maddiebraidwood07-blog

[maddiebraidwood07-blog]

What pizza topping are you?

Whilst in the library the other day, I turned to look at my friend’s laptop to see which one of the countless essays she was working on. As the end of term is looming and deadlines are approaching I assumed she would be frantically stressing over how to reach the word count on the 3000 word essay. Instead she was sat on Facebook taking the ‘what Powerpuff girl are you’ quiz. After glancing back over about half an hour later, she had moved on to the next ‘what pizza topping are you?’ quiz. All jokes aside, why are we buying into these absolutely pointless mind-numbing quizzes? Obviously they can’t tell you what pizza topping you would ever be based on 5 questions. Obviously this is never going to matter, so why do we click onto the link?

These quizzes are an example of how the internet is now used for senseless meaningless things. The original purpose of the internet was to portray information, but the purpose has almost become lost. It’s not just Facebook quizzes that are the only pointless things on the internet. There are many online games that consist of owning a pet potato or running your own imaginary farm, which are ultimately what distracts us from searching for the information that the internet is there for. So this is where the question needs to be raised; has the purpose of the internet been lost amongst brain numbing, pointless and useless content?

[maddiebraidwood07-blog]

BEST BLOG POST YOU’LL EVER READ!!!! (not clickbait)

No matter what form of new media platform you’re on, you cannot avoid clickbait. From online newspaper headlines to Youtube video’s everyone is constantly trying to grab people’s attention. I’ve seen my fair share of ‘BEST VIDEO EVER’ or ‘FUNNIEST REACTION EVER’ titles, and I can’t even deny that every single time I fall for it. I just can’t help thinking, what if it really is the best video I’ll ever watch, or this could really be the funniest video ever.

It seems like everyone is in so much competition with each other to get the most views or the most likes, they go to the extent of lying. Although they’re only white lies, when did we get to the point of desperation that we need to deceive people to get them to buy into our content? Obviously I’m aware that this concept derived from the traditional media of newspaper headlines, the more dramatic the better right? But it seems online that every second title is another form of click bait.

[maddiebraidwood07-blog]

Picture Perfect

I once heard the quote ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’. When I first heard this quote I didn’t read into it as much of I probably should have, but after thinking about it; it’s completely true. A picture as simple as a Parisian sunset screams hundreds of different things. It tells people where it was; what time of the day; what time of the year; how beautiful nature can be and so much more. It created a new way of speaking without having to say anything.  Pictures are so powerful and can be used to portray such strong emotions and make people feel so many things. But social media has taken away this amazing power pictures once had. In the online world of social media, sadly pictures don’t represent such strong feelings or a compelling meaning; because pictures have become such a disposable concept the meaning behind them has weakened. We see thousands and thousands of pictures online every day and 9 times out of 10 they have no effect on us. From selfies to aesthetically pleasing pictures of ice cream these pictures have no relevance to our lives and don’t portray a meaningful message. Since social media has made people become so self-obsessed the only messages that these pictures imbed are ‘please like my photo’ and ‘tell me I look pretty.’ Pictures were once used to send a message about something important, but now they are being used for ego boosters and popularity scales. Social media has completely obliterated the concept of what pictures were created for and has turned it into a dull meaningless conception.

[maddiebraidwood07-blog]

Diaries VS blogs

New media has taken away the traditionalism from our lives. Everything that was once part of our routine has now been replaced by an online version, this is known as re-mediation. This counts for even the most simplistic of things; for example online blogging. When I was growing up pretty much everyone kept a diary, although it contained the most utterly cringe worthy stories about our childhood, it was a way in which we could document our thoughts or express our emotions without anyone having to see. In today’s world this has been replaced by the online version of ‘blogging’ in which everyone and anyone can see your thoughts and emotions. The same goes with pictures. In the past, pictures were taken to document memories shared with our friends and families so we could look back and re-share the memories together. Again, this has been replaced with the online version of photo websites such as Facebook and Instagram. I mean surely you don’t want to see your best friends ex boyfriend’s camping holiday to Wales in 2015. So why do our most sentimental of memories all need to be shared online? Has the online world gone too far?

[maddiebraidwood07-blog]

Too much information

After finishing a shift at work the other day, I asked my manager about next week’s rota. Expecting her to present it in front of me on a hand written piece of paper like every other week, she replied; “I’ll make a group chat and message you on there.” Strangely, being the media savvy individual I am, I was slightly shocked by this response. Personally to me, a relationship with any type of authoritative figure should not escape outside of the workplace, and especially not be taken onto social media. The countless sarky comments that I post about how much want to quit or how much my manager pisses me off would probably cost me my job.

Not only is there an issue about what our managers can see about us, it’s also what we can see about them. Being able to see what my middle aged manager posts about her wild night in Rev’s or shares about her sex life doesn’t make me view her in the professional light that I should. Considering I don’t view my job as the epitome of ‘professional’, my example of this distortion between professional and personal life isn’t that shocking, but imagine this happening in a large well established businesses where professionalism really does matter. I believe worked based relationships are important but a certain degree of professionalism does need to remain for a business to run smoothly. I mean how professional could you stay in the weekly meeting if you knew your manager had drunk 5 bottles of Lambrini and slept with a guy 10 years younger than her that weekend? Has social media blurred the lines of professionalism?

[maddiebraidwood07-blog]

Catfishing

After recently receiving a message on Facebook from an unrecognized name, at first glance I thought it was just an average guy. Then at second glance I realised, it was only Cristiano Ronaldo that had messaged me. I mean, his 0 mutual friends and professional footballing photos copied from google images obviously convinced me I was talking to THE Ronaldo and made me eager to message back. After having a laugh about it, I then realised; that I had just been a victim of the recent ‘catfishing’ craze, obviously a not very believable one but it still breached copyright and plagiarism rules. ‘Catfishing’ is the absolute epitome of copyright; by using someone else’s pictures and claiming them as your own.

Oddly, there are no firm laws in place to state that this new phenomena is wrong. Even before the internet, plagiarism and copyright was a hot topic and every quote that was taken had to give credit to the author and every song used had to state that all recognition was given to the original artist. But the same recognition is not given on social media. There has been a recent outrage with Instagram proposing to change their ownership policy on pictures, giving them the right to own every picture posted. So why are plagiarism rules are so important in the real world, but online, anyone’s picture is effectively everyone’s.

[maddiebraidwood07-blog]

An unfair debate

The recent Brexit and Trump elections have got me thinking. Before both of the elections took place, I was adamant that the world could not be so utterly stupid as to vote a sexist business man with no knowledge of politics to rule one of the most powerful countries in the world, or let a Kingdom as great as Britain sink back into how it was 60 years ago, when unemployment was high and multiculturalism was low. Obviously the outcome of the elections was not what I was expecting. But why was I so strongly convinced I knew what the results would be?

I mean, apart from me obviously being so utterly naïve to think that everyone agreed with me, I believe the media had a massive part to play in my thinking. With the lead up to the elections I was constantly checking Twitter and Facebook to see what the majority were thinking. I saw countless online poles which showed 80% in, 20% out and tweets that were more supportive of a dead gorilla becoming president than Trump. So why were the thoughts of everyone online not being reflected in the results? This is because social media uses algorithms, which remember everything we have previously searched. This helps social media to filter our posts to only show us what we want to hear. If they can figure out our political opinion through the posts we share and content we like, algorithms will ensure that the only posts visible to us are ones that we agree with.

But surely social media is making politics unfair. With every good political debate there needs to be two sides. If we are not being exposed to the opposing arguments, then how are we supposed to understand the whole debate? Is this not teaching us a one sided view of politics?

[maddiebraidwood07-blog]

1984 or 2016?

A famous novel that became largely popular was George Orwell’s ‘Ninteen-eighty-four’. The non-fiction book was set in a fantasy world in which society was constantly being watched, wherever they were or whatever they were doing and there was no escape from the cameras. When it was published in 1949 it was a prediction of what the world would be like 40 years later. Obviously, everyone at the time assumed this would never be the true reality, but in fact, Orwell’s predications were found to be unbelievably accurate.

We assume that when in the safety of our own homes we escape from the constant surveillance and monitoring; however this could not be further from the truth. Have you ever wondered why ‘recommended for you’ sections are so accurate? This is because when we are at our most relaxed we are most likely to become victim, through our smart phones and laptop devices. Every single web link we click on, every phone call we make is monitored and stored by companies for their own benefit. We are now living in a world where the media knows more about us than we know about ourselves.

We are programmed to believe that when we are online, unlike in real life, there is a delete button for everything we do. We are able to delete our history from our friends and family. But we can’t delete it from the lingering eyes of companies.  So next time you’re online, remember who is watching.

[maddiebraidwood07-blog]

Out with the old, in with the new media

Old media is a thing of the past. If you still have a phone that can’t connect to the internet or doesn’t have a selfie camera, then unfortunately you just cannot cut it in today’s media obsessed society. Media has progressed immensely over the past 50 years, but have we ever stopped and thought about just how much it has changed or the impact it has had upon us?

As a teenager, I have been told on countless occasions that I am addicted to my phone. But I believe this is true no matter what your age. From the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep we are constantly online. Whether it be texting your mum to ask what is for dinner, instant messaging your online crush in Australia, or posting an ascetically pleasing Instagram picture of your lactose and fat free, vegan breakfast. We just cannot seem to log off and we certainly can’t seem to stay off.

So, has new media really impacted our lives for the better? If media hadn’t progressed to the level it’s at now, would we be happier? Would it make us socialise more with each other? Would we lead happier lives knowing that we aren’t defined by our likes and followers? Or would it affect us in a negative way? Would we lose contact with people quicker or have less of a say on what matters to us? But the most important question to address is, could we ever live in a world without the media again or are we completely addicted to it?