Through my personal experiences with social media, it seems like social media can be both a blessing and a curse. A hundred years ago, one could take a picture and save it if they choose. If they didn’t want it or if the photo was very embarrassing, one could simply rip it up and throw it away. Now, if one were to post a picture that is embarrassing, it can really haunt them in the real world. Those pictures that are put online, those will be on the internet forever. For as long as you live ,those pictures will be out on the internet forever. Even if you delete it on your facebook profile, someone somewhere or facebook themselves will have a copy of it. Stacy Snyder had to deal with this herself as a photo she took and posted came and bit her. She took a picture of herself in a pirate costume and the dean found out. At this point, there was absolutely nothing she could have done, even if she deleted it off of MySpace, the dean or somebody else would have had a copy.
Another thing I want to address is cancel culture. Cancel culture is when a mob on the internet tries to blacklist someone from jobs, places, etc. Basically banishing someone. If you decided to make a joke about blackface like Shane Dawson ten years ago, people would take your livelihood away today. My point is, the internet has made it so that our lives can be completely uploaded to the internet and that people in the future will focus on and judge us based on the poor choices we make instead of looking at our lives as a whole. The fact that people post about 70 pieces of content per month just shows how much we rely on the internet.
That said, the internet isn’t all bad, it really helps us to not forget anything. We will never forget what happened on 9/11 as it is on the internet forever. We have so many pictures of it and we make posts every year. A hundred years from now, we will still remember 9/11 but we might not remember what happened 300 years from then because there was no internet 200 years ago. In fact, as technology advances, we might even upload more.
Amazon, if all bad, can do some things right. As stated in the ‘applefritter’ article, “If the wishlist creator specifies a shipping address, someone else can even purchase the book on Amazon and have it shipped directly as a gift. The wishlist creator’s city and state are made public on the wishlist, but the street address remains private”. This is a plus for the internet, the internet is a scary place but this can really help people. If someone whole lives in a less fortunate place wants to read the latest harry potter book, they can show this wish list to their family members and friends and I am sure someone would buy it for them. It really gives a voice to people who need help and connects people who can give and those who need.
APP:
I personally would like to create an app for introverted people like me. I really don’t like seeing people because I am very nervous when it comes to meeting new people. So this app would include things one likes and would enter them into that community. For example, if I like video games (For Honor), I would type it into the app and it would show me that community. I would then feel less pressure to make friends because we all have something in common. We would go from there.
Am I doing this right?
