Brave New World of Digital Intimacy

Thompson’s article “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy” provokes the readers opinion and idea of what we use in today’s society. These new pieces of technology in the social marketing world will either bring us to something great or unfortunate. Technology has allowed us to publicize what we are doing, whenever we want, however we want. .

Because of Facebook and Twitter we can let the world know what we are doing, whenever, according to Thompson there is both good and bad to this.
Pros: This new technology is able to chronologically list your status, allowing people to understand you through time. No technology has been able to do this before. It’s like a storybook and everyone has the ability to use it. When you using Twitter you are only allotted 140 characters or less to your status. So before writing out what you want to publicize to the world, you have to carefully consider how you are going to say what you want to say. Many people have been able to keep in touch with old friends and what they are doing in their lives.

Cons: Privacy. Facebook has given their users privacy settings and having them in control of their account. That way if you have specific content on your page that happens to be private to the public, you can make sure that a strange doesn’t know that information. On the other hand, Twitter doesn’t have the same settings as Facebook. Anyone on Twitter can see what you are doing, whenever they would like. Some of the information on these sites isn’t useful at all. I really don’t care to read that someone is hung-over or eating a sandwich. These sites can also be used to embarrass or a way to gossip about one another. There happens to be more in life than party pictures and seeing who broke up with whom.

Ambient awareness are all these new forms of communication through new networking sites. People are now able to list out their lives through a new public forum. I think that there are pros and cons to the new world of ambient awareness. I’m a user of both Facebook and Twitter and I know I spend way too much time on Facebook. I always think about deleting my account but I know if I did I would be out of the loop. I don’t know if I agree with Thompson’s idea of the effects of using these sites as therapeutic, at least not yet. When I use Facebook, I mostly use it to see what my friends are doing through their pictures or status or as a distraction from schoolwork. I have never signed off of Facebook and had been in a better mood or even calmer. I usually feel like I wasted time that I could have used on my work.