Personal Connections in the Digital Age

Nacy K. Baym is the author of the book Personal Connections in the Digital Age. In the first chapter of this book, the author talks about social media and how nowadays there are more ways to interact with people than ever. Baym strongly thinks that people react in two different ways to new media. Some people see new media as a new opportunity to interact and connect with people, and also a way to build new relations. On the other side, other people see new technology as a threat to their privacy and freedom, seeing it as something not helpful at all. Baym states that new technologies give us the opportunity to interact with people without having to be there in person, something that would be impossible to think about a couple of decades ago. This situation creates a lot of questions and problems. As an example, Baym talks about a couple eating dinner in which one of the people of the couple is constantly on his/her phone. She/He is still there physically, but where is she/he actually mentally? The author also makes references to the privacy and freedom that we loose by using most of the media we use nowadays. Finally, she states that there are seven key concepts to differentiate digital media and how each should be used. This seven concepts are: interactivity, temporal structure, social cues, storage, replicability, size of audience or reach, and mobility. In order to help understanding this seven concepts in a better way, the author uses the internet and mobile phone as examples.

At the end of the chapter Baym asks the readers a question, which later she will also try to answer: who uses social media? The answer, from my point of view, is everyone. Everyone nowadays is aware of social media and uses it to a certain extension.

In order to back up this statement I can use examples by generations. It is obvious that the new generation, up to 25, uses social media almost every day, seven days a week. Technology and social media are involved in our day a day life. Whether you are doing homework for class, seeking information, or as a form of entertainment in our free time. Adults are also nowadays used to social media. A new world of opportunities has been opened in the last decade in terms of work in social media. People now use social media to find jobs, hire new people, create and introduce new companies to the world. Adults are involved in social media to an extend that in some cases their lives are the way they are because of it. Finally, older people are nowadays also exposed to social media. In their case social media is new and something they haven't use since they were born, so their level of comfort or attachment to it is not as extensive as for other generations. Older people are using TV as a source of communication to be updated of what is going on in the world, which makes it a social media. Also, most people nowadays have a smartphone, no matter if they know or don't know how to use it. A mobile phone is a form of social media that allows us to communicate with other people instantaneously. Finally, email is also a tool that most people have, no matter the age. Although email doesn't allow an instantaneous communication , it connect us with other people and is considered a form of social media.