The Social Media Dilemma: Addiction or Past Time

 In today's day in age social media is probably the most viewed type of pages on the Internet next to video pages like you tube and Netflix. I myself only know a handful of people who don’t use some sort of social media, and most of them don’t use it because frankly they never learned to use computers as kids and have a hard time using them now. Many of us wake up to Facebook or Twitter to find out daily news or just to see how friends are doing, then as the day goes on maybe spend our time between classes or work on Tumblr or Instagram looking through post just to burn some time before checking back on Facebook at the end of the day to see whats new. At least, that’s usually how I use my social media, rather heavily I suppose. In any case, recently I was challenged to go 24 hours without social media to see if I could and how it would feel. Honestly I think I may do this anyway some days or at least go close to a day at some points so I didn’t think to much of the challenge but I was somewhat surprised at some points of my day during.

Facebook, and Tumblr are my main social media sites, with some Ifunny every once in a while for laughs. I dislike Instagram and Vine for how immature, sexualized, and down right dumb my generation and below seem on it. Twitter on the other hand I just don’t like anywhere near as much as Facebook, it seems more disconnected. So keeping in mind I only needed to avoid the first 3 sites, my day started out with me resisting checking my Facebook notifications which spent the day flashing at the very top of my phone screen taunting me to log on. Still in the beginning avoiding the 3 sites I use didn’t seem so tough. Around noon that day though, I started to feel it creeping up on me, the boredom. I ran out of stuff to watch on Netflix, I didn't have any video games to occupy me due to having beaten them all, and I was starting to consider logging on and quitting the challenge. In the end though a few of my cousins decided to go to a river nearby to hangout which got me through most of the day. When I got back home I was able to get through the rest of the night just texting with some of the people I usually talk to on Facebook. So in the end it didn’t turn out to be so bad going 24 hours without social media. The following are shots from the river I was at, I thought they looked really nice.

In the end I'm not sure how the experience makes me feel about social media, but I don’t think its as addicting as some people say, at least not to me. The thing is people like stuff that’s fun, and social media may not be laugh out loud rolling on the floor fun, but its an entertaining way to see what your friends and acquaintances are up to and get to some news throughout the day. Plus when you have a schedule like mine, where my friends are either living in other states and countries, or they're busy in school or working when I'm not, social media is a great way to feel like your with them for a while. Mostly I get this feeling through group chatting on Facebook and tagging each other on fun stuff that interests us there or on Tumblr. Sure we could text, or if the time is appropriate Skype, but if you cant meet up, sometimes you cant Skype either, and texting just isn’t as expressive as Facebook is honestly. But if you have the chance to see your friends in real life, or if you can get out of the house and do anything fun with anyone you like I think social media becomes redundant, like it was when I was at the river. It just depends on whether you can do something else to occupy yourself more enjoyably than being online, and if you cant I don't think theirs anything wrong with spending a day on a social media site, or even a few days. It's all about balancing out your life and time, if you feel like social media is the only fun thing you can do or the only place you know people, than you might have bigger issues in your life than just a social media addiction.

Photography in the Current Media

    In our current day and age visual media is something we are bombarded with on a daily basis. When you wake up in the morning you might turn on your phone or your TV and read articles or watch a morning news show to get the latest, up to date news. In the afternoon when your home you might watch TV which is just a portal into a world of visual media, or maybe read a magazine or newspaper online full of pictures of your favorite topics. Maybe you will go watch a movie and while you watch it you may not even notice this as a form of visual media as well. Visual media is everywhere, photography being one the oldest, followed by movies and then TV. All of these forms are important in furthering cultural transmission, or conveying beliefs, ideas, values, and practices of a culture. More importantly though they also serve surveillance purposes, meaning they lend credibility to the stories we see and hear. As technology improves though, are some of these forms of visual media becoming obsolete? With the advent and progress of video and film technology that can capture entire worlds at a time, is photography, which can only capture a single scene in any given photo, falling behind in usefulness? In my opinion, I would say no.

   It is true that video and film can capture enormous slices of life between their recording length and the sound they capture, but sometimes this can be more of a curse than a blessing. A photo of a sunrise at just the right moment and angle can portray immense beauty and pleasure in a viewer, but if you used a camera to film the suns decent from when it begins to fall till when it disappears, you get a long boring video of the sky that will most likely bore the viewer before they hit the magic moment in which the photograph quickly expressed. In other situations filming an entire event may not be allowed or might be frowned upon, in which case photography is a quick and discreet way to capture a moment. The main advantage of photography is its ability to capture a single moment that is the peak of emotion, and that will be able to convey these emotions quickly and efficiently to the photos audience. Famous photography like the ones below prove this point, and I think proves the worth of a photograph over a video in certain situations.

The Most Beautiful Suicide

Edward Abbey- Landscape,  Time Magazine

Great Depression photography

   Their is one more reason that I believe photography is far from obsolete in the media. Sadly this isn't a good reason or one to be proud of. In the media, often the truth is not king when trying to get information out to people. Sometimes the truth is distorted to show a reality somewhat different from what real reality is, all in an effort to sow the seeds of a certain emotion in viewers. I do not mean to say this is right or just or even that it happens all that commonly, but I do believe it is something that really happens and that some higher ups in media abuse in order to meet their own ends. Photography is the easiest form of media to manipulate in this way, whether through cropping or photoshop, a picture is a medium that depending on its source may not always be a good idea to take at face value. Because of photography's easy malleability though, I feel it will stay in social, and especially news media for a long time.

Music and the Transfer of Culture

              Music is an ancient and beautiful concept that has been around as long as humans have been able to communicate with each other. I feel that music is an odd and interesting art form with a very strong power to capture the attention and imagination of a listener when done correctly.  Therefore, it is no surprise that it is also something that can deeply imprint emotions, stories, and ideas in the listener. This is the true power that music holds, by simply listening to a song you are being shaped by the rhythm and lyrics that the artist creates. You might love the song and take its message to heart, in which case you have now absorbed a bit of the morals and ideals of that songs creator. On the other hand you might hate the song and reject everything it says, even then it transfers to you a stance on the issue that will shape your future perceptions, even if only a little. This has become increasingly true ever since radios first ancestor, the phonograph, was created by Thomas Edison in 1877. With each new evolution of sound transfer technology, music has become more mainstream and common in our lives and now a radio in the house or car is something almost anyone around the world has access to. Understanding this, how is it exactly that music transfers not only emotions and single ideals, but tastes of entire cultures to a new audience?

                There are two ways that I can see this happening, or two examples at least. The first is when “culture” is considered as something varying between people of different nationalities. In this case having a population that is becoming increasingly more diverse causes a melding of cultures. For example, in the past few years the Hispanic population has grown in the United States through immigration into the country. As that population grew, they brought with them music from their own respective countries. It’s true for a long time their music stayed isolated on the Spanish only radio stations but already now we see this cultures music permeating into American culture through music on hit music stations. Artists like Shakira, Enrique Iglesias, and Pit-bull have in recent years had their music blow up on American charts. Songs like “hips don’t lie” by Shakira, the many songs Pit-bull has been featured in with American artists like “Mmm Yeah” by Austin Mahone or Enrique’s current english radio hit “Bailando” have opened a window into Latin culture in this foreign land, and it has caused Americans to try a music type that was completely unknown to them 20 to 30 years ago. I believe as time goes on this music will slowly become more popular and will be seen as often on hit music stations as other genres like pop and rap, and with that we will see a successful cultural transmission and fusion.

                           Shakira- Hips Dont Lie

                           Enrique Iglesias - Bailando
 

Austin Mahone ft. Pit-Bull - Mmm Yeah

 

                The other example I can think of is within a group of people of the same nationality. Even in a group of same origin there will always be separate views and sub cultures brought on by the difference of opinions and experiences every person faces in their lives. With each sub culture I feel there is a type of music that they create that will for the most part represent that groups ideals. These ideals will vary as the population ages and soon a new generation will come of age and begin to form their own ideals. This is where music comes in, as even though the new generation will have their own thoughts and experiences, all of that will be shaped by the experiences of the prior generation, music being the main instrument for this. For example today in the US the current generation in the ages from 15-22 have their own music coming out that represents them and their generation’s thoughts and perceptions, but most of them know and have grown up listening to the music their parents enjoyed. We all know old artists like Elvis, the Beatles, or Tupac. We may not play them as often as the older generation did but we have heard them played by that generation and that music was the stepping stone our music came from. Their ideals, morals and stories are the beginnings of ours, therefore we see not only a transmission, but an evolution of culture as time goes on.