Monday, April 8, 2013

Social Media Apps


With the introduction of application on our cellular devices, it seems that cell phones rarely even leave the hands of today’s society, especially the younger generation.  True, some of these apps can be beneficial.  They can be used for research, communication, email, organization and other aspects that make the daily life easier. 

But, more often than not, these apps are used solely for entertainment purposes.  There are games, that can consume hours and hours of unproductive time.  And even worse than useless games, are social media apps.  Don’t believe me?  Check out this website showing the most popular applications right now:  https://play.google.com/store/apps/category/SOCIAL/collection/topselling_free?hl=en

You’ll notice that Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Linked-In all grace the top ten apps.  With the other three also relating to communication.  True, social media is useful when trying to connect with people.  You can talk to anyone at anyplace in the world and receive a response within seconds.  It’s instant and convenient.  But it begs the question, is all of this communication really necessary?  I mean, let’s be honest here, not every status update is a gem of intellectual genius.  In fact, very few are.  Most of the time we find memes and song lyrics.  I feel that the current use of social media apps is a waste of the potential they have to make a difference worldwide.

In addition to being time wasters, social media apps have started to violate privacy.  Like this article shows:  https://www-304.ibm.com/connections/blogs/socialbusiness/entry/5_new_social_networking_apps_cool_or_creepy16?lang=en_us.  I mean really? Choosing not only WHERE you sit on a plane, but WHO sits by you seems a little bit excessive.  We are also seeing apps to “rate” your Facebook friends and even meet strangers with a 100 mile radius of you.  You can link into where people are at any given time.  The idea scares me a little bit. 

Free flow of information is wonderful and helpful to society.  But when is information, too much information.  It’s something we need to be careful of when we hid download on our next phone app.

4 comments:

  1. Great post Kels!!! I died laughing watching the kid history video!!! and seriously viral videos are a huge way we connect these days!

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  2. wow,,, just realized I commented above^^^^ on the wrong blog post... weird! But I definitely hear your argument about how extensive some social media apps are. It is kind of sad that ya look at people today and they would rather interact with their phone screen instead of the people around them. Good post!

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  3. I absolutely love all the many apps I have but at the same time it's so true, I waste so much time on useless apps that really don't benefit me that much, case and point the game 4 pics 1 word. I can spend hours on that puzzle game... and where does it get me in life?? Able to connect 4 pics with 1 word and that's it. haha great post!

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  4. Time wasters... ha perfect point. I have felt that so many times during this class. I loved the link to all the most popular apps right now. I wish I had known about that at the first of the semester!

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