Rhetoric of social media

Does anybody remember what life was like without Facebook? I am extremely embarrassed to say that I don’t.  This lifestyle of constantly knowing the happenings of people and getting instant updates of the news, the latest photos, and the newest controversy will now be a commonplace for kids growing up in this new century.  We’ve been hearing for years about the deconstruction of print media; world-renowned newspapers are failing, “snail-mail” is being replaced with texting, emails, and video-chatting. Newspapers are no longer revered as common news sources. Face-to-face conversations are no longer a commonality; why would you go out of your way to tell someone something important if you could send them an SMS message instantly? Why would you waste ink in a printer to print a photo if you could publish it to the web for everyone to see. People of all ages are wasting time, being unproductive online, rather than getting the necessary rest they need to function properly.  I recently saw Ariana Huffington, co-founder of the Huffington Post, a prominent online news source for liberal news, speak and she brought up the problems in our lives that everyone deals with but no one solves.

Technology is moving at rapid speeds, faster than anyone would have thought it would move. Internet start-ups are the “dot com” boom of our generations. Teenagers like me who have versed themselves in computer code can create hundred’s, thousand’s, even millions of dollars by themselves by coding an application with the presence of a computer and a keyboard. Physical interaction has changed for the worse. Kids growing up in our generation cannot hold conversations. We have gotten so used to communicating via internet and text that when we actually speak we have nothing to say, it’s all been said online.

That said, all of these issues are only going to make our society and culture worse off in the future. Communication is a key to leadership and power. Our kids are the future and they need to be able to know how to effectively communicate. So how can we fix this issue? Speech classes and encouraging socialization would certainly help.

I do not want to seem like I am completely antagonistic towards technology. Honestly, I do not know what I would do without my phone, as terrible as that may sound. Nevertheless, things change; society changes; culture changes. Change is inevitable, but that doesn’t mean we should be less expansive, we must learn from the past and improve on the futute. 

Is THON more than just a philanthropic project?

Back in 1973 at its inception, THON participants raised a mere $2000 for pediatric cancer. Today, THON has helped to raise almost $80 million for the Four Diamonds Fund, a foundation working to battle childhood cancer. THON is something Penn State students pride themself about and are obsessed with, which is not a problem at all. That is amazing. The fact that college students can come together for such a selfless act is incredible, and has resulted in the culmination of the largest student run philanthropy in the world.

Every student at Penn State knows about, or has heard of, canning, trips held on four weekends of the year. The campus more or less empties out on canning weekend and not much goes on around here. Students pack themselves into cars and travel all around the tri-state area, and sometimes even farther, to stand on the side of the road and collect donations. 

Recently, a handful of tragedies have occurred over the past few canning weekend. On the most recent weekend, a carful of students were in a car crash but luckily no one was injured. Unfortunately, the canning weekend before the last one saw a truly hapless tragedy. A group of students were on their way up to someones house to go canning and they were in a car crash; a freshman student was killed. This seems like it was a freak accident. There was no alcohol involved and all of the passengers were wearing seat belts. THON now requires students who go canning to attend an informational session on how to can safely; you must also wear a wristband given out prior to each canning weekend. In my opinion, these measurements are not very useful and do not accomplish much. Here’s why:

Canning has become somewhat of a competition for students. Student groups try to meet a certain amounts to be able to say they are heavily involved with THON and can receive dancers to actually dance in the marathon, because there are only a certain amount of space on the dance floor. Many student groups have established “quotas” that members must achieve. This is not where I see a problem though; quotas kind of take away the idea of voluntary service but they also encourage students to participate. Canning on the street is dangerous. Students are going to be aggressive when canning no matter what; unless you are on street level there is really no way to get money from cars. It is impractical for people to pull over and donate a dollar or two. That said, it is safer to stand on the side of the street and wait for red lights to get closer to cars, but this is still very dangerous. You never know when someone could lift their foot off the break accidentally or drift a bit off of the lane. I cannot say I am sure of how much money is generated from canning, but I think some new ways of individual fundraising should be proposed, maybe instead of canning offer free car washes with “donations for FTK,” (wouldn’t exactly be free like canning but you would get more generous donations) or just other safer methods. 

A Very Public Site is Going Public

Don't let the title of this post fool you.

The most recent update from Facebook is that they will soon be going public and filing papers for its IPO, or initial public offering. Yes! We will now be able to find out the private ways of how this extremely public website makes its money, something analysts have estimated but never truly known. However, the situation is not how it really seems to most people. For this initial offering, Facebook will only be opening the offerings up to $5 Billion in shares, a small fraction of the company. The most intriguing part of this move by Facebook is that all of their more private information will now be public. They claim to have 800 Million users, but how many of those users actually use Facebook daily, weekly, or even monthly. With the ease of use of today’s technology, it would not surprise me that people, especially adults, make accounts all the time, use it once or twice, and never sign back on. Heck, even I’ve done that with a few websites. Similarly, there has been lots of discussion generated about Facebook ads, and almost a new type of advertising created. But who knows how successful these ads are? They have created so much hype but are they putting out? The IPO will allow us to finally see all of this information and will answer all of our unknown questions. 

Some may question if this is the right move for Facebook, as in the past many internet IPOs have more or less failed, like Zynga and Groupon for example, who both had trouble generating their expected sales of stock for many reasons that would take a while to delve into. But that topic is for another discussion.

The funny thing about this situation is it has people going crazy. Everyone is so excited finally get a chance to buy into a company they love. Sorry to break it down like this, but this is somewhat of a scam. Its a wall street move for a silicon valley company. This is more of a Wall Street insider offering than a public offering. The Joe Six-Packs and Average Joes will most likely not even get a chance at the IPO, but will have to wait for a second offering. 

I think a lot of news sources and a lot of its users are overlooking a more important issue. Mark Zuckerburg has voiced his concerns on the negatives of his private company going public on numerous occasions. Because his staff of 2000+ and himself have not had to focus on quarterly earnings and the such, they have been able to really focus on the future of the website. I feel to an extent that now that they are going to have to please more than just their investors that their focuses may shift a bit. Instead of changing the layout of the news feed unannounced until the day of, they may now need to weigh the options of how their users may react to the changes and how those reactions could affect the stock. Instead of the minimalistic and simple ads users see on the right side of the page, they may now see more pop-up type ads that a company in need of real profit may use. A shift from innovation to income would upset a lot of users. So as cool as it is that Facebook is going to be able to be traded publicly, is it something that teenagers, who frequent the site most, are going to want to see?

This I Believe Podcast

I Believe in Uncertainty by Dan Greenberg

#Hashtagging

Since its launch in 2006, the website Twitter, dubbed the category of "social networking service/microblogging platform" has transformed the way people worldwide transmit and receive media. Originally, Twitter was designed to be a way for friends to communicate and stay up-to-date as a group through SMS (commonly refereed to as texting). The website has erupted into a primary source for all types of media updates ranging from the latest political news to what Lady Gaga is up to (Yes, I just referenced Lady Gaga. I am not a fan at all, but she happens to be one of the top trending topics on Twitter these days).

Because of the 140 character limit that Twitter places on tweets, “tweeters” are constrained to short, concise posts. Hash-tagging, a feature recently added to Twitter to categorize tweets, has slowly became a commonality through personal and news updates all over the web. It has erupted somewhat as a result of citizen-organized movements like the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street (#occupy. Essentially, a hash tag is a way for people to search for tweets that have a common subject. For example, if you search #joepa, you'll get a list of tweets related to the late Joe Paterno. Trending topics are now a key feature of twitter where users can contribute to a category by simply adding a hashtag to their tweet, adding their 140 character post to an ongoing list of thousands and thousands of common tweets.

Originally started by a twitter user, they are now seen being used on Facebook, clothing, and text messages. Hash-tagging has undoubtably turned into a form of creativity and humor. “Micro-memes,” tweets often containing text about many unrelated topics that all conform to the same “theme” via hashtag, are started every day and tend to make their way to most of the twitter community; some well known micro-memes are “#whitegirlproblems” and “#middleschoolmemories”. With these hashtags, millions of users share their own story of something that related to that hashtag. This is where content of twitter becomes quite diverse. These trends become jokes, adding a softer touch to the live news blogging side of the site.

However, I am not writing this piece on the history of the hashtag. I am writing to discuss the stylistic approach it has with tweets, Facebook updates, and whatever else people use them for these days. Unfortunately (a handful of social media users may argue that fortunately), hash-tagging has become overused and I fear it is becoming worthless. Teenagers, and the adults on Facebook and Twitter who think they are teenagers, are creating a single word hashtag sometimes longer than a tweet itself. Hashtags on Facebook do nothing since a post can only be viewed by a users friend. #ThisWouldBeAGoodExample of a hashtag use that really means nothing. A recent post on my Facebook newsfeed read, “Fresh new chicago bulls snapback #sawg #fresh,” a prime example of the new hash-tagging culture.They were simply created to categorize tweets. Having said that, I do not want to come across as attacking anyone. Hash-tagging is streamlining a method for argument development as a result of a 140 character limit. Since users are unable to thoroughly explain their stance on en issue, the hashtag makes it simply to understand the “goal” of their post. So their use in now twofold, they both categorize millions of posts into sections to better organize the ongoing cloud of data on the web and provide wit for readers. Sometimes the best kinds of hashtags are those that make passive aggressive insults at people or ideas.

Disregarding the overuse, and often misuse, of hashtags on social media sites of the like, hash-tagging is proving to be very helpful in creating viral media and talking points for users of all ages.The hashtag culture is easily noticed all over the web. As stated above, it was monumental in spreading the word of the the Mubarek revolt in Cairo and of the occupy movement which spread from Wall Street to college campuses to all over the world. That being said, hashtags are a great tool for the distribution of the latest news and trends. In our ever-changing technological world, they make it easier for the average person to join the big conversation, to contribute their two cents. Hash-tagging, and blogging in general, is giving people other outlets to spread their ideas. Instead of using books, magazines, the radio, and newspaper, people can now spread information around the world instantly through Twitter, Facebook, blogs, texting, and videos (I could go on about new methods of communication forever).

As does everyone who talks of twitter, follow me @danielgreenberg.