these approaches are oversimplistic and have been challenged since their introduction. A good reminder concerning technological determinism comes from Thurlow and colleagues (2004): It is always useful to remind you of the trap of being too deterministic about technology whenever you come across someone making a claim about the overwhelming effect of technology on certain aspects of social activities, no matter if the technology is a steam engine or social media.
It is worth noting that this book aims to explore the impact of social media and the latest application of media technology on people and their social activities. However, this approach may not be labeled as technological determinism because the book does not intend to ignore or overlook the dynamics of social, cultural, and psychological influences on human society. Rather, it sidesteps the complexities of the process of social influences by addressing the impact of technology on social media users and related social implications. During the process, social, political, and cultural activities have imposed an essential effect on social development, but, obviously, it is out of the scope of the current book.
Summary
This chapter lays the groundwork for a detailed discussion on how social media are transforming human communication and businesses in the coming chapters. It first defines two key terms: social media and technology. Both terms will be thoroughly examined later in the context of analyzing the sociality features of social media. For a better understanding of the social media impact on people and their societies, this chapter proposes the four eras of human civilization and investigates the broad social use of new technologies in each of the eras:
1 Agricultural civilization – farming, printing, geographic discoveries
2 Industrial civilization – steam machines, electricity, mobile transportation
3 Information civilization – PC, mobile communication, network technology
4 Internet civilization – ICT, social media, Wi-Fi, mobile technology
This chapter suggests that a profound knowledge of the social media mechanism is critical to one’s life, career, and social activities in the era of Internet Civilization. Like it or not, social media are starting to exert a growing impact on human society, something that no one can ignore. The chapter also reminds us of the trap of technological determinism. In this chapter, technological determinism is discussed as a useful theoretical framework for studying the technological perspectives in social media activities.
Looking Ahead
In Chapter 3, a theoretical background is presented to study how people process information in the context of computer-mediated communication (CMC). It analyzes the significant differences between CMC and face-to-face communication. CMC users are often active information processors who can accrue accurate impressions of others and build high-quality relations with them in an online environment. This chapter also introduces the Uncertainty Reduction Theory and Social Information Processing Theory. Both theories should help to understand how people interact with others and process information on social media. Finally, the chapter reviews why social media use sometimes can be quite addictive.
Discussion
Suppose you would like to spend one day (24 hours) without using any social media, including, but not limited to, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Slack, Signal, and LinkedIn. You can use phone, email, text message, and traditional media – radio, magazines, newspapers, and television. For minimizing any interruption, please inform your parents and friends in advance after you choose a date for the experiment so that no one panics when they cannot find you on social media. Then write an essay about how you survive the 24 hours without social media. Your essays should address the following questions. If you cannot write such an essay, please imagine such a day without social media and then answer the following questions:
1 How difficult is it not to use social media for 24 hours?
2 Which social media platform do you miss the most, and why?
3 What happens to you during the experiment? What feelings do you have after you make it?
4 Do you experience any mood or behavior changes, positive or negative?
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