Human beings are
always social animals. It is what makes human beings distinctive and
distinguished from other creatures. Clay Shirky starts with this idea in the
Chapter 1 of his book Here Comes Everybody. So called that human beings
are social animals means people can't live without participating in
different of groups at current social circumstances. What really influence
human being's social life in terms of groups is group effects. Group effects
usually indicates the outcomes from the ways of how people communicate and
interact (connect, cooperate, and share) with one another. With the help of new
social media technologies, such as cell phones, e-mails, and the World Wide
Web, the group effort that leading to group effects is optimized and become
better and easier to achieve than before.
However, why those new technologies have such
a positive effects? Shieky believes "When we change the way we
communicate, we change society." This is a very important idea throughout
his book. Cell phones. E-mails, instant messages, and the World Wide Web, all
these new social media technologies largely optimize the way people communicate
and interact with each other within different groups. Shieky used the example
of Microsoft to discuss that social media technologies decrease the costs of
management and make the process of coordination much easier than that through
traditional ways. In other words, people are easier to form new groups and
communicate with eath other through the use of new social media technologies,
while the difficulties of coordination fall. Group's function that achieving
its goals become more effective, so that the group effects are increased.
I also find an
example in my life that is a manifestation of increasing group effects due to
the new social technologies. I have experienced the difference of how college
students communicate with their professors between Chinese universities and
American universities. When I was studying in my Chinese university 2 years
ago. I generally use traditional ways of communication to engage in the
education process with my professor. For instances, I turned in written paper
for every assignments; neither other students nor me used e-mail as
communication tool to interact to professors and faculties; And I have to
complish paper test for every course. The only thing I could recall in terms of
social media tools were instant massages and social networking site for
personal communication. But, there was a totally different story after I came
to study here Ball State University. I used several new technologies to
communicate and interact with teachers and professors for the purpose of
education. So far, I've been kind of familiar with Facebook, Twitter, and I
have been able to use e-mails, Inqusit, and Blackboard effectively. I find its
much easier, much more frequent and flexible for me to communicate and interact
with my teachers and professors.
Critically, new
technologies won't directly or necessarily increase the group effects.
Conservative people may also choose not to use them, and people who haven't
been educated may not use them effectively. Also, the complexity of
coordination is still exist. But, the good thing is "the new tools enable
alternate strategies for keeping that complexity under control." The new
social media technologies at least provide us a good to optimize the way we
communicate and interact, which gives us a chance to build a better
society.
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