Making new media make sense

 Like with anything, the evolution of technology has presented numerous   opportunities as well as obstacles. I found myself thinking “that is me!” at several points of this chapter. As a person who is on every social network possible, I find myself at the mercy of new media. Several times I have left several of the networks, but in doing so I find my professional, friendship and family communications greatly affected. I get my bookings for show on Facebook, communicate with friends via twitter and communicate with my boss and mother on whatsapp(a new social network available on smart phones, similar to BBM.) Therefore, I consider myself to be a prime example of many of the examples of how technology has changed us. Crockroft mentions how twitter is affecting our attention span, “your attention span is being reduced and you’re not engaging your brain.” I can’t help but agree. Prior to twitter people would update long ended Facebook statuses and I would read them, yet now I find myself scrolling over anything that is longer than two sentences.  One wonders about the pressure on advertising agencies to adapt to this increasing impatience that is brewing amongst society. Restraining people to 160 characters has increased the amount of short hand used by people. Not only have people become lazy to read but lazy to write. Even on other social networks that have no word limits, people will always opt for short hand.

However, one cannot ignore that the evolution of technology is only a problem if we are not evolving with it. Technology serves the age that it is birthed from. By that I mean, as much as technology shapes us we shape it. Had Facebook statuses and the need to share where we are, what we are doing at every single moment not been so popular, twitter would have never been successful.  To resist the evolution of technology is like to drink poison and expect another person to die. Because new technology governs so much of our daily lives it is in our advantage to understand new technology and how to use it to our benefit. In reading this chapter it reminded me of the clip I have attached below.

One last thought though, perhaps the problem lies in how fast technology is evolving rather than the fact that it is evolving. Through the introduction of new technology constantly, generation gaps are becoming larger and larger. I have more in common with a 35 year old than I do with a 16 year old.  Simply because there are more different generations between my younger cousin and me than with my older cousin and I. For the most part my older cousin and I grew up with the same kind of technology. There are plenty references in her life that I can understand. Yet the same is not true with my younger cousin and my childhood.  This is perhaps the biggest problem I see. With so many generations co-existing could this lead to idiosyncrasies between the youth and the elderly?

Enjoy the clip. I cannot decide if I was amazed or dismayed by what we have become.