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Technologies and Online Communities

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Technologies and online communities
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Technologies and online communities

What is the importance of social media in today’s society? How is it used and by whom? What would be the effect on society if social media were suddenly removed?
Social media has gained importance by instantly connecting groups together to exchange thoughts and ideas on both current events and personal opinions. People can express their thoughts to anyone that chooses to log on and read what is posted. Given humans are social creatures this allows everyone to interact on a level that was previously unheard of and unimaginable. Nearly everybody has a Facebook account or follows Twitter and the numbers grow as more and more people gain comfort with the ability to converse online. It also allows a degree of anonymous contribution of thoughts and opinions that may not be otherwise accepted.
In businesses, social media has allowed for transfer of information more rapidly and more widespread than previously available. Companies now are able to promote themselves more both within their area and outside the previous norm. In medicine for example, doctors can access information that they would have had to otherwise wait to be published in trade journals. This has been a boon to the medical community.
Were social media to be removed, the effect on society would be one of immediate shock and similar to drug withdrawal. People have gotten hooked on the Internet and social media access very much like addiction to harmful drugs and the withdrawal process probably would be the same. Nowadays, people have allowed their lives to revolve around everything online. The removal would leave a vacuum that many would be hard-pressed to fill. Basic comprehension of the written word has deteriorated because people no longer have the capacity to absorb things longer than a few paragraphs in length.

What do online communities mean for popular culture today? How has this changed over the past 10 years? In what ways are online communities accessed and expanded?

Online communities have changed the way people socialize. They have become as common as eating and breathing to over 90% of the population and given rise to instant communication to like-minded people from all over the world. No longer can one lose touch with friends or family thanks to the various online communities available. Even creating video conferences, which were primarily used for business, today we use to talk to family member who would not see otherwise. The amount of time spent online has changed from less than one hour a day to four hours average over the last 10 years. The speed and scope of delivery has changed profoundly over the last 10 years.
(An online community is a virtual community that exists online and whose members enable its existence through taking part in membership ritual. Online communities can take the form of an information system in which anyone can post content, such as a Bulletin board system or one where only a restricted number of people can initiate posts, such as Weblogs. They have also become a supplemental form of communication between people who know each other primarily in real life. Many means are used in social software separately or in combination, including text-based chat rooms and forums that use voice, video text or avatars) (Kaplan & Haenlian, 2009).

What role does the internet and social media play in globalization and the expansion of communities? It allows individuals’ personal input or user generated content to a public cyber-arena allowing people the ability to engage with others beyond geographic confinements. Social media allows an amplification of human potential, which benefits individuals, businesses and communities, and serves as a catalyst for globalization. Social media contains the community ideal and can be defined as a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations and allows for the creation and exchange of user generated content. Social media allows for more than strictly face-to-face communication in the building of social and business relationships on a widespread level that was previously unattainable.

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