How People Are Impacted by New Media Term Paper

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Digital Media and Its Effect on Human Activity

The effect of digital media on human activity is evident in a number of ways: the Digital Age has dispensed with old media and inducted the way of new media (social media, digitalized media) into the lives of individuals living today (Weldon, Eadie, 2009). Books and newspapers are less and less important to people as they turn to the Internet for news on their smart phones and to tablets for reading. Likewise, the ability for instantaneous connection, communication and confirmation via digital technology and social media (which allows rapid dissemination of information in a global context) has impacted human activity by promoting the ability to gain instant stimulation, authentication, visualization and gratification -- but it has also created a digital divide, which excludes those who do not have access to digital media devices from being in the flow of information and communications (DiMaggio, Hargittai, Neuman, Robinson, 2001). The actions of politicians like Trump, who is a deft user of social media (Twitter for example), express the need of leaders in the public eye to address concerns, claims and controversies with immediacy and alacrity, while speaking to a specific side of the divide. Indeed, the very technology with its split-screen functions, has allowed humans to embrace a "split-minded" approach to life which is essentially schizophrenic when taken to the extreme (schizophrenic means, after all, "split mind") (Kyrizidis, 2005), and which corresponds to the split in society, represented by the digital divide. This paper will critically analyze how digital media and the smart phone and tablet functions in particular affect human activity by exploring the general role of social media in our lives and the way in which smart phones and tablets are utilized in that role.

By posting comments to the public realm for the whole world to see at the click of a button, digital media has created and fostered a new behavior in human activity that centers on the momentary and foregoes any avenue towards reflection, deep consideration, or thoughtful departure from the chaos of events for peaceful meditation. It also creates a demand for a constant stream and/or surplus of news and entertainment. Articles are driven by click-bait headlines and are uploaded to news sites literally around the clock, irrespective of whether anything "newsworthy" is happening or not. Indeed, the definition of news has changed as a result of the need of sites to draw users to their site and maintain a high degree of advertising revenue. Is it news because it is popular or is popular cultures simply inundated with information that serves to distract it from serious issues (Jenkins, 2006, p. 210), such as the hard-to-perceive reasons for why wars are conducted throughout the world, or how lobbying groups obtain and wield power over the political process?

Such information is not possible to view while engaging the split-screen function on the smart phone or tablet -- one is too easily distracted and the requisite amount of attention to detail is not permitted by the digital functions of these devices. One is more apt to read with serious intent out of a book or at least on a computer monitor at harm that permits greater scale of copy. In fact, the celebrity origins of the political frontrunner of the RNC in the current presidential race indicates that the social media phenomenon is responsible for the popularity of at least one candidate, whose "brand" image was previously best known from his days on The Apprentice (Jenkins, p. 206). This detail underlies the fact that digital media has fostered an explosion within the pop culture phenomenon that elevates celebrities to a kind of demi-god status, complete with their own followers, adherents, and perhaps even idolators. The followers of Trump, for instance, view him as incapable of saying or doing anything wrong, thus earning him the nickname "Teflon Don," which adequately describes the way in which he has managed to emerge from every controversial expression he has made essentially unscathed: his supporters view him as the antidote to puritanical political correctness, and social media encourages this viewpoint and this fervor, as it allows "The Donald" to speak to his adherents from on-high at any hour of the day or week.

Yet Trump's politics only speak to one side of the country (or the world), and the other half views them as abhorrent -- and so even the politics are divided, with one half seeing a solution to a problem that the other half deems repellent.

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The louder and more insistent the politics becomes, the more polarizing social and digital media acts in the hands of the political contestants. Indeed, digital media, social media, and tools like smart phones and tablets are dividing the world between the haves and the have-nots, just as today's politics is dividing the world between those who want more nationalism and those who want more global unity/authority. The two divides parallel one another, and as Stephen Lax (n.d.) points out, the digital divide represents an inequality of opportunity (p. 201), just as the other political divide fostered by digital media could be said to represent an inequality of wisdom/ignorance.

According to Lax, in the information society, only those with access to the data can control the flow of information and the way in which information leads to change in societies (p. 205). Through the possession of tools like the Internet, tablets and smart phones, developed societies are part of the information flow that directs the course of human advancement. At the same time, these tools have also erected a pseudo-society -- an alternative or virtual society -- a world lived entirely on the Web, where friends never meet face-to-face, where online communities convene, and where virtual worlds are created (Virtual Cultures, n.d.). Thus there is even a divide within the divide among the so-called haves of digital media technology; already divided from the have-nots, they are further split within in terms of those who participate in the virtual culture and those who remain in the real-world. There is even an element of flow between the two, as some go between the virtual and the real, and users of a Facebook are a prime example of that phenomenon (Walther, 2008). What social media sites like Facebook offer to individuals is a way to correspond and keep "in touch" with friends without actually doing so in a face-to-face capacity or deepening the relationship through in-depth communications and exchange of deep feeling. Empathy is lost in the utilization of the "like button" and the actual effect of human emotions is displaced by emoticons that provide a quick and easy stimulus that adds to the popularity of a page but does little in the way of fostering real depth of feeling or authenticity. Posts are celebrated and human affairs become a kind of voyeuristic affair, as followers scroll through the lives of "friends" and "friends" post their lives via pictures and videos to the Internet-watching world. Facebook in this sense is very much like an online journal, but with pictures telling a thousand words instead of a thousand words being used to describe a picture/event. Whereas journals of a century ago would have been robust depositories of internal thoughts and depictions of scenes, settings and environments, today's Facebook resembles an online picturebook.

This does not mean, however, that the Internet has done away with words. Blogspots and bloggers have filled the gap left by Facebook, and words are still used to describe the lived experience, to share knowledge, and to spread ideas. The blogosphere is an active region of the Web that provides a source of information for people around the world. But like Facebook and Twitter, it is also a way for persons to draw attention to themselves and utilize the concept of self-promotion, which appears to be a mainstay in the Digital Age. Self-promotion is the mantra of social media, and the exchange of information is not without the concept of commoditizing the exchange, as YouTube posts can be monetized along with blog posts, and Twitter and Facebook feeds can drive followers to one's business, etc. Smart phones and tablets are used for entertainment purposes, so that users can watch videos on YouTube, and they become the go-to source for distraction for persons who have an idle moment standing in the lunch line, waiting at the metro, riding the bus, sitting in the lobby, or riding in the elevator. Promotion of connectivity on the Web (the virtual world) supplants connectivity in the real-world, as users pay no attention to their physical neighbors, instead electing to engross themselves for a few moments on what is going on in the Internet.

Moreover, the fact that individuals can control these mechanisms from devices that can be toted around in their own pockets shows that anyone with access to digital technology becomes a promoter/consumer, whether for the sake of business or for the sake of personal pride; social media can be used to cultivate….....

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