How do you think social media will change in the future? What other trends would you add to the mix? Are they any specific technologies that you think will gain popularity or emerge?

Use of Social Media
Application

Social media has already become one of the most popular interests in today’s society, there isn't much left of the real world that has not been acquainted with social media. In the future, I believe Facebook and Twitter will become more popular and will have an easier interface to appeal to the older population. Facebook, hopefully, will realize their demographic is getting older therefore increase their font size like Twitter. Also, I think there will always be people using social media because of its possibilities, which means companies, will be constantly improving the user experience and interface. As a result of social media growing popularity with individual, companies, charity, not-for-profit, entrepreneurs and entertainment business this gives me reason to believe that networking and building partnerships will be much easier. I trend I could see is making YouTube more instantaneous with interacting with it’s users. For example, live chats on YouTube so users can get instant feedback from subscribers or potential subscribers instead of having video response long after the original video was posted. The two specific technologies that I think will gain popularity is Foursquare because all that is required is to text where you are from your phone, which most people do anyways to find out if their friends are nearby. A gadget that might help with this is a phone or small device with GPS and wireless that automatically checks your location, updates for you, and to see if other friends are close then notifying you. Pretty much the technologies that will gain popularity are the ones that are used for social media, technologies such as: Blackberries, iPhones, iPads, Laptops, and any hand held technologies or just any other technologies that allow you to access social media.

Do you think that social media has the potential to bring about real social change?

I am assure that social media has the great potential to bring about real change in our society. There are so many different things that it has allowed us to do. Social media allows us to get in touch with people that are all over the world. For example, sites such as Facebook virtually place all of your friends, family, coworkers, acquaintances and even enemies in the same room. You are able to chat with them, send them a message, post a comment, "like", "poke", and more. You are literally able to do this for as many friends as you have on your Facebook. Instead of picking up the phone and calling someone; one on one, the mentality is to interact over Facebook. The shift from face-to-face interaction to a more social media based interaction is both good and bad. In one way it allows separated families and friends to stay close to each other, giving them the ability to see what each other is doing. On the other hand, it has reduced the need for face-to-face interaction for friends and family that are already close.

One another example, if any natural disaster happens, people can message to each other through social media, also provides help to affected people. It can bring bigger change in society.

I believe that social media is a tool which is already used very efficiently by majority of people and it will continue to be used in the future, as it is a growing phenomenon and a part of new technology. It has the potential to bring about real social change by its unlimited access and easy availability.

Do you believe that social media has increased the quality of news and information or decreased it.

       I do believe that social media has increased the quantity of news, but at the same time decreased the quality of new that you are receiving.

          Today era is very fast. Nobody has a spare time. So, everybody use the technology. Social media is a part of technology for mass communication. The activity in media continued to expand. Advancements in technology further allowed citizen monitoring, and the popularity of Twitter and other social media helped in broadcasting.  And this all comes as many communities face cutbacks and reduced coverage from traditional media. The traditional news hierarchy has been upended. With actual news, and items that look suspiciously like news, coming at us from a variety of outlets, how do we know what to trust? How do we distinguish credible information from raw information, misinformation and propaganda? And if all information is created equal, why will anyone seek out quality journalism — especially if we think it’s all driven by bias anyway?

I do really like the idea of people sharing their ideas, and inputting there journalistic facts and information, towards their social media of choice.  I just do not like the idea, that I am getting false information. I actually do enjoy getting my news from the internet.  It is much easier and convenient to do then possibly, reading the newspaper.  This has also decreased sales for newspaper companies. But I do not enjoy having to search more than one source, just to make sure that all the information I get is accurate.  So overall, I am torn between the easy accessibility of the internet, and knowing that it is not all true.  And the newspaper, which I know is more accurate than the internet.

Social Media is the biggest shift since the Industrial revolution.

Social media is steadily changing and growing every year, it consistently invites people to interact with one another without actually having a face to face conversation. Most common social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are used on a daily day basis to communicate with friends and family differently and even interact with celebrities around the world. I personally use facebook as another way to interact with my friends and family. With facebook, it allows me to see and comment on my friends pictures, videos, notes and their personal statuses etc.  Social media has rapidly become a popular way to interact with others that even business companies use it as a tool to get their brands products or services known to the public. They have ads and pictures being put onto the facebook site that people are constantly on and can now reach out to billions of people in the world advertising their brands products or services which could lead to potential clients. Social media has also been used as a way to raise awareness of local events or tragedies going on in the world. When tragedy’s such as the tsunami that hit Japan earlier this year, most people were being aware of this terrible event through twitter, facebook or youtube. Students who don’t watch the news see tons of facebook/twitter updates ,pictures and videos posted  about it and look it up on youtube to see what is going on. My perception is that social media has become the biggest shift today and isn’t a fad. It will continue to grow and develop because even today, facebook is always being upgraded to make it better then it was before. Eventually something new and better will come up for future generations to enjoy just like people today enjoy the many ways of interacting with others across the globe.