From my personal experience, it seems as though social media is a prime example of the “new media” of our time. Social media has gained immense popularity within the past few years as different platforms including Snapchat, TikTok, and Instagram have been added to it. It is forever-changing and is continuously being brought to new levels through updates. I find myself often discussing the technology present during my childhood/teenage years with my parents and comparing it to what was available to them. One of the key differences brought up time and time again is how I am a part of a generation entirely connected through social media. Unlike my parents, I have the opportunity to utilize this “new media” to communicate with people all over the world in a matter of seconds. For me, it is easier to understand the concepts of social media since I grew up surrounded by it, but for other generations I have noticed that they tend to gravitate towards “older media” due to their familiarity with it.
7 thoughts on “Mimi Bainbridge “New Media” Post”
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What new media might you struggle to understand or use? At what point in your own experience might what you consider “new media” become “old media”?
I agree that this generation is constantly on their technology whether it be a laptop, watch, phone, or t.v. For example, during this generation, we have the luxury of connecting with people going to our colleges and find friends and potential roommates prior to meeting them. However, in our parent’s generation, they show up and meet everyone on their move-in day. Older generations will never truly understand the importance of social media to our generation because they only had it for a short period of time while we have used it our whole life. While technology has many benefits to our generation, it has also has caused many scandals and mental health issues. In the end, new media has changed our society for the better and worse, yet overall it has helped connect people around the world.
I agree with how different our generation is from our parent’s generation due to technology. It is interesting that you mentioned how even the college process has changed dramatically due to social media and the ability we have to connect with people from all over the world. I also agree that this new technology causes both positives and negatives since it is evident that is can help better connect people but it can also put a strain on young people’s mental health.
I too feel that there is a drastic difference between social media’s role in our lives versus those of our parents. I think that over the years, despite the exposure growing heavily over the years, there is still a great divide between its influence on me as compared to my parents. I think that the age in which social media is introduced defiantly reflects on the “speed” of new media in the eyes of kids to adults. We are at an in between at our age, as I have talked with many of the kids I babysit and can’t seem to understand many of the pop culture references that they are mentioning. Over the next few years, I believe the rate of incoming “New Media” will have a positive correlation with those of a younger age.
I like the comparison you bring up between the presence of social media in our upbringing and the absence of it in our parents’ upbringing. I’ve also talked about this idea with my friends, wondering what our lives would be like if we didn’t grow up with social media. I think social media influences our generation’s identities. As you mentioned, being able to communicate with people across the world quickly and easily, we are constantly being exposed to new information and able to explore different communities. Social media can influence the type of music we listen to, the clothes we wear, and the people we surround ourselves with. At the same time, though, our generation has added pressures from social media that our parents didn’t grow up with like cyberbullying and highlight reels creating a false sense of reality.
I agree and I definitely see how “new media” can be defined as social media today. I constantly talk about similar topics with my parents today and because we have grown up surrounded by so much technology it is hard to compare our experience with media to our parents’ experience with media. I think it’s important to look at the younger generations that are growing up with even more of an attachment to technology. I personally look at this attachment as both negative and positive because although it is not good to be dependent on something, technology is the future and younger kids will know much more about future technology than our generation will in the future.
I agree that social media can totally be considered a form of new media, especially seeing how much it influences American culture. Most teens nowadays stay in tune with the world through their social media apps, as traditional news media and print have become significantly less sought-after. Compared to our parents, technology has definitely made the way we experience the world vastly different. Even the fact that words such as “apps” or “snapchat” are completely normalised, show just how much things have changed since the onset of the digital revolution.