Now a days the only way to know the status of anyone’s relationship is to check their facebook page.
Many couples spend more time updating the status of their situation then they do checking in with partner about the status of said relationship.
The technical advancements in social media can be fun, exciting and informational but if you are in a relationship married, long term, etc. it can be troublesome.
There has been such a dramatic increase to the many ways we communicate with one another but the drawback has been the breakdown of person to person communication.
Facebook, Twitter, instagram etc. have become the way to express your feelings and your personal business to the whole wide, wide world.
I mean look at how often you see someone jumping on one of these sites to pound a mate, family member or friend. I remember when a woman broke up with a man she would leave what was known as the Dear John letter-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dear_John_letter
The difference from getting such a letter in today’s version (blasting him on your twitter account) is it was meant for only his eyes to see and his heart to recover from.
Now with everyone being so connected by cyberspace that a man facing a similar fate has to endure the pain of everyone knowing he has been dumped.
In fact if it is seen by a certain amount of eyes it can go viral and the next thing you know you are being played on” YouTube” for everyone’s amusement.
Couples argue over who you should or should not friend, follow or instant message; many couples have disagreements over having access to one another’s passwords to their I phones, Facebook page, twitter or any other number of networking accounts.
Should your mate have access to these things giving them free will to monitor your every move?
This debate has put many relationships on the skids and has ended quite a few.
It seems people are not satisfied with co-mingling anymore as much as they are with multi-mingling they have to include everyone in their social networking circle about the date they are on.
Instead of sharing your meal with someone of interest you are taking pictures of it and throwing it up on one of your networking sites. What are the chances that person will want to go out on another date with you? You are posting to everyone I wonder why he didn’t call me to go out again?
I thought we had a good time. Well at least you have that nice picture of your meal to remember him by.
Social Networking in the work place
Companies and corporations have also become more involved with social networking as a way to promote business to generate more business but where there is good in this arena there is also the bad.
People who may have used your service or who just have an opinion about your company or product can go online and rate any business with comments that can be positive or negative.
When a company receives negative comments it’s out there for the public to see and it can hurt a business right down to its financial bone.
Many workers have been replaced because of the computer age and its online capabilities. Many employers have found it to be quite profitable for them to use online buying then opening actual stores and hiring employees when they can have call centers and online shopping sites instead of a physical space for customers to visit. A lot of folks are alright with this wave of the future; I mean they can sit at home, push a few buttons and with most purchases can have the item in a day or so.
There’s no fighting for parking walking around the mall for hours and hours and for the men no holding your wife or girlfriend’s purse. Sweet!
Who does that hurt you say?
Glad you asked.
The things that get hurt though are those same shopping malls who count on foot traffic to generate their business. Who suffers? Those teens and young adults in need of jobs, so subsequently what you have started to see are those smaller malls closing or with very little store spaces being rented.
For those of you job searching: A lot of employers are asking if you have social networking pages and or accounts. They want access to them and in some instances even your passwords are not sacred. You can lose the opportunity of getting that dream job by what they see on those sites or be fired from one for the same reasons (and you thought your partner was giving you a hard time about your privacy).
The bottom line is you have to be very aware of what you do online because it is a very hard to remove something from the web once it’s out there.
Many people believe that there is a right to privacy even if you are in a committed relationship but the other side of the argument is that if you don’t have anything to hide you don’t have anything to worry about.
I remember back in the day when you were assigned a pen pal in school to network with another part of the world. You would send and receive a couple of letters here and there and that was it but now you can point and click on anyone who catches your fancy and get an instant look into their lives.
The next thing you know you have obtained five hundreds friends who are really just strangers on the World Wide Web.
We have become so enamored with this technology that it has become practically an addiction.
You and your friends go out socially supposedly to interact with others but are sitting just a couple of feet from one another texting each other about what’s going on around you.
We have become social misfits because we have lost the art of conversation.
The knock against social media is that we now lack the basic skills to hold the attention of one’s intellect.
We are isolating our selves more and more everyday it reminds me of the movie with Sandra Bullock in the movie the Nethttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113957/plotsummary where you have a person who has become so uninfatuated with the world she lives solely through the technology of the web.
Today more and more people work from home thus disallowing the existence of a true work environment. You are missing mingling with co-workers and developing your people skills. There is no real camaraderie at the workplace.
Where is the common courtesy?
The next time you are walking down a busy street in your city I want you to take a good look at how people are going about their day.
Take notice of how many people are looking down at their cell phones or are plugged into their I phones they are either talking, texting or listening to music. People will barely make eye contact with you to say good morning. Now how ridiculous is it that we friend countless of strangers on facebook but will not make a friendly gesture to smile or say hello to one another.
Have we changed so much in our society that we do not come to the defense of our fellow citizens? Many people are not too quick to intervene when they see someone in need of help but they are very swift at pulling out their cell phones and video recording that same event to post on their pages or upload to YouTube.
Do I know you?
I wonder what number of people would feel comfortable running into one of these facebook friends on the street and actually hold a conversation with them?
I bet many would feel insecure about meeting someone they met through social networking face to face.
You might hear about the occasional love born through the internet but you probably hear more so about the horror stories of meeting someone who looks nothing like the picture they posted up on their page. A recent example comes from the MTV show Catfish http://www.mtv.com/shows/catfish/series.jhtmlwhere people are discovered to have been duped by someone pretending to be something or someone they are not. The most recent famous incident involved a college football star who met his girlfriend online fell in love even though they never met face to face after a long period of time. He was allegedly led to believe she was terminally ill only to discover later that it was all just some elaborate hoax and in actuality he had been corresponding with a male all along. This makes a sad case for humanity when people who may be vulnerable emotionally are taken advantage of by the twisted minds of others.
Cyber Bullying, Sexting to flash Mobs
Many Youth and teens today are victims of social media through what is known as Cyber Bullying. http://www.stopbullying.gov/
It’s not bad enough that you pick on someone at school but you take it to the internet and bomb their facebook or twitter accounts with mean and nasty things making it just about impossible for them to escape the bullying. It becomes 24hrs of emotional battery and making it so unbearable for the individual that they make the ultimate decision to commit suicide because they just see no other way to escape. It’s really sad when you think that this person felt so bad and so torn emotionally that this was what they felt was the only way out.
Young females are encouraged by young boys to pose for pictures half naked or naked with promises that it is for their eyes only; only to be fooled and have those pictures on the web for every one of their peers and any others to see. Laws have been created out of this behavior, now these acts of betrayal by persons and individuals can be seen as sex crimes and child pornography.
Cases of sexual assaults have been made against party goers making videos of them having sex with women or young girls who are passed out from drinking or had been slipped something in a beverage of some kind. Social media has somewhat desensitized people of such hideous acts of violence.
Flash mobs at first were a fun activity where a group of people would spring up and burst into song or some dance routine to an unsuspecting crowd of people.https://www.google.com/search?q=flash+mobs&rlz=1C1GGGE_enUS415US415&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=ztDiUZ7nC–n4APRgYGwBw&ved=0CEwQsAQ&biw=1152&bih=773
They have evolved into a dangerous activity for people mostly teens to gather at a predetermined area such as downtown Chicagohttp://chicago.cbslocal.com/2013/05/19/12-arrested-after-youth-flash-mobs-erupt-on-michigan-avenue/
And terrorize random citizens and tourist by physically assaulting them.
This happened on a few occasions causing the Illinois legislation to write and pass a bill making it a punishable offense to organize or participate in these types of flash mobs activities.
Illinois Lawmakers put their foot down
The lawmakers in Illinois can’t seem to get it right with the murders and gun control problems in Chicago but there is one thing you don’t do and that’s mess with the money flow through the city and state.
You are not going to go to Michigan Avenue’s Magnificent Mile and scare away the citizens and tourist who visit the Magnificent Mile and spend boatloads of money everyday I’m talking three hundred and fifty-two days a year and twice on Sundays. No siree bob not happening!
Social media is not all bad in fact I think the good outweighs the bad it’s just that in today’s media frenzy world the bad gets much more attention.
You can have a story about someone involved in a daring rescue or some good Samaritan returning a lost wallet or animal etc. and it gets filler time in the news networks but at the same time let someone who appears before the cameras in what is told as a serious story but shown and reported with what becomes humorous content based on someone who was an eyewitness. That person goes viral on the internet gaining worldwide fame for appearing what might be described as overly excessive with their expression with the accounts of the event that took place while the real story becomes background noise or is all but forgotten.
The witness becomes an instant YouTube star. Their verbal testimonies are auto-tuned and made into music videos. Profits are being made as these tragedies are treated as fodder for others enjoyment and it’s all brought to you by social media outlets.
Well I guess that’s capitalism at its very best right?
Written By: Larry D. Miller