The Next New Thing

We have seen new media being utilized in almost all aspects of modern life. Simple things like going out to eat has new media integrated through websites such as yelp.com. With the introduction of virtual reality to consumers in recent times, new media has an infinite amount of potential to grow and expand.

Often times the next new thing in new media isn't a brand new invention, but how to make old things newer. Companies like Uber and Lyft did this by making an old practice of hailing a cab easier and more convenient for users. One area that I feel has not been touched by new media is parking. In NYC especially, it is next to impossible to find a parking spot. I think that if the old practice of looking for a parking spot utilizes new media it can be made so much easier and less of a headache for people.

If new media is utilized for which spaces or available or who is entering or leaving a parking area, people can see beforehand how many parking spots are open in the area. This can allow people looking for parking spots to move on to a different area to look elsewhere.

Our Class Wiki - So Far

So far I have contributed a piece of my term project to our class wiki. I contributed a paragraph in the New Media in Social Networking section under subsection 2.1.3.4. This subsection focuses on how social networking has been creating more jobs and job opportunities.

I contributed stats on how many employers use social networking to assist in their search for employees. I compared the percentage of employers utilizing social networking sites back in 2009 to the percentage in 2015.

P2P File Sharing

File sharing is literally what it sounds like. It is the act of one entity sharing their files with another. File sharing is extremely helpful because of the fact that sharing information is one of the most valuable aspects of the new digital era.

P2P file sharing is when regular individual users are sharing their files for anyone they allow to download their files. This is extremely helpful for people who may need information that isn't readily available for people. However, this is also deemed illegal in many cases. This is because people tend to share unattainable files due to the demand. This means that people would share files that are needed to be paid for, but they would share it for free. BitTorrent is an example of P2P file sharing. Clive Thompson in his article "The BitTorrent Effect" describes how BitTorrent is extremely popular with users because the BitTorrent community shares files that people usually wouldn't be able to obtain.

Privacy and Confidentiality

There has always been contraversy regarding new media with privacy and confidentiality. The reason why new media has been widely successful is because of its utilization of user profiles to bring the best user experience to individual tastes and preferences. Many social networking sites ask for a lot of information of users, but many feel very uncomfortable with sharing that information for all to see.

Social networking sites have algorithms where they can track your browsing history and thus personalize advertisements on their sites based on the history. This makes people very uncomfortable because they feel like their every action is being watched.

There is also extreme contraversy of employers probing employee or potential employee social media profiles. Some people do not get the job or get let go from their current job due to their posts on social media. This can be a huge problem because some people post things on their profile with no intention of their employers or interviewers to ever see those posts. However, it just shows that new media can have invasion of privacy aspects to its use. 

Advice to Baruch College

In this age of new media, educational institutions have been completely changing how they operate. Baruch College certainly has been implementing new media in their operations, but not to its full potential.

I think that Baruch could offer more online classes. Through new media online classes have been a major success. An argument against online classes is that it takes away from classroom interaction between classmates and professors. However, if the college could utilize a blog-like system, students can have discussions with eachother and the professor. Also, something that hasn't really been implemented into current online classes is the use of virtual reality. If professors can deliver their lectures through virtual reality, students can listen through the lecture at any time and place. In a college like Baruch where majority of students are also working, online classes are extremely valuable by making their class schedules as flexible as possible.

Another way Baruch College could utilize new media is to have a profile for professors upon selecting their classes for your schedule. I believe if professors' ratings could be seen along with other information on the course, it will give them more incentive to teach the course to the best of their ability. Other colleges already implement this system and this could be extremely useful to students.

Creativity and New Media

New media definitely fosters and influences my creativity. My favorite social media app right now is Snapchat. Snapchat has a function called a "geo-tag", which basically is a unique graphic that you can include on your picture or video showing you where you are. I find all these geo-tags very interesting and am always checking for new geo-tags when I am in a new area. I've included some of my own "snap stories" to show some examples of geo-tags.



As you can see each geo-tag is unique and it's extremely fun to travel to new places to include in your snapchats. The creativity part comes in when Snapchat earlier this year allowed for anyone to create their own geo-tags. After a small payment you can send Snapchat a graphic and it will be able to be used in a certain location for a certain amount of time. My organization, Delta Sigma Pi, utilized this function to welcome the freshmen and welcome everyone else back from the summer break.



Without this function of Snapchat, I wouldn't have even thought to care about geo-tags, but it was extremely gratifying to see our custom geo-tag on the app.

Creativity

Raw creativity certainly comes from the human mind and not from technology. But from what we've seen technology can foster creativity within us. New media allows us to explore our talents and interests in a way unseen in the past. As Isaac Bell writes in his piece, Creators, Audiences, and New Media: Creativity in an Interactive Environment, you can see that new media exposes people to a whole new dynamic when exploring their creativity. People can easily share their work through new media and get immediate feedback with no extra cost. Stars such as Justin Bieber was able to become an internet sensation when he first uploaded his creativity and talents on to Youtube. With the opportunities and possibilities that new media offers, it definitely allows people to explore their creativity more.