My New Media Class - So Far

There are numerous new technologies that can be consider new media. One of the biggest one is probably the World Wide Web and all the networks within it. Billions of people visit the Internet on a daily basis. People can interact with each other within seconds across networks (AIM, virtual worlds, & social networks). In the article "What's Next? Your Future in Social Networking" Chuck Hamilton said "Virtual worlds are quickly becoming a powerful tool and a driving force to what many are calling the 3D Internet – one that is open, immersive, innovative, and social." With these different applications, people saves money and time in their hectic schedule to do other things. This makes the Internet a very important contribution to the new media because of the massive number of participants/users and their active role in creating the Internet. The world would be in total chaos if the Internet shut down all of a sudden one day. Another new technology would be television that contains cable. Viewers have a larger variety of channels to switch among beyond the broadcast channels (NBC & ABC).

New media is enhancing old media in both positive and negative ways. On a positive note, people are using collective intelligence to come up with new technologies and applications to improve their quality of life. With new technologies, people are able to work on tasks faster and effectively. On negative note, people take advantage of new technologies and take easy way out of everthing.