2) 200,000,000
3) 346,000,000.
1) The number of YouTube publishers
2) The number of active Facebook users
3) The number of people who actively read blogs.
(thefuturebuzz.com March 2008)
Don't these numbers just SCREAM community?
That's what I thought.
The online community is growing exponentially every day.
The overwhelming thought that comes to mind at this point is -- is this a problem?
In my opinion, no. And here's why.
Chapter 1 of Understanding Human Communication (Sévigny) discusses needs derived from communication and their essentialness in society. Some members of the 'baby boomer' generation and earlier generations cannot FATHOM how one might fulfill essential needs when the majority of communication is not even face to face.
However, the numbers speak for themselves.
According to Understanding Human Communication (Sévigny), communication satisfies most of our needs. It satisfies our physical, social, identity and practical needs; and many find it increasingly simple to find fulfillment on the internet.
In fact, it may be even simpler to obtain fulfillment for these needs over the internet than it is in 'real life'.
With a relentless and never-stopping onslaught of technological advancement and connection over the web, communication needs are easier and easier to satisfy.
It has never been more possible to determine your identity than it is today with the web. Mind you, it has never been more difficult, but that's something else entirely. It is essential to our human being to identify ourselves as individuals in the modern world. What's so wonderful about the internet is you're audience is infintely more enormous than it would be without the internet. You have the chance to express your views, see other views, immerse yourself in new cultures, and discover things you never knew existed.
More than ever before do we have the chance to find out who we are and perhaps more importantly --
who we want to be.
Above is a TV spot for World of Warcraft: A Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game or (MMORPG), and an image depicting the largely popular "Second Life" RPG, in which (as discussed in Understanding Human Communication, pg 17) you can choose a character which can look like anything you want it to. These forms of media play a large part how a person may determine her or her identity, since they are given the choice to be whomever they please.
Being social on the internet also satisfies many if not all of our social needs. People who publish videos on YouTube get a serious gratification from what they do, and from the reactions of others.
In this way, the internet is now becoming the be all and end all of communication. When people have discussions on important topics, they have well thought out responses and ideas, rather than off the cuff, irrelevant points that can be made in a live discussion.
Even affection, a social need which many believe cannot be replicated in any other fashion than person to person, is being obtained through connection with family and friends via Skype (a video calling program) and other similar programs.
People are now using dating sites more and more frequently to meet their significant others. Match.com alone reps the 2.8 million users that connect online and meet up offline.
This video shows how advancements in electronic media are effecting our lives relentlessly: Did you know?
We are putty in the metaphorical hands of media moreso than ever before. Media is extremely influential on society (Alexandre Sevigny Lecture # 2).
Society's form is shaped by the ease with which new media can function.
In other words -- as technology get's easier to use, the ways in which society can communicate becomes infinite;
After all, the internet brings us together in a way that almost nothing else can.
( http://opinionsandexpressions.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/internet-cartoon.gif )
