(Anti)social media?

The past couple of weeks following the Social Media course actually haven’t been very different from my “normal” social media use. I used Twitter and Facebook heavily before the course and will continue to do so after. My views on and usage of those two I think hasn’t changed a whole lot. One of the most important things I learned during the course and via the use of these media is that their influence on people (including myself) and everyday life nowadays is enormous.

The way I feel about social media is kind of a love-hate relationship. I love it because it keeps me updated on all the stuff that’s going on with my friends, family, brands, celebrities or even politics. I hate it because it’s kind of becoming a compulsion for me to check on social media. I’ll check up on Twitter and Facebook updates way too much during the day and when I’m bored it’s even more. I’ll use my phone as well as my computer vigorously to do this. All of this, I believe, stands in the way of our everyday face to face communications. But besides that, social media is still a huge thing and opens up opportunities for all kinds of branches like marketing, protests or just plain and simple contact.

Besides my Twitter and Facebook addiction we had to sign up for some other social network services. This included signing up for Google+. I wrote this before but I’ll do it again: I don’t see the added value over Facebook. Google did have something on Facebook with the circles, but the way it was brought to the public all Facebook had to do was wait and see. To jump in at the right moment and shamelessly copy the one original idea and then improve on that as well. Also, the website itself isn’t very aesthetically pleasing. Those are basically the reasons why I’m not going to be using Google+ anymore in the future.

Nooit meer zonder

Voorafgaand aan het vak Social Media maakte ik eigenlijk vooral veel gebruik van Facebook. Op dit moment staat Facebook nog steeds op nummer 1 maar mijn verplicht aangemaakte twitter-account bezoek ik ook nog steeds regelmatig, wel alleen via mijn telefoon. Door het intensief gebruik maken van bepaalde nieuwe media ben ik wel bewuster gaan nadenken over bepaalde dingen. Ik zal proberen niet al te lang en krachtig te beschrijven hoe ik de afgelopen 6 weken heb ervaren in social media land.

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