Social software, is it a blessing or a curse? I stand in the middle. On one hand, the advancements we’ve made cannot be ignored and should instead be celebrated. Twenty, even ten years ago we wouldn’t have been able to imagine how far we’ve come. Networking with people all around the world and creating connections that would’ve once been thought impossible is a reality now. Social software can also be a way of safety for some, especially when it comes to missing persons and crimes that involve hacking and privacy matters. 

On the other hand, when we talk about social software, can we truly say that our social media and anything else that involves the internet is ever really  private? (Answer: never). Our public lives are shaped by social software itself, and this new way of living can be its own issue all in itself. New generations are depending on the internet like it’s a natural resource (and some can argue that it has become one). No more playing outside for the majority of the day, and if you did then you have to post it online or else it didn’t happen. Another major problem is that it can create a lack of proper and meaningful communication amongst each other. As Clay Shirky wrote in his article, Writings About the Internet, “Prior to the Internet, the last technology that had any real effect on the way people sat down and talked together was the table”. He later on quotes W.R Bion, a psychologist, who said “…humans are fundamentally individual, and also fundamentally social. Every one of us has a kind of rational decision-making mind where we can assess what’s going on and make decisions and act on them. And we are all also able to enter viscerally into emotional bonds with other groups of people that transcend the intellectual aspects of the individual”. One can argue that social media doesn’t play a negative role in this and can improve connections we have with one another. However, I believe that some of the most realest and intimate connections we have with people are with the ones we are able to see in person- and emotions don’t ever get lost in translation. This may not always be the case, but for me it has proven true.

Melanie Beltran

MCS 244

April 6, 2019

Social software a blessing in disguise because they help us interact and communicate through communication tools from the internet. In Michelle Kasprzak’s ”Abundance in Scarcity” it states, “New boundaries are built, and old ones are destroyed by those who approach from other disciplines, or by those who are forced to modify a system so that it better serves their needs…” Essentially, the development or establishment of social software was a way to better communicate with others and constantly birth new ways to find information. In Dana Boyd’s “Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What?” it states, “In communities around the world, teenagers are joining social network sites (SNSes) like MySpace, Facebook, and Bebo. Once logged into one of these systems, participants are asked to create a profile to represent themselves digitally. Using text, images, video, audio, links, quizzes, and surveys, teens generate a profile that expresses how they see themselves.” Through social media, you can communicate by commenting on someone’s vid and/or picture and direct messaging. These two capabilities allow people to connect with one another. You can unfriend and become friends with strangers, giving them and yourself access to each other’s profiles. In Clay Shirky’s “A Group is it’s Own Worst Enemy” it states, “Writing social software is hard…the act of writing social software is more like the work of an economist or a political scientist. And the act of hosting social software, the relationship of someone who hosts it is more like a relationship of landlords to tenants than owners to boxes in a warehouse. The people using your software, even if you own it and pay for it, have rights and will behave as if they have rights. And if you abrogate those rights, you’ll hear about it very quickly.” There is purpose to softwares and the technicalities to working with them. There are different functions to softwares and ways to change those functions in a system they are installed into. People that have softwares installed into their systems, they must pay for the services given to them. That relationship helps exchange money for services to consumers the same way someone would pay for rent so they could have a roof over their head. In Clay Shirky Gin’s “Television, and Social Surplus” it states, “The normal case of social software is still failure; most of these experiments don’t pan out. But the ones that do are quite incredible…someone working alone, with really cheap tools, has a reasonable hope of carving out enough of the cognitive surplus, enough of the desire to participate, enough of the collective goodwill of the citizens, to create a resource you couldn’t have imagined existing even five years ago.” Although these softwares are not 100% effective or longlasting, there are a few affordable tools and have been created to be beneficial to humans. Although softwares have their downfalls, they have helped modify communication between people.

“When less information is available, we change our behavior and discover new subtleties in the information we have.” (Kasprzak, 7). Kasprzak has a point because when we cannot find what we are looking for, we try to create our own. Social software has influenced kids to become more creative. We have started to motivate each other to become creative. Ever since Instagram was created, you see more teens trying to become models, create youtube channels, film and music producers, artists, etc. While it was still happening before social software, we have had an increase.

Almost every teenager believes social software is private but it is not because anything can be copied or shared. In reality, although a page is public or private, when people go missing; it becomes a blessing. Many are able to track their last whereabouts through their page. One of the readings suggested that educators should try to relate and teach their students about social networking. I think in this day and age it is hard to relate to younger kids on social networks. Each person has a certain outlook for what they want their page to be. Some use it for personal reasons, some for entertainment, and some are looking to promote themselves or their brand. Whichever option it is, it is a way to motivate each other, become known, and network with people of your age group with similar likings. While still being somewhat complicated, it will not be easy to keep it public.

Overall, I believe social software is a blessing because it has brought us so much advancement in our society. We have a start to software that only brings more innovation. While there are millions of disadvantages and cons to the internet overall, it has made life much easier for us all. At the same time, it has changed how we think and how we act around each other. So the answer will vary depending on who you ask. Older generations will disagree, they will say their way was much more productive.

Marshall Mcluhan stated that “the medium is the message” in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. For example, the computer would be the message instead of the content. He said, “Firearms are in themselves neither good nor bad; it is the way they are used that determines their value.” He stated that people have paid too much attention to the content of media and not the medium in which it is delivered. He wrote, “The message, it seemed, was the “content,” as people used to ask what a painting was about. Yet they never thought to ask what a melody was about, nor what a house or a dress was about”. Instead, Mcluhan wants us to be concerned with the medium the content is distributed in and argues that it is the medium that affects more people. Personally, I found this to be very interesting and I started thinking of how the medium affects my perspective on certain things or how is it possible that some things such as violence can be acceptable on certain mediums and not others. For example, people would find it more acceptable to see a naked body in a film rather than on a  television. I believe this is because as a society we have created certain norms for what a television or a film is supposed to present.

I agree with Mcluhan to an extent. I do believe that the medium is important and we do consume media or information differently on different mediums but Mcluhan fails to give credit to the content we are presented with. I understand that the nature of the medium is what Mcluhan is focusing on but I would not say it is always more important than the message. We could share the same message on different mediums and get different results but if the message is a catastrophe such as the genocide of millions of people then the medium might not outweigh the message. However, analyzing the medium and deconstructing it and seeing how it affects a certain message is important as well. I wish Mcluhan would have paid more attention to opposing views but his argument is interesting.

In the article “The medium is the message” by  Marshall McLuhan is about how the message of the medium that is being transmitted to society is more important than the intention. Communication has changed drastically in society because of media, for example automation. Lots of people are losing jobs because of automated machines in factories. From McDonalds using menu kiosks for customers to use instead of having them talk to actual people to toll booth people losing jobs because of EZ pass. The McDonalds menu kiosk can help those with social anxiety, but it also takes away jobs that people need. There are benefits but at the cost of consequences. Many forms of communications are changing for better and for worse. Automated cars are good because they help those who are disabled to get around easier but they can also be harmful because we don’t know the full extent of possible consequences.  We don’t only have to focus on machines but think bigger to the internet itself such as Twitter and Instagram. We can now communicate with people all around the world through these social media platforms. Facebook, a medium, was created to connect around the world and its intention was to be able to talk to friends and family world wide. Has that been effectively communicated to society? Some people would say yes and some would say no, and those who say no would say that answer because of the recent Facebook scandals. McLuhan compares media to art by stating that media can affect people just as much as art does.  Medium is the message, and however we interpret it opens doors to growth (or it can hinder growth) as a society.

From Wikepidia, a a Canadian philosper by the name Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase Medium is the message in 1964. In this article, it says, ” It means that the nature of a medium (the channel through which a message is transmitted) is more important than the meaning or content of the message. McLuhan tells us that a “message” is, “the change of scale or pace or pattern” that a new invention or innovation “introduces into human affairs.McLuhan uses the term ‘message’ to signify content and character. The content of the medium is a message that can be easily grasped. And the character of the medium is another message which can be easily overlooked. McLuhan says “Indeed, it is only too typical that the ‘content’ of any medium blinds us to the character of the medium.” After reading this part, the reason why medium is so important for us to consume digital media is because it is easy to read and understand. Because of this, without medium, media would just be like us reading a textbook in class that we never knew before, or understand. Because of this, it has led to a  meteoric rise of new media. That’s why people would rather read social media posts, then look at traditional news. Meduim in digital media includes, new media, reading books and magazines, watching television and film, and listening to radio.(From Google) These are the types of media that we consume. Also, it keeps us attach to it no matter what. In the article, “The Medium is the Message,” by Marshall Mcluhan, it says, ” Leonard Doob, in his report Communication in Africa, tells of one African who took great pains to listen each evening to the BBC news, even though he could understand nothing of it. Just to be in the presence of those sounds at 7 P.M. each day was important for him. His attitude to speech was like ours to melody— the resonant intonation was meaning enough.” This African guy could not even understant the news that he was listening too, but still woke up early to listen to the news, that he could not understand. This is why the medium is important to how we consume digital media.

The definition of “the medium is the message” according to Wikipedia is a phrase created by Marshall McCluhan that means that the channel through which the message is transmitted is more important than the meaning or content of the message. This statement is proven numerous times. Marshall McCluhan states “This fact merely underlines the point that “the medium is the message” because it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action.” Many movies and songs have hidden meanings that people have to pay close attention to in order to fully grasp the concept. Social Media encourages “the medium as the message” in a sense that they limit how much a person can write in posts. For example, Twitter has a character limit of about 280 for each post making people have to get to the point of their post rather than ramble on. Instagram supports “the media is the message” visually. It allows businesses to post pictures that are appealing to consumers and is a quick and easy way to showcase a message. The medium is important because it is how a message will be perceived without a medium, the message is pointless and means nothing. Digital Media is probably one of the most effective type of medium. This is because it is seen worldwide and instantly and is accessible at any moment . Many people prefer to view messages digitally rather than in print. Rappers also use their medium to get their messages across.The beat behind their voices helps people to hear the message in a creative way. Meek Mill’s song “What’s Free” he raps about the inequalities and injustices of the system that is continuously happening to minorities. He explains how in the land of the free, people aren’t really free because of the lack of education, lack of opportunity, or getting caught up in the system due to how they look. The media allows us to experience the message in multiple ways. The popular way for messages to be seen is through music and movies where it is visible on the screen or people are able to paint pictures in their head while listening to their music.

The mediums that we use affect our daily lives in many different ways. In the writing by Marshall McLuhan called The Medium is the Message he says “We are as numb in our new electric world as the native involved in our literate and mechanical culture” In other words, we are so caught up in the effectiveness of our technology that we tend to forget that it is all fairly recent and we didn’t always have these mediums.  For example, you wouldn’t go to the library to borrow books for a research assignment today. You’ll most likely go straight home to your computer, or even use your phone to find what you’re looking for.

Furthermore, in order to validate your sources from your chosen medium, you would simply find other sources on the same medium. You justify your works cited page by showing that the works come from “credible” sources, and you determine how credible they are on the same computer or phone you used to find the information in the first place. McLuhan says that “The effect of the medium is made strong and intense just because it is given another medium as ‘content.'” Books and articles are made more popular through the use of more efficient technology through advertisements and recommendations. It’s more likely you’ll hear about the articles you need to write your papers through a school database on a computer than looking in physical books for snippets of information you’d need to complete your assignments. This shows how important our choice of medium is in modern day life. Some people can’t even find jobs without the right kinds of mediums to give them the information they need to see their schedules or discover the job postings. Stores still show that they’re hiring but most of them nowadays say you need to apply online, so if you don’t have a computer or wifi you have to find a place that does otherwise you’d have no chance at being hired. Our mediums are becoming more and more about always being accessible regardless to what time it is. This is also important because it shows how it can numb our brains to information. We see so much of it at once that we don’t have to care about all the stuff that happens due to our limited capability of retaining information and caring about it. But these mediums make us feel like we need to know all the information out there all of the time.