers? Blogs are basically just a public diary, where users can post their innermost thoughts and feelings to the world, maybe behind an alias so that they have the freedom to post anything they want without the constant worry of "will this offend/be inappropriate to my boss/family/friends?"Not to worry, they'll never know it's you posting. 

Blogging opens up a whole jar of opinionated people who would otherwise just annoy their friends with their constant rambling. This blogging platform allows these 'ramblers' to post their opinions, start discussions (or arguments) with people beyond their friendship circle that might actually care about what they're saying. 

All criticisms aside, blogging has evolved the social media world, with users from all across the world able to voice their perspectives and connect with like minded (or completely opposite) people. Rheingold (TED Talks 2008) presented the theory of 'virtual communities', which very accurately defines blogging. Many users from all over the world combine ideas to create posts and provide insight into other peoples' blogs. 

Just imagine if blogging was a non-virtual tool. Streets would be lined with people on soapboxes, all trying to be heard over the person next to them, most of which we wouldn't want to listen to anyway. All we could do is try to be heard over all of them and provide our opinions on their opinions. The virtual world makes this much easier, by leaving comments instead of yelling at a person to try and be heard. Blogging online allows you to switch on and off to people and blogs you are interested in, while filtering out the ones you don't want. 

To briefly sum up:

(Ludumdare, 2013)

References:

'I have no idea what I'm doing dog' [image], Ludumdare 2013, viewed 21 November 2013, <http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/tag/change-of-plans/>.

TED Talks 2008, The new power of collaboration, viewed 21 November 2013, <http://bit.ly/xXl6y4>