Discussion 1 [Alice Low]

Culture can be defined as the way of life which includes beliefs, aesthetics and institutions of a civilization. Considering today’s way of life, we would be lying if we didn’t admit that media is not an influential entity in our culture. As we know, social media like Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and Twitter have exploded in popularity over the last few years. Social media includes the various online technology tools that enable people to communicate easily via the internet to share information and resources.

In my opinion, social media has the biggest influence on the people's life because it helps people in many ways. For example, using different kind of social websites has given a new opportunity to people to share their life with their friends, keep in touch with them even if they could not see each other often, get to know new friends and the most interesting part is when we can search back our old friends. People certainly still meet others at social venues like clubs and parties, but it is easier than ever to discover people who share our interests through social media, whether that means via groups on Facebook or following people on Twitter.


The advantages comes when social media make people easy to start making money as it has online with a blog, a few affiliate products to promote and a whole trench of social networking accounts. It is actually giving others convenient from going out while they themselves are also saving from buying or renting a shop to have a business. Not only that, job opportunities may also increase.

But, it sometimes has disadvantages because it has proven that Facebook influence people a lot. For example, news about Alviss Kong which committed suicide when his girlfriend broke up with him by jumping off the 14th floor and before committing suicide, he posted a note to his Facebook profile page. Prior to jumping, he took one last photo and even posted a message 45 minutes before. Few weeks later, another guy which wants to have concentration from the others, he followed his steps and says goodbye to the world in Facebook too.

We actually have reached a stage where media literacy is the dire need of the hour. It is time to start thinking and analyzing what media is dishing out to you.