YOU HAVE ONE NEW NOTIFICATION!

One of the things I learned today via Facebook is the following:

"Dennis Sammut"

Retweeted BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking):

The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, hands over power to his son"

Dennis Sammut is on my friend's list on Facebook and he tweeted about the ruler of Qatar. However, I saw the news on Facebook because he has synced his Twitter account with his Facebook account. Technology nowadays works like magic. 

Social media can be reliable to obtain news sometimes, however it should not be our main source for information. As we discussed last week, there are no hard guidelines for new media and this allows the public to post all sorts of information on such sites. This does not mean everything on social media is false but it means we need to be cautious and assess the information we get from there.

In general, I don't log in to social media accounts to acquire news, I log in to see what my friend's are up to and entertain myself. When I want to know about a specific incident then I visit news channels like bloomberg, reuters and so on. 

"Whoever controls the media, controls the mind." - Jim Morrison

New media has become a constant in almost everybody's life. The reason behind this is that it's free and it allows the public to express their opinions freely. Another advantage of new media is that it is very fast, almost instant! A person updates their Facebook status and all their friends are aware of that update because nowadays Facebook can be accessed through smartphones, not only computers.

I use Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, and Blackboard through my laptop and smartphone. Also, I use the iPod in the gym. These are the channels that I use on a daily basis.

The influence of new media is tremendous on all people; people do not only rely on newspapers for the news and TV is not their only source of entertainment. New media has made instant communication possible even when there are thousands of miles between individuals. In addition, it is changing the traditional education system by making online education possible. Students are more likely to pay attention when technology is used in education because it is something they can relate to.

However, this does not mean that there are no negative influences of new media. It is easy to manipulate children and media-illiterate people using social networking websites. At the end of the day new media is just a tool and how you use it makes all the difference in the world.