References:

Hinton, S & Hjorth L 2013, Understanding Social Media. Sage Publications, London 2013. (Section: pp. 1-31).

Chun, W.H.K 2016, Updating to Remain the Same: Habitual New Media, MIT Press, Massachusetts, United States (Sections: ‘Introduction: Habitual New Media, or Updating to Remain (Close to) the Same’, pp. 1-20.)

Social Media was an exciting topic for me as I have such a big interest in it. It is fascinating to me how much people rely on social media in today’s society, so I really enjoyed discovering its origins.

To begin it is important to note that social media is a part of ‘New Media,’ which involves communicating using digital technologies. New Media is constantly evolving and is often digital and/or online.

After the immergence of Web 2.0, the web became very accessible to everyone, not just ‘tech geniuses.’ This empowered its users to be able to create and produce their own content as well as interact and view with other content creators.

An individual’s ability to discover whatever they desire due to this Web 2.0 is revolutionary and social media accelerates this learning process to other people as it is so easy to spread information to a large following without them even asking for the information themselves.

Learning that as users we are constantly bombarded with advertisements and have our motions tracked to gain insight for marketers to improve their sites was interesting to me as obviously I have experienced it myself but to have it confirmed does make me feel as if I am being stalked.

The readings really emphasised the importance that Web 2.0 has had on the evolution of New Media and as a society I believe that generally people take it for granted that they can so easily stay in contact with distant friends, celebrities and people you don’t even know as a way to continue to consume knowledge about the world and the topics that truly interest you.