Social Media : The Windows of 2019
“Books is a window of the world, the roots of a tree, and mother for every curiosity.” Right now, the statement still applicable. But, might need revision in the future.
When earth enters their 21 century age, there is an acceleration of innovation and technology, which rarely happen in the last century. Many companies, which focused on software development and electronic device growth rapidly. They compete against each other to dominate and attract costumer.
Technology plays important role in changing civilization on Earth. They build a new system which assists people to live easier and happier. The growth of industrial science also raise the internet users, which was a high-class technology in the 90’s. As the time passed, internets also reach out lower and middle-class society. There are also apps development on computers that would help users use the internet for specific reasons. One of them is Social Media.
Connecting people have always been the main utility of Social media. Due to the competition between the developer, many apps start to upgrade their utilities from conversation until place to find information, share stories and discuss (Fox,2011). From one just type of social media in 2006. In 2018, our species already invent four types of Social Media, including Social Networking (Line, Whats app), Microblogging (Twitter, Tumbler), Photo Sharing (Instagram), and Video Sharing (Youtube)(Jolly, 2018).
Research proof that there is an increasing rate of people sees social media as a new source of information (Pepitone,2011). In America itself, There is an increment rate of five percent adults using Social Media as the source of information. (Bialik & Matsa,2017). On another hand, Americans were reading slightly less in 2017 compared to 2016. (Brown,2017)
Based on the data, there is a shifting process from reading books to social media in the opening of the 21st century. Cost, functionality, and simplicity might be the best reason to explain the phenomena.
When people choose a product, there will be a consideration that every people might be subjective. If we see it in helicopter view, there will be a tendency where most people going to put price and promotion, functionality, and opinion from others as their top of mind as considerations. The more they meet the indicator, the more possibilities to be chosen.
We don’t need money to buy Social Media. Users can use all their feature and most of their functionality freely. They also high functionality due to fulfilling market interests. In one app, let’s say Instagram, we can upload photos, made comments, direct message, and share stories. So, users feel that they got many advantages by using social media apps. Their basic requirements are the basic features of smartphones, which most people can afford it.
Opinion based. In the digital era, most people valued opinion better than facts. Weir, Senior Journalist in Guardian, said that people start to leave news and approaching blog or social media as their information source. Social media also help people to find alternatives fact easily, which means users can searches news based on their believes or stances. (Weir, 2017) Social Media sometimes also has been chosen as a platform to summarize information (also with opinion) from several platform media such as books and news.
One day, Social media can be feasibly replaced Books. But, could Social Media make a high-quality window as the books made in the past?
A few months ago, when I’m on my sophomore years, my lecturer (Erita) said that Social Media is a big pond with shallow depth. Social Media helps people to get in touch with information faster than before. In another hand, information in social media can’t be trusted because it filed with many subjective perceptions. It can trigger a reader to become more irrational and not objective.
There also “anonymity” term in Social Media. When a writer becomes anonymity, they can speak without cognitively thinking about the effect of their writings. People become anonymous in social media because they want to protect privacy (Kang, Brown, Kiesler 2017). Anonymity also correlates with uncivil comments. Research for Houston University proves that 53% anonymous comments usually is uncivil compare with 29% non-anonymous uncivil comments. It will be hard to find the suspect since there is a difference in behavior in the online and offline world (we know it as “Online Disinhibition Effect”).
On other hands, reading books helps people deal with depression, cutting stress, and reducing the development of dementia in sexagenerian (Brown,2016). For children, reading books help them to understand vocabulary faster and think more logically. There are also editors that can check the validity and reliability of the information.
So, in 2019, we expect that Social Media are going to be our new window. But should it be?
Hey, thanks for reading my medium :). You can give an outstanding clap if you want! Please comment or ask me in gmail (raveltowangistu@gmail.com) if you have any question. By the way, if you found some grammar mistakes, please tell me! I’m still on learning process and I kinda still confuse in several parts. Once again, Thanks.
Ravelto Wangistu