Mark Mahadeo

YouTube is a new media that fosters creativity. YouTube allows anyone from anywhere to share content that may be interesting for others to view. To gain subscribers, YouTubers usually want to be different and stand out which forces them to be creative.  According to the paper “YouTube Traffic Characterization: A View From the Edge”, it states “Instead of consuming content posted by a single administrator, users are now able to post their own content and view content posted by their peers.” I myself am a big fan of YouTube because of this. I love the fact that I can find and enjoy relatable content that isn’t on TV.

One main difference between a Twitter discussion and a BlackBoard discussion would be that on Twitter, anyone can join in the conversation (assuming Twitter account is public) whereas on BlackBoard, only students/professor of the class or at least school can comment and be apart of a discussion. An in-class discussion can be different as some people might not speak up in person whereas online they do because they feel more confident.

After visiting Facebook, I noticed that the main page layout hasn't changed much from a decade ago, a time when Facebook was very popular among the middle and high school students. Twitter is the same, no new features, strictly tweeting. Instagram and Snapchat are two other social networks. Recently, Instagram added a new feature which happens to be Snapchat's main feature. Because of this, I think Snapchat will soon be obsolete.

Social networking is useful in many ways. It can be used to communicate with friends or meet new people (on Instagram and Facebook), make yourself known to employers (on LinkedIn), and advertising your business for free (again on Instagram and Facebook). According to the article “Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting”, Maureen Crawford-Hentz, recruiter for Osram Sylvania, stated ”Social networking technology is absolutely the best thing to happen to recruiting — ever.” Although social media has its positive effects, there is definitely a dark side to it. People make fake accounts and pretend to be other people (as seen on MTV’s Catfish). There’s also cyberbullying where people bully others through their keyboards. Privacy is also a concern. According to the article “Who cares about Facebook Privacy? Students Do”, Researchers Danah Boyd and Eszter Hargittai stated “Over all, our data show that far from being nonchalant and unconcerned about privacy matters, the majorit