#TwitterPhenomenon

So I recently decided, what the hell, I'll conform to social media devices such as Twitter and create my own. For the longest time I was against people writing everything that appears interesting in their lives into online media sites, but with its immense popularity, I have finally decided to get one myself.

I felt obligated to get a Twitter just like how I felt about getting a Facebook about three years ago. There is something that is so important to our generation staying informed with not only news, but more importantly our friends. There seems to be no way around it. If you asked me two weeks ago I would have told you I would never get a Twitter.

Unfortunately, and without further do, I unproudly present myself as a member of the Twitter phenomenon. Follow me @trevbeau.

Tebowing

I'm sure you have all heard of the catch phrase of "Tebowing." I assume that because of what social media does in today's day and age.
The reference to Tim Tebow on one knee and portraying his body language to create a religious image has caught on tremendously. Everybody "Tebows" now, and if they don't, they've heard of it. In every game, there he is, on the sideline, on one knee, with one hand to his forehead. Not only has media blown up his ritual by putting it all over the internet and television, but news reports have actually debated whether the religious affiliation is appropriate.
The main idea here, is that something that one player does before, during, and after a game, can be made historical. Something can be made out of nothing; a small deal, can be made a huge deal.

Yup, KONY 2012 Blog

So, recently a video was released revealing to the world the terrible events that have been taking place over the last decade or so in Uganda. There are several reasons as to why this is so important in social media.

First, this has been occurring for over a decade and no mention of it has really became globally publicized. Most people barely knew who Joseph Kony was and what he has been doing. By posting something like this on the internet, within  three days everyone I knew had seen the video or heard about it. Social media delivered this ten year old message to everyone in the world in a matter of hours.

Second, Facebook has been blown up with people posting the video and commenting on how to help. There has also been various other sites built to raise money as well as awareness to "fight" this cause and achieve the final goal of finding Kony and restoring the lives of the children and people in Uganda.

Finally, a simple 30 minute video posted across the internet can very well save and change the lives of thousands of people. With increasing support to the "Kony 2012" movement the likelihood of him being caught will all start to minimize the injustice in Uganda and hopefully and eventually subside.

Social Media in Sports

I have come to recognize just what an impact today's social media has on sports. Besides unbelievable game coverage and replays, media has begun to expand sport's update information to just about infinite access. Sport's may be all over headlines in newspapers, it may be on your television, it may be on your cell phone, but today it can be wherever you decide to go. 

There's millions of sport's websites, such as blogs, team sites, and official websites. There is no place you cannot go without hearing about sports which has began to spread  to a worldwide scale. The way sport's are broadcasted and how news travels is even faster than worldwide news, in my opinion.

Agents communicate with players and coaches constantly. There are long streams of negotiating contracts, trade rumors, and player information. There is nonstop back and forth communication consisting of one continuous cycle from in-season play through every off-season.  A sport's league may just be the most covered, talked about business in the world. 

Look at the coverage of the NFL combine and the NFL draft. It goes so in depth to every player, where they rank, when they get drafted, who's team they go to, and how they will fit into that teams offense or defense. It's crazy how much news goes into simple events like this. There are perhaps millions of blog comments on who will get drafted where and there are thousands of videos of predictions. Then, when the draft finally arrives, it is covered everywhere. All over the internet and television, every selection to some people's cell phones even.

This is a berserk way to look at this example perhaps, but it's also just one sport. Additionally, football isn't even the most publicized sport either; worldwide, it hasn't even cracked the top ten. This just goes to show, how much is sport's publicized when you put all of them together?

 

The Lucky Ones

The speed that news travels occurs in seconds today. If anything drastic happens, the entire world will know in moments. 9/11 was all over the news the morning it happened, when the Giants won the Super Bowl it covered our headlines and television stations. Simple messages travel at such an incredible rate it can blow your mind away when you really sit down and think about it.

Hundreds of years ago messages and important news were delivered by men running from one place to another, by horseback, or even in a bottle in the claw of an eagle on rare occasions. Since then technology has advanced so much further. From the development of the telephone, internet, and instant message updates the time in between something happening and that information becoming public has slimmed down by such a drastic duration. 

It is truly an amazing thing to live in the time period that we do and I cannot even imagine how technology will advance further then it is today. We are so lucky to live with every important detail or event occurring in the world or at least having access to it when it would be unimaginable one hundred years ago.  

So What Does Social Media Mean to You?

Turn on your laptop, click the browser...what's your homepage? What's the first site that you always go to? What internet functions do you have delivered straight to your cell phone? Most people answer these questions the same every single time: various forms of social media.

Social media controls us. It dictates and consumes a lot of our time and ceases to come to any sort of halt. How important is it to know what is going on with our friends from home every day, looking at their profiles for what kind of first semester they might be having? 

Sure, we can use social media to keep in touch and form a community with friends, I am by no means disagreeing with it. Facebook is based on keeping in touch with friends so you know where to contact someone if you ever separate. But how obsessed are we becoming with the very idea of people looking at us?

Putting up statuses and seeing who likes them seems to be so important to many people nowadays. It is absurd how I notice crazed people flaunting themselves around Twitter and Facebook looking to impress society. If you've never heard someone say "Who liked my status?" Or, "How many likes did it get?" then something in your life is almost abnormal compared to most high school and college students.

So what do these programs mean to you? Can you make it through one day without going on Facebook or  Twitter. Can you cancel sports and news updates sent right to your phone? 

Just how intensely has media taken over our lives?