Week 4

     So for this week, we had to have a few different things prepared. And while all of it was interesting in its own unique way, I probably enjoyed the Katie Couric videos and the MediaShift website the most. I liked Couric's videos because she brought up some very interesting points in the interview. Almost at the very beginning she quoted "necessity is the mother of invention" and that got me thinking on if that statement is true. Do we have to jump on the bandwagon of social media in order to stay informed of our society and to keep in touch with our peers? Personally, I think you do. Without a presence on social media you are basically telling the world you don't exist. You would miss out on important events in the news and lose a way to keep in contact with friends and family who live far away. Without my social media accounts I feel like I wouldn't know anything going on locally, nationally, or globally.
      It was only briefly mentioned, maybe only a few sentences, but I also liked the part that brought up how big we are on making sure are stuff gets liked. It makes you wonder how self-absorbed people might be becoming. There are a good number of people who care more about how many likes their photo or status gets than what people think of them in the real world. We are becoming a society that is more interested in how we appear on social media than how we appear in real life. On social media we are able to be anyone we want to be, even if that person is the total opposite of who we are in the real world.
     The MediaShift website was interesting because it was a lot of different posts about a lot of different topics, all having to do a lot with the media. I read probably main ten different articles, ranging from ad blocking, all the way to using Twitter to get the word out about a project you are doing in order to collect data from people you may have otherwise not found.  Perhaps my favorite article I found was one on which method people preferred to find their news in 2015. Unsurprisingly, the majority preferred to get their news on social media.
     In class our discussion was aimed mainly in terms of the news and its role on social media. I know that the only way I ever get my news is by following various news sites on Twitter and Facebook. I don't ever sit down and read the paper or watch the news. If the news wasn't available on social media, I would probably never know what is going on. Despite how much I enjoy only needing to use social media to get the news, it breaks my heart to see print newspapers almost going the way of the dinosaur. I can't imagine a world without print newspapers, even if I personally don't read then. I do, however, play the Sudoku puzzle that is always in the paper. And if that was gone, I would be especially sad.