Media is only growing.
Experiencing vs. Creating
I would argue that since the dawn of digital media, the “creator” and the “user” have constantly neared closer and closer to being one in the same. However, there has quite recently been a new generation in which these effects have become more clear than ever, and I would argue that this is, more than anything else, a product of social media. For the vast majority of social media users, the consumer is simultaneously the producer. Whether we are posting our vacation photos, blog posts, personal photography, reels and TikToks, or any number of other things, it is a remarkably unique fact, relative to digital media’s entire past, that the platforms upon which users can be the audience to this media are the exact same platforms upon which they can both produce and publish their own creations. Something of this nature has really never existed to this extent in the past, and in terms of “old” media on the other hand, this concept was not even remotely present in the past. In order to consume “old media”, society did a variety of things such as going to a theater, reading a newspaper, or listening to the radio, whereas in today’s age, watching a movie, reading the news, or listening to music can all be done on our cell phone’s alone.
What does this mean for our society?
As each member of society becomes increasingly involved in the production and consumption of digital media, particularly on social platforms, there has been a remarkable phenomenon occurring at the same time: with every day that Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, among others, gain more users, the social media ecosystem becomes more and more connected to our society as a whole. In other words, because both the number of users and the number of hours spent on these apps is steadily increasing, they become a space upon which larger parties in the societal playing field invest a greater amount of time, attention, and money. For example, through the use of “crowd sharing”, companies can achieve a massive amount of growth in a shockingly short amount of time by gaining a presence on several users’ accounts. Further, sites such as PayPal, Venmo, and GoFundMe can use crowdsourcing to deepen the connection between society and the digital world even further by involving not just a social aspect to the digital world but also an economic one. To then connect this to what we can expect for the future of our society is quite a complicated task. The overall progression of the digital landscape’s ever-growing presence in our “real world” truly shows no end in sight. There appears to be new developments every day, and this alone is really not a problem. Instead I would argue that the more relevant issue to expect is our own potential inability to keep up. Whether it be the continuing development of artificial intelligence or simply the continuously more complicated internet landscape, our society is being asked to learn more about technology every day, and I find this to be something to certainly fear and if nothing else, to be keenly aware of.