Wednesday, October 12, 2016

PB1A

Troy Johnson Professor DePiero
10/13/2016 Eng. 101-108

Social Media

Social media has undeniably taken over the 2010s. With so many different websites and apps they are extremely easy to access. Social media is websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. The initial idea of social media sites was to connect different people from around the world. You can rekindle relationships with friends and family members from around the world. Since then social media sites have evolved so much more beyond that.


There are many different social sites today. Three of the most prominent social sites of today include Facebook , Twitter and Instagram. Each one has a different set up and abilities , but essentially have the same ideas and target audiences. The target audience for these sites are for the younger population. Generations born after 1970 are the general target , but it is also easy enough to use for people who aren't quite as tech savvy as the younger population.


The purpose of these three social media sites is to connect people from around the world with each other. In the last 2-3 years these sites, Facebook and Twitter in particular have become media outlets for news. You can watch news clips and skip through to highlighted events. More recently Facebook has created "Facebook live". With Facebook live anyone with a Facebook account can broadcast anything they are doing live in real time. This also includes news stations. I recently watched the second presidential debate through my Facebook live feed on one of the news channels that broadcasts to Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs.

Social media sites for the most part have a upbeat tone. Of course it is a place where people come to express their opinions and emotions on different topics. They have a welcoming style, with applications having plenty of bright colors and animations. What makes these social media sites deemed as social networking sites is the ability to see what someone else is posting about in their life from anywhere in the world. They are to also share world news and news going on in your own area. I believe Facebook is the trademark and definition of what social media is today.

Today there are three prominent social sites. In my opinion I believe Facebook is the most prominent. Facebook serves its purpose and in my opinion it is the definition of social media. On Facebook you can create a profile. On your profile you can list your name , the city you live in, where you are originally from, along with your birthday and where you went to school. You can also post pictures and tag various people in the photo either people who are in the photo or that you want to see the photo. Unlike Twitter where you can only tweet 140 characters per tweet or Instagram where you only post photos, Facebook allows you to post both statuses with unlimited characters and many photos. You can add, accept and deny different friend requests giving you some control on who views your photos. As stated by the Investapedia website, who wrote an article about “Twitter vs. Facebook vs. Instagram”, with the information they collected they have come up with conclusion that “As of 2015, 72% of online American adults use Facebook. The site is especially popular among online women, 77% of whom are users of the site. In addition, 82% of online adults between 18 to 29 use Facebook, along with 79% of those 30 to 49, 64% of those 50 to 64 and 48% of those 65 and older. While its user base is dominated by those over 25, Facebook still has over 50 million users under the age of 25.”

Without question social media has dominated the 2010s. With so many different social sites circulating the internet, there are three which are most prominent today including Facebook , Twitter and Instagram. One of the main goals of these three social media sites is to connect people from all over the world. Social media sites are geared with a upbeat tone. Of the three social sites I believe Facebook is the most prominent & serve its purpose as the definition of a social site.




2 comments:

  1. Troy,

    For the purposes of our class (studying writing), I want you to focus on something a bit more specific. Social media is super broad. Ask yourself: what are some specific types of writing IN the social media world? Think about our “Nesting Doll” activity from yesterday’s class. You could go from social media → to → tweets → to… lots of different kinds of tweets: tweets about political causes/activism, tweets that are intended to sell/promote products, funny/goofy tweets. They’re all different, right? So the questions I want us to answer are: what makes these smaller sub-genres SIMILAR and DIFFERENT, and to what effect (what makes one “better” or more effective than another), and why?

    You started getting into some stylistic conventions, which is great. You mentioned that social media sites/posts have an upbeat tone. My next question to you would be: OK, can you prove it? What did you SEE in the language/writing that made you think of it as being “upbeat”? Getting into those kinds of specifics is what will help you support/substantiate the claims that you make (which is essential for making an argument, which is what academic writing is all about). The best way you can do that is by locating or pinpointing specific examples—specific tweets or Instagram posts or Facebook feeds or whatever. Instead of generally talking “about” these genres, I want you to examine specific examples of genres.

    In ENG 101-108, I’m trying to train you to become super-observant so that you can get down to the nittiest of details and adhere (if that’s what you want to do) to the audience’s expectations for all the different genres that you’ll write here on out. By gaining a deeper and more critical reading awareness, you’ll be able to adopt/adapt writer’s choices (their writing) into your own writing.

    Z

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  2. This is a great essay. You used your own expirience with social media while analyzing its use in today's society.

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