Social Media: The Fire Rises

"We don't have a choice on whether we DO social media,   

the question is how well we DO it."

-Erik Qualman

    How many times do you spend on your facebook? Do you have a facebook? As of october 2013, there are 500 MILLION users of facebook, half of them log in daily. That number is just insane. I spend quite a few hours a day on facebook, only talking to a few people, but the thought that 250 million could be online alongside me right now is just mind blowing. When I read that statistic, I began to wonder to myself, "How?" Not just how Facebook got big, but how did this thing called social media get so big? Where did it all begin? My answer 1971, the year of the first email. That first email was the spark to the entire forest fire of social media we have today. But it didn't stop there. As times passed, the social media field had to grow right along with it. By 1978, the first 'blog was invented in the form of the BBS, or Bulletin Board System, which soon became Usenets, one of the earliest forms of online blogging. 1988, the first chatting system became reality with IRC, Internet Relay Chat. At that point, no one could honestly imagine how big the internet was to become. But when the world wide web was created in 1991, there was no limits of what could be thought of and In 1994, one of the first social networking sites appeared on the web and became popular near instantly, as well as other sites to come after it. This site was Yahoo Geocities, and from there social media spread even more quickly than before. By 1995, websites such as TheGlobe, Classmates, and Ebay began spreading like wildfire, helping expand and grow social media even further. 1997 saw the release of AOL instant messenger or AIM, a chatting messenger that some people still use to this very day, and the birth of Sixdegrees.com, the first modern social network. A year later google and paypal, two years after that wikipedia was formed with the intent of allowing people to give information on certain topics. By 2002, MySpace had over 57million user, Friendster over 90 million users, and LinkedIn over 100 million the following year. Youtube had over 24 hours of footage being uploaded by the minute, while Twitter had 30,000 people a day sign up to tweet with an average of 600 tweets a second. Every coming year more and more people hop online and joined most of the world. It was clear that nothing was going to stop the fire that first email started. But is that bad? I don't think so. It has become a way of life for us, and as far as I can tell, it has helped more people meet and talk to others. 1 in 5 couples meet online now through dating sites such as eHarmony. I have spoken to a Canadian, a guy in Maine, and a girl in California at the same time through gaming blogs, and I still do. I can speak to my Abuelo when he is half way across the globe through skype, and see his pictures through Facebook. I believe this world has become all the better for social media, and I can't wait to see what next steps it goes through next.

Cyberbullying: Online is just as bad as Offline

          I sat down to read an article from Danah Boyd on her opinion on the rise of cyber-bullying. I was drawn to this as in middle school, I had rude and mean spirited comments aimed at a fake page of me that a bully made on MySpace. She opens up stating that she is uncomfortable with the talk of it, due to the fact she felt that the 'cyber' part of the word was being over-emphasized than the bullying part. I feel the same way on the matter. Cyber or not, the fact is that a kid or a group of them are harassing another child in their social group. The instant messages, the blog posts, they are just a modern day version of note passing, or scribbling on the bathroom wall. She goes on to give those example's explaining that adult's should be taking note of these situations all the time. The web has gone onto not cause bullying, but make it much more effective by mirroring and magnifying the bullying itself. Danah feels that 99% of cyber-bullies are people who know the victim off-line. This is what she means by mirroring. If your a bully offline, chances are you are a bully online as well, same going for if your a victim. Most adult's see this online and ignore it. That will not stop it.We keep looking to our computer screens and mindlessly scroll past the important stuff we need to see. They need to settle the conflict off the web. If it does not, then the bully's power over the victim will only increase over time. I was afraid to go to the counselors over my cyberbullying situation, because I was afraid of what would happen next. An adult, a friend of my mother's, finally saw the post and not only did they get to work trying to find out who posted it, but try and take it down. Danah points out that it's harder to stop online bullying than it is to stop offline. Its easy to clean a bully's scribbles, but it is a lot harder to 'clean' it on the web, as you don't know where each bit of bullying may lay. A person could easily doctor IM messages to frame another person. With each new branch of technology, there will be bullying, so we shouldn't try to relabel it as anything else, just because theres a new factor in play. She points out that as depressing as it sounds, there will always be bullying, no matter what we do, there will only be more bullies if not given enough attention. I do agree with this, but I also believe that the fact technology is always branching out, that it give s bullies and bullies to be their 'sticks and stones'. All that it takes to have it under control, is to have parents involved. The adults found out from the other parent's son, that a kid in my class made it, just as a joke. We were brought into the counselors office, and we just looked at each other. While the counselor went to talk to the boy's parents, we talked. He didn't mean to hurt me, he just was bored and decided to make a joke, he apologized immensely for what he did. He seemed sincere, so I forgave him, I left the office, and after middle school I never saw him again. Did our talk change anything within him? I'd like to think so. If bullying cant be ended, I just hope it can be contained.