When blogs first started, I didn’t understand them. They were mostly online diaries of people put out there for the whole world to see. Along came My Space. This was a social site, where people could talk and see what other friends were doing, what music they liked, what was gong on with their buddies. I didn’t understand how all this would evolve or what it would mean to mainstream media. But at that time, people still read the paper everyday. They picked up the phone to say hello to people. The internet was a form of information gathering, rather than a new media for socialization.
Fast forward a half dozen or so years. Facebook is all the rage. Everyone is using it. Twitter is being used by every major celebrity and corporation. My Space is now considered old fashioned. Every day new and more specialized social networking sites are popping up. You can now instantly take a picture with your mobile phone and upload it to a large selcetion of media sites with only a few button clicks. The generation that follows ours will never be unconnected from news, people, or information. What does this mean to us as a people and to the planet as a whole.
It is interesting how we are slowly weaning ourselves from paper. Catalogs at trade shows are now efficiently distributed on flash drives. Newspapers, books and magazines are available on line and on heandheld readers. New gadgets are even arriving to replace business cards. Soon, paper products will be obsolete entirely. As less trees are being logged to meet our consumer demands for paper goods, we are starting to see the downside of these savings. Increases in electricity use to power all these mobile devices is quickly on the rise. This results in huge increases of CO2 emissions as we endevour to power these devices.
The second big problem is that of e-waste and pollution. When I was young, we had a phone that hung on the wall. Well appointed homes might have a second or third extension. These phones remained in our homes for our entire childhoods. Today, everyone has a cell phone that is replaced on a regular basis. If you keep your phone for the 2 year length of the average contract, your phone is likely to be antiquated and useless. Most strive to recycle their old phones, but many end up in landfill-with the TVs, computer equipment and printers. All this e-waste is made of heavy metals that can leech into the groundwater and pollute our water table.
Social media allows us to replace the bulky production process and equipment with a small handheld device and a tripod. This means however, we struggle to keep up with the ever changing technology that makes this possible. While the ability to instantly get our news or point of view out there for the world to see is exciting, there is always a price to be paid.
In order to keep up with this media revolution, we are launching new media hotspots! You can start by joining our groups on LinkedIn and Facebook. ou can also follow our us on twitter: @GreatLakesGreen.
Tags: Energy, social media
In this month’s issue of Display & Design Ideas Magazine (in actual print) they quote a poll. They polled salespeople in 2004 and found that over 17% felt “uncomfortable starting a conversation with a customer” or “awkward speaking to strangers”, which is a terrible thing for a salesperson. The most recent poll from 2008 shows that over 19% now feel uncomfortable. Could this be from the huge upswing in on-line social media where people no longer have to speak face to face? Or is it just that companies are no longer hiring experienced personnel or providing adequate sales training? This could be one of the hidden costs of this mass social experiment.