Future Trends of Social Media - FutureCyberSex

Over the last couple of months, my blog has covered several different topics, from online extremism to amateur documentaries. I have enjoyed covering and engaging the ideas behind all of these blog entries, but when taking a look into the future of social media, predicting which topic will become most prominent on the eLandscape is not as plain cut as I thought it seemed.

This blog entry will not be focusing on my opinions regarding cybersex, or any other online sexual relations. However, I will quickly revisit the gist portrayed in ‘The Internet is for Porn’ blog, being that I generally do not approve or support such things. This blog entry will instead offer my prediction into where cybersex might go in the future, and also the role it may play in the social media thematic conglomerate.

It seems quite obvious to me that cybersex and all other online sexual relations will always be a very popular theme throughout social media and technology. But in addition to this, I’d predict that elements of the other topics covered will also play a supporting role in the future of cybersex. For instance, it is highly likely that virtual lives like that on Second Life will be continue to be used and developed for cybersex, that mobile phones will be able to support many different means of cybersex, and that elements of produsage will also be incorporated into online sex-related activity. This is what I mean by the social media thematic conglomerate; a mixture of multiple themes which will dominate the online environment. I only suggest that the cybersex theme will lead this conglomerate because as history has shown us so far, sex is the most common use of the internet.



As people who engage in cybersex, as well as the businesses behind cybersex strive to find new ways and methods of facilitating cybersex, the issue of censorship will become even more vital and publicly desired. If the further use of virtual realities and mobile phones (and associated technologies) occurs as means of assisting cybersex, the obvious solution to censorship will be an increase in cost of cybersex-related activities. I think less associated content will be available for free online, and more sites/technologies will only be accessible via a paid membership. Along the same lines, I think we may see an increased legal presence throughout social media and the eLandscape. New laws may be implemented to further reduce the risk of child pornography, as well as to decrease the current level of exposure and accessibility that online pornography has. This will ensure censorship is effectively progressing at the same rate as cybersex and all other online activities.



One finally point is I foresee an increased awareness of pornography/cybersex addiction being seen as a serious psychological condition. More and more cases of people being severely affected by an addiction to pornography are surfacing, and it’s something which is a real threat to success of many relationships. The awareness of this addiction needs to be improved, as I was quite shocked when researching for ‘The Internet is for Porn’ blog, coming across so many articles and websites devoted to helping those affected. I was surprised of the extent of the issue, and I think it would beneficial if more was done to combat it.

So, in summary, all this basically provides a general look into the future of social media and technology in terms of cybersex/related online activities from my point of view. This also concludes the Joe Bloggs blog.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading and viewing my blog entries over the last several weeks. I have definitely enjoyed posting my thoughts and opinions for you to read.

Now Anyone Can Documentary

The YouTube phenomenon has, to me unexpectedly, created the opportunity for amateur documentary making to grow tenfold. YouTube’s platform allows anyone with a simple internet connection to post and show their documentary/film instantly to millions of viewers. Many people worldwide have already made the most of this opportunity, as YouTube is full of amateur documentaries; some with deep and fascinating content and ideas, and others which probably only a few people on earth understand the point of them. This illustrates how YouTube facilitated the boom in amateur documentary making. There are only a few ethical restrictions to the content and appeal that such a film may have when using YouTube. There are no film companies and executives that the documentary makers have to impress before they can show their work to millions of people. It’s brilliant, and I see it as one of social media’s greatest successes!

It is amazing to be able to experience the views, perceptions and beliefs of so many other people for free, whenever one feels like it. The internet’s reach and capabilities allow us humans to share our thoughts and stories like never before; amateur documentaries being a prominent method of doing so.

Below is an documentary found on YouTube about the amateur Drifting scene in America, showcasing the typical type of amateur documentaries found online:



Documentaries themselves have become quite popular recently, found everywhere instead of just on ABC on Sunday nights. Many influential documentaries have reached the cinema screens throughout the last ten years, some of the more memorable being ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and ‘Supersize Me’. We’ve seen that documentaries can be such an effective way to make huge social statements, and a method which draws on its’ informational and passionate nature to achieve a large impact.

So get on and surf the net for amateur documentaries, or make one yourself! There’s a wealth of lifestyle insights, views, cultural diversities and intriguing information waiting to be found and/or produced and shown on Youtube!

Mobile Phones: The One and Only?

Mobile phones have become a bit more than just phones which are mobile. In fact, there’s not much a mobile phone can’t do these days. Now you can watch a movie, surf the net, take a photo and listen to music on your mobile phone, and that’s just before we get into all the crazy things that mobile phone applications can do!

It is true. We could probably throw away our TVs, CD players and computers and still do most of what we want to do just on our phones. But would we want to? Would just the one mobile phone screen satisfy all our technological wants and needs?

I don’t think so. Even though the current technological trends are driving a smaller and smarter way of the future, I personally enjoy having a flatscreen TV, hooked up to my stereo system, both of which are capable of connecting to my laptop and phone if I wanted to. I appreciate the enhanced visual and audio experience I get when I watch movies and play video games on such a set up. In fact, it’s for this reason I assume movie theatres are still operating and very popular.

Society is increasingly adopting a fast-paced and convenience-based lifestyle, where demand for instant information is great. Mobile phones have done well to develop so as to complement this trend, and this is a factor that I admit I do appreciate. Even though I don’t have the latest and greatest, I do benefit from the ability to listen to music or read the news headlines when I’m on the go. I do believe in the value that mobile phones bring to society, and I support their continual development.



















Advances in technology help many people do business, keep themselves entertained, allow constant interaction with friends, give them the ability to organize their lives more efficiently etc. ‘Smart’ mobile phones are one of the key drivers and supporters of these activities, and keeping up to date with technology, especially that in smart phones, is very beneficial to what one can achieve in life. But on the flip side, a complete obsession and dependence on such technologies is not a healthy move; one which seems to be becoming more prominent in society today. Mobile phones and their developments cannot replace many things in life including other technologies. I will never give up my TV, not just because of the large screen and stereo sound, but also because I enjoy the time I spend sitting down watching it and relaxing. There are other values associated with technological products apart from their primary use and purpose. They have a great role to play in our lives, and will continue to into the future, but I don’t see the screen on our mobile phones becoming the one and only.

How To Use and Not Use Social Media in a Political Campaign

Social media is becoming an increasingly popular information channel for political figures worldwide. Presidents and prime ministers all now have their own web pages with links to their Facebook, Twitter and Youtube pages. Now that these forms of social media are used by millions of people globally, they are obvious tools for anyone wanting to portray a message of any kind, be it politicians, marketers, volunteers groups etc.

In the earlier days of social forms of media, they were not perceived as being genuine or reputable enough to use for important messages. Social media was just something that young people used to keep in touch with their friends 24/7. But now, especially following Barrack Obama’s highly successful 2008 election campaign, social media is a proven performer for politicians into the future.



















The online article ‘The Obama Online Campaign, by the numbers’ quantified the impact of social media on the 2008 election. The article was written by Rob Cottingham, and can be found on www.socialsignal.com. Here are some telling figures from the social media election campaign:

- $600+ million raised, most of it online
- 6.5 million online donations
- 13 million addresses on his email list
- 7000 different email messages sent
- 1 billion total emails sent
- 1 million text message subscribers
- 2 million profiles on MyBarrackObama.com
- 400,000 blog posts written
- $30 million raised by personal fundraisers on MyBarrackObama.com
- 5 million supporters on other social networks

When you actually think about these numbers, the degree of reach achieved and the amounts of funds raised as a result are significant. This is a great example of how effective social media can be when it’s used well!

However, there are examples of a social media political campaign not working out so well. Take the 2009 Indian General Election, and L.K. Advani’s Adwords Campaign. Basically, Advani was a candidate in this election, but he and his party were resoundingly defeated due to a poor social media campaign. Those in charge of the campaign had the right idea, utilizing a blog, a Facebook page and a Youtube Channel, but then the campaign proceeded to bombard the viewers with aggressive advertising and promotion rather than supporter communication and interaction. The election was lost because of the ignorance evident in the misuse of social media.

So in summary, social media is a fantastic tool for politicians and political parties to use, and should be used far into the future, but only in a well measured, sensible and effective manner.

Produsage???

So is there anything wrong with taking someone else’s original creation and manipulating it to become your own piece of work? Is the piece of work you created as a result even a ‘new’ piece of work? The internet has many sites which allow users to display their manipulated works, providing them with an incentive to create such things. The act of recreating original work to give it a new meaning is known as ‘produsage’, a term coined by Dr Axel Bruns, an associate professor in the Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. It seems there would be a fine line between this and plagiarism, but I guess produsage is the legal recreation of someone else’s work. But this introduces that annoying question of whether produsage results in a ‘new’ piece of work or not? Think about Andy Warhol’s famous colour-in ‘artwork’. Is this new art, taking a photograph and colouring it in?
Despite which side you take, there are positive aspects of produsage. When I think about the examples of produsage that I’ve seen (and enjoyed), they are typically clips of re-dubbed TV shows and movies, as well as covers of songs. in the instances of clips, I found I enjoyed the clip because I could relate to the original aspect of the video, and also because I knew a lot of people who also enjoyed each clip. In fact, I am generally shown these humorous videos by others who’ve found them or been shown by someone else. This indicates two significant characteristics of prodused work which drive the concept’s success; relativity (it’s easy to relate to because you’ve seen part of it somewhere before) and popularity (it becomes very wide spread really quickly before it uses work that is already popular). Both these characteristics substantially enhance the effectiveness of produsage, and have driven it to become incorporated within popular culture. Throughout various forms of social media, prodused work and clips have become extremely fashionable, and the more they are enjoyed, the more popular they get.

Here is one of my favourite prodused clips…



And here is one of my favourite song covers...



Personally, I do really enjoy many prodused works and I appreciate the creativity shown. However, I can definitely see how traditionalists would have a problem with it, and produsage does lack authenticity from this perspective. I don’t know if I’d ever really get into creating produsage myself, but I do know I’m going to keep enjoying it!

The Internet is for Porn

Sex has always been a topic that pretty much every human being in existence has some interest in. Many people, in fact, develop such an interest for it that they become clinically addicted to it. Consequently, it’s of no surprise to find out that porn is the largest and most profitable online industry and the topic of which the most number of websites are based on.

In the article, ‘Internet Porn: Worse than Crack?’ written by Ryan Singel, a great point is made, being that the younger generations of society today are at the highest risk ever of becoming addicted to porn. This is because porn is so readily available online, for free, 24/7, and younger people are by far more knowledgeable about computers and the net in general than older people. Unfortunately, it really is a recipe for disaster.

‘The internet is definitely the main culprit behind the explosion of porn addiction. A study published in the journal Pediatrics stated that 42% of internet users aged 10 to 17 have been exposed to pornography. By the time these children reach adulthood, pornography can be a pervasive part of their lives and, for some, this can lead to serious problems, such as porn addiction.’ (http://www.askmen.com/, ‘Dealing with Porn Addiction’, by Sarah Stefanson)

I have never given it much thought before, but it now seems completely ridiculous not to raise the awareness of the dangers of internet porn amongst society. It almost seems too late to effectively prevent further damage being done worldwide, and I think this is because the potentially detrimental consequences of the internet were not realized soon enough after the net was initially launched. That said, I don’t really care if people look at porn or not, but I do care about the effects doing so can eventually have on marriages and relationships. There’s a major emotional side effect to engaging in cybersex or looking at porn that is the respect and consideration (or a lack thereof) one has for their partner. The younger generations of society are at increased risk of becoming unable to commit to and form successful relationships due to the great presence of pornography today. But I guess marriage is becoming a bit unfashionable in today’s society too, so maybe it’s not that big a deal.

The other factor to consider is that people are always going to want porn and sex, whether they realize the dangers or not. Pornography is not illegal, and I don’t really believe it ever will become so as long as it is produced by consenting adults for consenting adults. I won’t enter further into the moral debate surrounding pornography and sex, otherwise I’d be writing for a little too long. However, I will say that I personally don’t see why so many people devalue the love and intimacy one can experience in a relationship with a special partner, and persist in looking for new and different women/men instead.

There are growing numbers of therapy organizations and groups who have identified the threat that internet pornography poses. Ironically, the internet is a key place to find out what defines a porn addiction and the methods available to overcome it. The anonymity aspect is one which draws people to the net for help about their addiction, and fortunately many organizations have realized this and offer online therapy programs.

Reality, Virtual Reality, Life etc etc

Second Life is a virtual phenomenon which allows people to create perfect looking avatars and live a second life. And when I say live a second life, I mean they eat, sleep, exercise, date, get married, shop etc in this virtual world. There have been many news stories covering instances when Second Life has spilled out into the real world; where couples get divorced because a spouse was caught ‘cheating’ in Second Life and where people get married who have met in Second Life. It creates a weird concept whereby virtual realities are really affecting us in our real world. At first it may just seem that these people who use Second Life are just obsessed with a fake online world which has no real value to people. But after closer inspection, could this Second Life actually be ‘real’ to some people, and could it be impacting their physical lives?

I do agree that experiences create grounding of belief, and in my opinion, virtual worlds and whatever occurs within them are very ‘real’. Anything that a person puts time, energy and emotion into can become real to them. Humans need things that are of great value to them, things that they can look forward to working on or creating, and if this comes in the form of a virtual reality, then so be it. Being part of generation Y, I guess I’m quite used to the concept of video games and computers, and consequently, they are a normal part of everyday life to me. So maybe I do overlook the issue a lot of people seem to be having with Second Life.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the relationships formed on Second Life and the relationships harmed in real life as a result, the emotions associated with these situations are too, very real. Emotions and feelings expressed in a virtual reality are still real emotions and feelings, and this is what makes virtual realities ‘real’. This is in fact, not dissimilar to the concept of religion, something some may argue is even less ‘real’ than a virtual reality. Makes you wonder anyway…
I regularly get lost in thought imagining the possibilities of things simply being impossible for the human brain to comprehend. The human brain is restricted and I’m sure there are many things in our reality, world and universe that we are unable to identify and understand. No one can know what they don’t know, and it’s for this reason that I don’t believe people can really define if many things are ‘real’. I think there is just too much ‘out there’ to bother worrying about what is ‘real’ and what isn’t. Just writing this blog entry is enough thinking about reality for my liking.