Cliché: Power of Tech & Social Media
A couple of updates before getting into it:
TONIGHT me and my cousins are going to the movies to see Spiderman Homecoming, do not even doubt I will give you guys my thoughts on the movie ASAP and a short reaction on twitter (@dvd19931). Also tomorrow it is Weekly Podcast day, just know it will be a little late because I have a Project Daniel anniversary celebration at the hospital. I will tell you guys all about it and about the most popular topics of this week, it will be (as usual) an awesome Podcast episode.
So let's get to it:
Probably by now you have realized the power and importance that social media and technology has in most of the world. Why? well, like I have mentioned before, a "small" someone called Gary freaking Vaynerchuk put it best when he said "social media is basically the current state of the internet (...) your phone is now the TV and the TV now is the radio". So why talk at all about this already proven topic, this cliché of the importance of something that has swallowed our daily life? Because of what it is going to do next:
Let's get the obvious ones out of the way: people now have a voice that matters, YOUTH specially, now have a serious influence on both public and private sector. Case and point: public sector being seriously affected by the Arab spring of 2010, and private sector becoming more and more invested into influencer marketing. Now this "benefit" goes both ways: individuals have now a bigger voice if they have enough online traction, but also the private and public sector have a more direct to consumer marketing strategy that before was easier to ignore (if you did not want to watch a TV commercial you would just look away, now you have to get past commercials you cannot avoid, unless you pay or do something of the sort).
But here is what I am excited about and you should be as well: The IoT or Internet of Things, basically the unavoidable truth that every day not just more users come into access to the
SMART CITIES are already a great example of how the IoT is here to stay because of real world applications where it has and will improve data collection and results. There is no doubt it will become better and better with examples such as Albuquerque, New Mexico, were machine learning helps traffic lights and intersections become smarter, thereby making the already existing infrastructure much more efficient. Predictive analytics, were crime and natural disaster exposed neighborhoods will be more vigilant and try to affect the situation they so much try to avoid. Climate change mapping will help direct policy and private efforts to mitigate and/or adapt better and not make the efforts random to certain areas of pollution.
Finally (yes of course I would not forget to make Apple a part of this entry), health application. Fitbit, AppleWatch, Health Apps, ResearchKit and CareKit are some of the most recent innovation companies that have been going into the health to completely change the industry. But already the changes to the world health picture from technology and social media integration has more than just innovated, it is constantly gathering and analyzing data that will result in better and more tech and social media adapted for a direct to user treatment care.
The internet and tech can be as great as using your iPhone and AppleWatch to help diabetes, parkinson's, epileptic people out there. It can help a youngster find and read more information to help him find his passion, express his feelings and learn about others that are going trough the same to not make him feel alone. Or it can be used to buy followers, hack into people's lives and cyberbully. Just like many other tools, a lot of its positive or negative consequences come from the user.
So stop scolding your kids about social media and technology being harmful or negative just because you have heard of the risks. Start educating them to use better technology to improve their knowledge, to help them with school, to help them become a better soccer player, pianist, fireman, Applefreak... Whatever they want to become.
