Social Media

            In the past decade, a multibillion-dollar industry has sprung up. It has hundreds of millions subscribers, and it seeks to connect people with friends all over the world. Not only that, but it has also become one of our primary sources of news and entertainment. Of course, I’m talking about social media sites like Facebook and Twitter that have revolutionized how we spend our time on the Internet.

In class, we took a poll on how many hours a day we spent on social media sites. I answered one hour as I’m only on for a few minutes at a time, but I heard numbers as high as six hours a day from several people. Not only has social media had an impact on the way we spend our time, but also on the way we conduct ourselves. On area in particular that I can think of is in the realm of dating. A good example of this is a term that has become popular over the last few years, “Facebook Official” or “FBO.” This term is used to describe someone changing his or her relationship status on Facebook from “Single” to “In a Relationship” while dating someone. I have heard plenty of teenagers say that a relationship is not actually binding until a couple becomes Facebook Official. When couples meet on a social media site as opposed to a physical place like work or church, there is a common reoccurrence where the couple is able to communicate easily over social media but struggles to find something to talk about in person, leading to a rather awkward encounter. Another oddity related to social media is the double life people live on their social media accounts and in their actual daily life. One thing I can personally vouch for is the trend of having thousands of friends on Facebook, but only a handful of friends in real life.  On the social media site Instagram, a popular trend is to only post pictures that seem interesting and exciting, giving the illusion that your life is incredibly exciting based on the pictures you post. I could go on and on about the effects of social media on our daily lives, but the point is that social media has impacted particularly young users a great deal and shows no sign of releasing its grip on our lives.

The Story of Books

           Recently in class, we discussed the decline of books as one of our dominant forms of entertainment. As a result, bookstores like Barnes & Noble have had to downsize, and it has become increasingly more challenging for publishers to recover the funds spent on publishing literature.  The risk is now outweighing the reward, and more authors are turning to less expensive publishing methods like Amazon. As a matter of fact, a friend of mine and I are considering using Amazon to publish our book. Are there any books though that have at least slowed this downward spiral of poor sales and quick demise? I can think of at least a few books in the past decade that have sold extremely well and even received film adaptations: the Harry Potter series, the Fifty Shades of Grey series, and teen novels like Twilight and The Hunger Games. What sets these books apart and allows them to thrive while others barely survive? They’re aimed at younger demographics and are typically centered on some forbidden romance (vampire and mortal, love triangles, etc.). Is this the secret formula to create a successful book? Are magical, romantic billionaire vampires with chiseled abs the key to saving the print industry? When the film adaptation hits theaters, I’ve noticed that the viewers are typically teenage girls and middle-aged women.  Another issue that has peaked my curiosity is whether or not film adaptations hurt or help a book. On the one hand, a film definitely brings the story to a larger audience perhaps prompting more people to read the book. On the contrary, seeing the film might lead some people to avoid the book entirely, as they now have the story presented in a two-hour film as opposed to a 300-page novel. Ultimately, and sadly, the story of the hardbound book is nearing its conclusion. As Dr. Williams pointed out, it’s likely hardbound books will become specialty items, only printed when on order is placed. In the meantime, we will move on to other mediums of entertainment, and the books we do read will be on Nooks and Kindles.   

Changes in Print Culture

            Here in the 21^st century, things are changing more rapidly now than they have at any other time in the history of our world. In just the last decade, we have seen the rise of the smart phone, a communication device that almost everyone has now that did not even exist a decade ago.  These changes in technology have also impacted how we communicate and access news. Nowadays, social media sites like Facebook have hundreds of millions of users and have eclipsed newspapers in terms of being a primary source for news updates. We must ask, though, where did print technology start? Stone tablets? Cave drawings? Goose flesh? And which advances in technology had the greatest impacts?

            Over the millennia print culture has seen countless changes, but I’d argue that the greatest changes came with the creation of the printing press and the advent of the Internet. For the longest time, people were forced to use primitive materials, and everything had to be done by hand. That changed with the invention of the printing press. It made both copying and distributing information far more efficient. Eventually, it lowered the costs of books, making literacy more prevalent, which also birthed things like pamphlets and newspapers. Rises in literacy and a better-informed population ultimately led to major strides in societal advancement. Centuries later, the landscape of print culture was rocked, this time by the Internet. It connected people with information and other people from around the world. It also granted us all of the information we could get from physical news sources but at a much faster rate, ultimately leading to the decline of physical newspapers and books. Of course, with all of these strides have also come certain problems. As mentioned previously, physical news sources have met their decline.  After being a staple in print culture for so long, it’s sad to see this shift. As we mentioned in class, newspapers have seen a 40% decline in subscriptions, and the only newspapers that are thriving are found in small towns. Also, we are having a problem with the quality vs. quantity of the information available to us.  Typically millions of sources will come up with a simple Google search, but the majority of them offer little in terms of substance. Ultimately, it’s almost impossible to list all of the benefits that have arisen from advances in technology, but at times it is sad seeing what has been lost or outdated.

The Name of the Rose

Knowledge. Knowledge is power. Perhaps the best way for a tyrant to remain in power is to restrict the flow of knowledge into the masses. In The Name of the Rose, a handful of malicious monks are even willing to murder their brothers in Christ to keep the knowledge they possess out of the hands of everyone outside their inner circle. When they are finally discovered, they choose to destroy the knowledge instead of share it. What was this knowledge that led to so many deaths? Well, it was a last copy of a book on humor written by Aristotle, and its contents were forever lost as a result of the monks’ unwillingness to enlighten the masses and see them as equals.

I enjoyed the film, and I felt like it highlighted some of the changes we’re currently seeing in the way information is distributed. Change can be a frightening process. In The Name of the Rose, the monks are afraid of the commoners having access to books and thus the same knowledge the monks do. In our current society, we’re seeing shocking amounts of classified information being distributed through the Internet and other sources. A good example of this would be the recent Snowden case, where an informant leaked classified government information via the Internet, exposing some questionable activities by our government. Some people see Snowden as a hero, but others including the government have labeled him as a traitor. Another example would be the Watergate Scandal, where two reporters exposed illegal activities being carried out by political candidates via the newspaper. The evolution of print technology has allowed information to flow more quickly and efficiently between recipients. This evolution has been one of our main focuses in this course, and I feel like The Name of the Rose touches on it, albeit hundreds of years ago. Even now, hundreds of years later, some of these recent changes are met with a similar fear. Evolution is a necessary process, and those who fail to embrace it ultimately end up like the evil monks from the film; they die clinging to beliefs that, when looked backed upon, make them look even more foolish than the uneducated masses they tried to keep down.