Remember the classic scene, where the grandfather takes his grandchild on his lap and talks about the days when they didn’t have things like airbags and ATM machines? Well I’m only 33 years old and I’m already starting to have these types of conversations with teenagers. “When I was your age, no one had cell phones, let alone phones that take pictures, play songs and movies, videogames, predict the weather, pinpoint your location anywhere on the globe while directing you to any other desired location, or connecting you to an information superhighway so powerful that no business could survive without it.”
And this is just one piece of technology. Just wait until we have the conversation about how there never used to be YouTube, Google, Facebook, or Twitter. These teens will look at me like ancient humans would look at those who managed to survive without fire.
Nothing has changed the face of business, marketing, or even communicating like social media. There are those who argue that social media and networking sites are in fact devolving us as a species. In fact a renown neuroscientist claims that “social network sites risk infantilising the mid-21st century mind, leaving it characterised by short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathise and a shaky sense of identity.”
However, many many others have shared the opinion that:
- Never before has news and information been available at our fingertips, keeping us instantaneously informed at all times
-Never before have we been able to stay connected with such a broad spectrum of people across the globe, from all walks of life, in all professional fields, in such short a period of time.
- Never before have we been able to express ourselves through blogs and social media websites, to an otherwise non-existent audience.
- Never before have young people been involved in politics, able to get their voices heard through social networking sites, drastically altering the outcome of elections.
- Never before have companies and e-commerce sites been at the mercy of the public, with online “word of mouth” heavily influencing brand reputation.
And the list goes on and on. For an interesting look at the statistics surrounding the “social media revolution” check out this video.
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