While reading chapter five in The Shallows, I couldn't help but laugh at the thought of a priest with a smart phone in his hand live tweeting about a sermon that he is giving. Also, an orchestra sending out tweets about Beethoven's music and telling the audience to use their phones to vote for an encore? Give me a break. To begin with, I believe that all churchmen and people attending church should not have their phones at their disposal. I could care less if you are tweeting an inspirational quote, you are at church, not at a friend's house. Secondly, you are an orchestra, and an orchestra puts on a musical performance, not a game show.
I am aware that social media is great for communication and having fun; however, it starts getting annoying when everyone, and I mean everyone, starts using it for marketing purposes and trying to be "cool". A message to television and random products: if you aren't a game/talent show, there is no reason to put "#plastictalkingdog" or "#everythingthatiswrongwithyourinsurance" because not only is it pointless and rarely used, it just makes it seem that you are trying too hard. Carr points out that the increase in televised media and internet has many businesses and institutions scrambling to save themselves from bankruptcy or a leaving demographic group and investing in online marketing and television. I understand that everyone wants to get in the profits and still appear relevant and I am okay with that. All I am asking for is the appropriate use of social media and no more hashtags. Please no more hashtags.
#IDisagree
ReplyDeleteAlthough people are overusing it, #'s were actually useful in today's social medias. Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, and other social media sites use hashtags to help people find interests. For example, you can type in #Cookies and you'll find everything that other people have posted about "cookies."
I believe you are over exaggerating on how you want no more hashtags, but it would be useful for people who want to find a certain topic and interact with others on the same subject.
I believe that hashtags should still be used.
Of course there should still be hashtags. I am not calling for their end; I am only calling for the idiotic and useless ones created by businesses to end. I have searched the hashtags that they put on the screen during a commercial and there is at the maximum five people who have used them. It's embarrassing.
DeleteI am guessing you've seen the Jimmy Fallon / Justin Timberlake skit about hashtags. If not, search.
ReplyDeleteI just saw it. It made me cringe very badly. It was hilarious though, I'll give them that.
Delete#HaydensSide
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with what Hayden says on here but I can understand what you're trying to say. It's sort of annoying seeing everyone put hash-tags on practically everything, but it enables organization needed for social medias. For example, Clive Thompson, the author of Smarter Than You Think, said that people in Egypt used hash-tags to help start a revolution to overthrow the corrupt government. Without hash-tags, these people wouldn't have created worldwide awareness and the interaction between people to help the Egyptian's cause.
#Egypt
I don't think it's fair to say that "without hash-tags", the Egyptian people wouldn't have been able to get the global community aware of the injustices in Egypt. There are plenty of other mediums through the Internet that they could have achieved worldwide awareness.
DeleteI agree Jeremy, I doubt that the hashtag is the end all be all.
DeleteWell, I have to say that I was probably exaggerating the benefits of having hash-tags, but I feel as if this was one of the biggest mediums, if not the second biggest behind Facebook, used to achieve worldwide awareness. Twitter is a gigantic social media outlet, and the bigger the media, the better awareness is created. As Patricia said, people like using hash-tags because it is so simple to do. Naturally, people would want to help spread this using hash-tags because it's easy and makes the people themselves sound "cool" and "relevant" also.
DeleteAgreed. Social media is great in spreading awareness. An example right now would be the ALS ice bucket challenge that has gone viral and is spreading awareness of the nerve crippling disease.
Delete#LOL
ReplyDeleteHey patty (: I see where you're coming from. For a while my sister and brother had this thing going on where they would hashtag EVERYTHING. For example: she posted a picture of us holding those red party cups and she put "#plastic #cup #plasticcup #red #white #ihaveacup #theresjuiceinmycup" and it went on and on and on. It was so dumb. That's not what hashtags were made for. But I agree that it's embarrassing how all these businesses are trying to get customers through hashtags because frankly, it's not going to do much.
Yeah, it's embarassing. Also, how do people have time to hashtag every word they could possibly use? It's overwhelming to the eyes.
DeleteI believe that hashtag are great when used the right way. I think its nice when I'm trying to find a picture of let's say, a cat, and a bunch of pictures of cats pop up. However, sometimes use the hashtag and they either have no relevancy to the picture or the hashtag is just plain dumb. I think we should keep hashtag, but learn how to actually use them
ReplyDeleteIt is funny, or odd, how what society used to call the pound sign is now called a hashtag. I personally use the term hashtag and hashtags themselves sarcastically most of the time since social media has practically overused it. It's become overused and annoying after seeing a sentence littered with blue on twitter. Although, hashtags allow people to discuss with each other their opinions and ideas easily, most of the time what is a popular hashtag or trending topic is of unnecessary importance.
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