Fred Harrison, a recent GSU grad’ and current APR intern, shares his latest thoughts with us in his second blog post installment during his 10-week internship at APR. For this one, Fred was in control of the topic direction and interestingly enough he decided to discuss what we’ve all been chasing these last few years – social media.
Social Media: Generation Y’s Addiction
In today’s tech-savvy world, social media is boss. It influences and commands the attention of our world’s population, linking and allowing us to communicate with each other in ways never thought possible in recent global history. From social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace to social blogging sites such as Twitter and even video-sharing sites like YouTube, social media is growing and expanding at highly prolific rates. It controls much of how we get our news, entertainment and even operate our businesses in today’s fast paced global economy. Because of this, social media has many different audiences and followers whose lives revolve around this new-age phenomenon. However, no age group has been more influenced or impacted by this modern technology marvel than that of Generation Y.
Those of us born during this period of time, in the 1980s and 1990s, have had the opportunity to grow up with, experience, learn about and embrace social media in school and our daily lives. In turn, this has given us a strong technological advantage over our baby-booming parents and their limited to no experience with computer-based technology that they had while growing up. Our generation is so immersed in social media that we can’t imagine life without it. Social media sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Flickr, and even Google command how we socially interact, learn, do business, build relationships and even entertain ourselves from a web-based technological communication standpoint.
Social media’s success in today’s world is largely due to the importance that Generation Y places on socializing and communicating with each other on a daily basis. Yet, it wouldn’t be what it is today without members of other generations catching onto this social media craze and realizing how beneficial it is and can be to their business and social lives. In professions such as public relations, journalism, marketing, advertising and business in general, social media is being used time and again and more often to bridge the gap between companies and their target audiences. Its capability to forge powerful and intimate relationships between people solidifies just how vital this modern day communication tool is in each of our lives and our advancing world.
