A story I read this morning reports that Twitter had zero users added last month. That's right, ZERO. Wow. That blew my mind a little bit because it seems impossible. Especially with the president blowing Twitter up multiple times a day (although you can view his Tweets without following him, as I do, or without even having a Twitter account). No new personal accounts? No new users there to follow their celebrity favorite? No new businesses signing on to yet another social media platform to promote its brand?
It does make me wonder if it has to do with the confusing interface there. I know that there there are a lot of people already who get it and use it voraciously, but for new users it can be a little daunting (as evidenced by some of the comments of my classmates). Especially those used to the simplicity of Instagram or the ease of following and responding in threaded posts on Facebook. To be honest, it does make me a little sad. Even though I don't really 'get' or use Twitter much I don't like to think about the Judgement Day or 1984 implications of a world where Facebook is the only option for connecting, messaging, sending funds, videos, online sales, and everything else they seem to be getting into. It's like Facebook is an online black hole. The usership is so huge that every new thing they roll out sucks everyone in whether you like it or not. Here's an example of how you get sucked in. I fought installing the Messenger app on my phone for at least a year. It kept prompting me and I kept refusing; never sending messages and only viewing those sent to me through the app. Then they cut that capability off with a simple update (which I also avoided for that very reason until the version I had stopped working and one day I got a message saying that it I didn't upgrade the app just would not work.) Then I started using my mobile browser when there was a message for me through Facebook. Finally I had to give in. There were conversations happening there that I needed easier access to. My dog rescue group, selling things online, etc. Too many people were now using Facebook to message me; these are people who have my phone number! They are now using Facebook Messenger instead of sending text messages. And now, with videos, they are making it harder and harder to share and view videos using Youtube (owned by Google one of their biggest competitors) because they want to corner the market on that, too. And the list goes on..... In our readings, Reyman (2013) pointed out that "Zuckerberg claims that he is merely responding to social norms in the development of new technologies and the policies that govern them" (p. 520). What do you think? It seems we don't need to worry about the overreach of Twitter but do you think that one day we will all have a Facebook chip implanted in our brains? And why doesn't the fact that I am connected through Google in so many ways via my Android phone and my use of all Google's products for work and home life (or my 4 Google profiles) bother me as much? Why do I see Facebook's reach as ominous and Google's integration of everything in my life as convenient? Update: In an even more scary report about Facebook (and its potential for becoming the real life version of Cyberdine Systems, Facebook AI Creates Its Own Language In Creepy Preview Of Our Potential Future. And this image, shared by a classmate on with the EME6414 Instagram tag is particularly fitting. In my mind I am calling it "Liked to Death" (if you know the source, please let me know in the comments so I can provide credit).
1 Comment
7/30/2017 08:24:22 pm
Wow...0 users? something just doesn't sound right. for a company that big to have no users just sounds weird. Either way, that is relatively scary for companies like them...but it seems that social media (and other electronics) can create "Windows" that once that "window" is gone, its base just drops till only the dedicated users are left! I for one am not a fan of twitter, but still...that is crazy!
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About this blogA simple exploration of Web 2.0 and social media and their applications to education; an attempt to learn how prosumers are shaping the internet and how educators can capitalize on it. ArchivesAbout MeNature grrl; loves dogs, books, traveling, clouds, technology, thrifting, break beats and good beer. |