The Social Media Revolution

"The world has changed. The air ways are alive, and they're growing..."

The world has changed.

 

Satellites sit within the heavens above us that have the ability to monitor huge portions of the terrain of the planet, the ability to transmit and receive signals over astronomical distances and the means to store insurmountable amounts of data.  We are all of us living in a globally inter-connected information super highway laden technocracy. That in the time it takes you to read this sentence will have undergone an almost limitless amount of interaction, status updates, comments, hashtags and friend requests…. The world is busy, the air ways are alive and they’re growing.

 

Sometimes people hypothesize that the world has not changed all that much in the last 50 years or so. It’s not an inconceivable statement; shoes are still on our feet, planes are still in the sky, cars are still roaming the roads, and clothing (while trends rise and fall) remains largely within the same formulae. But let there be no doubt on this; the world has changed.

 

If you were to take the average person of say 1967, and bring them across time to the year 2015, they may perhaps on initial inspection indeed imagine things aren’t that different. They might even be disappointed, where are the flying cars? Aren’t we living on the moon yet? Why aren’t the buildings all space age, and why are we still putting up with traffic jams?

 

But they’d be wrong. Because in your pocket right now you have a marvel of technology, a miracle as far as the average human being of the 60's would be concerned. You are in possession of a global communications device. You can shout your opinion across the world and reach the ears of millions upon millions of people. You can capture images in startling high definition and then transmit them into the limitless vastness of the worldwide web to be seen by the eyes of millions upon millions of people. You have the ability to send what the man of the 1960’s would have termed a letter or telegram within seconds using nothing more than your thumb. You can record moving images and play them back to your friends as easily as you scratch your neck. You can watch Television and read the news and check the weather within the very palm of your hand, and you have the ability to navigate a journey to anywhere upon the planet. You can source information on any subject, locate an image of anything your mind can conceive within seconds. You’re a ready-made genius without needing to know a single thing. You can do your shopping without leaving your house, you can keep in touch with your cousin in Australia and even talk to them every day face to face if you like and all without ever getting on a plane or ferry.  As far as the man from 1967 is concerned you’re a god, you’re Star Trek or Doctor Who himself. You’re better than any Magician, because the ability you have is something that to people from anytime over 15 or so years ago would be indistinguishable from magic.

 

 

So what does all of this mean?

 

Well it means that broadly speaking we are in a position as a generation that no generation before us has ever been able to be in, we can reach the hearts and minds of almost anyone anywhere upon this planet called earth. That is power and we all know that with power comes responsibility.

We have a gift, and like all great gifts it can be put to use either for good or for ill.

 

Online bullying has predictably arisen as in endemic problem in our society, as with all things of all descriptions; place them in the hands of the wrong person and they will be used in order to wreak unkindness and cruelty. However social media is without a doubt a miracle, a modern and technological marvelous miracle, with this miracle we can spread a positive message across the world.

 

Here at Kare Plus we recognize that if you aren’t active within the social media landscape as a company then you do not exist, you are making a conscious decision to not be a part of what is the undeniable zeitgeist of the modern era.  And in short that would be as absurd as a human being refusing to breathe oxygen.

Jobs, newsletters, blogs like this one, YouTube videos, these are the billboards, the newspaper ads, the shop window placements of the world today. Ultimately as a company and as an individual, it comes down to a simple choice; exist, seize this miraculous opportunity to speak to existence itself. Or don’t.

 

It isn’t really a choice at all is it….?

Author's Note

Thank you for reading! Criticisms and comments always welcome and appreciated!

Reviews

[forgotten_ghosts]

I find it very good and important that you mention that our generation has got opportunities like no other generation before us. The responsibility that comes with such opportunities and that form of progress sometimes get underestimated..
Of course there are more points on which I could comment, but that would be a bit too much!
You did a really great job!
Best regards,
Thomas

[Brett Pritchard]

Thank you for the feedback, I appreciate it!