Introduction
Film and media in general continues to influence identity to the society as well as creating and changing the ideology within the society. The media is not only responsible for perpetuating ideology messages out to the public but it is interlinked with the ideological framework of the society. Through recurrent exposure, an individual can be influenced by the media in terms of their personal identity, values and beliefs. Such traits are later indisputably strengthened by the external factors such as friends, teachers, peers, family and other institutional factors in the society. However, in the contemporary society, media has a very important influence on shaping people’s value orientation. Media content is a communicative means of expressing value, its application within the adoptive cultural environment.
The pros and cons of a hyper-connected globalized culture
The pros associated with a hyper-connected globalized culture include: Increase in cultural intermingling and nations strife to know more about other nation’s cultural preferences therefore we get to know things that we like and in the course of time adopt it. This will enable other countries to know the cultures that are employed in different nations.
We are open and more tolerant towards each other socially hence those that live in other nations are becoming more approachable and you can share ideas or even become easy to access each other may be through social networks.
Customers have a better access to products from different countries and also there is a worldwide market for the companies across the nations globally hence an increase in production sector and more of investments for different companies.
Dollar difference has decreased due to the steady cash flow into the developing countries. There is an increase in influx of information between two countries especially nations that do not have anything in common between them.
Over the years, there has been a lot of technological development that countries have undergone hence helping most of the developing nations to progress at the same speed as the developed nations so as to reach the pace that they are developing.
Globalization have also helped in increase of demand of the products thereby rate of productions shoots and manufacturers find this profitable thus helps in availability of many jobs as producers are required in numbers.
A hyper-connected globalized culture has several cons as discussed below. There exists the problem of loss of the cultural identity in the societies. This is due to the fact that the Western ideas will always force themselves through in undermining the Eastern views and opinions. The Eastern is a victim of circumstances as many of its citizens duplicates the western ideologies to look superior and advanced. Social degeneration is also becoming so popular since many individuals are busy socializing using social networks but not in real life. A hyper-connected globalized culture gives room for the spread of communicable diseases that affects the healthy states of the society (Kelli, 2008).
A hyper-connected globalized culture promotes the spread of information globally and this has damages to individuals and organizations. There was a time when a prominent musician used the United Airlines but on the process his guitar got broken. He commented on the issue and this affected the United Airlines stock as it dropped drastically. There are instances where broadcasting companies have tarnished the names of senior politician and this affects their support. Twitter is leading in making false accusations against individuals and it has developed a culture of confusion and disorganization. Information spreads virally and globally at a very high rate and negative information will always cause damages.
A hyper-connected globalized culture is also affected by unattractive YouTube Videos.an example can be the video known as the “Innocence of Muslims”, which caused riots in the Middle East. These unrests led to loss of more than 50 lives. The religious insensitivities in the social networks have created friction and misunderstandings and people with different cultures are having a very difficult time in interacting.
The future impact of hyper-connected globalized culture
Benefits
The networked society seems to favor the future for the next generation as 52 percent of current generation believes that the future has a better plan for the coming generation. The hyper-connectedness will positively influence the future in the sense that individuals will be in a position to multitask, progress through work-related and personal tasks. This will enable the future generation to be more proficient at answering the answers of the deep and complex questions. Therefore, the next generation will be able to access the greater knowledge and information and hence get connected with the rest of the cultures via crowdsourcing.
The inter-connectedness of the cultural world is also anticipated to change the learning behavior, hence influencing the cognition among the future generation through collective intelligence. As a result this will help the future society to produce more accurate and positive outcomes. The teens and young adults will be involved in rapid attention that will be extremely applicable in developing class that will be able to integrate the ideas more efficiently. They will be having opportunities that will stimulate them to view things differently and wisely in the society.
The hyper-connectedness will also join different communities into a globalized community where people will be drawn together and reduce the state of being isolated. This togetherness will help different cultures across the globe to share different views and ideas, and engaged in faster and more effective ideas. For instance, the use of inspiring scenes and messages in a movie will help the society to grow into a more advanced and harmonized society (Angela, 2010).
Dangers
Although hyper-connectedness comes with various benefits, there are some major downsides subjected to the coming generation. In future, almost every teen and young adult will be hyper-immersed in applicability of technology and brains of such individual will not be effective in retaining information. This generation will consequently be engaged in short and entertaining content and messages rather than focusing on deep engagement with knowledge and people. This will lead them to rely on the fiction rather than facts while making their decisions.
Why as we become more and more connected do we also become more and more isolated?
The teens and young adults of the future who will be in need of gratification will be forced to make quick but shallow choices, and in the end they will be poor analysts and decision makers. The cultural level of knowledge is seemingly reducing in favor of superior familiarity of the pop culture. There is also unclear understanding between the facts and opinion in the society while reasoning and verification have been substituted by the search engines outcomes such as Google.
The world of communication and interaction has evolved over time and technology has played a big part. Using the social media notably Facebook and twitter, psychologists say that the social medias have not only changed what we do but who we are. People spend more time on imaginary friends on Facebook and twitter forgetting their closest partners who need their attention. This has increased with the technological advancement on mobile phones making life isolated more than related. Though the social media create a sense of companion in lonely situations, they are also a source of isolation through various ways that we will discuss.
Effects on interpersonal interactions
Social media has limited the extent of social communications in comparison to the traditional face-to-face communication such as telephone or verbal communication. People are getting more and more addicted to the social media forgetting the life of interaction with their close neighbors. There are ghost and pretend friends who take most of our time on the social media and we forget the people around us in the work place and in our homes.
In the work place, unlike before the introduction of social media, people used to interact by communicating face to face with their colleagues. The trend has since changed, as more people are busy tweeting or facebooking with social friends to have time with their workmate (Bargh & Mckenna, 2004).
In colleges and universities, students are busy on their smartphones and tablets: to give attention to their colleagues. These affect their interpersonal interaction relations and deteriorate their socialization skills. In the end, they become isolated and lonely. This has effects on their interaction life.
Effects on close existing relations
The internet and social media has effects on close relation such as family and friends. Research shows that most people spend a lot of time on social media having little time to their families. Partners are most of the time on their phones even during mealtime, which has made relationships worse (Bargh & Mckenna, 2004). Over involvement in the internet causes addiction, this makes people forget the responsibility of giving each other the required companion.
A research in the USA revealed 95% of those people who use the internet have less time for their family and friends. Internet users are less likely to contact their friends or family through phone or visit them. Though the use of social media increases the level of communication with family members and friends, there is a deteriorated trend of interaction.
Effects on social relations
Increased usage of the social media has reduced the rate of interaction and discussion that were traditionally and culturally present in every society. The number of people involved in discussing society issues has greatly decreased as many people are working online either at home or at work (Descartes & Kottak, 2009. These have affected the cultural practices were people used to socialize and know each other. The forms of marriage have been greatly affected as so has many other social norms. The type of work and the social interactions, of discussing important national issues, has changed platforms and taken its root to the social media
It is however important to note that the social media have positive effects on our daily lives. There is a lot of news broadcasted through them and we learn a lot about other cultures and nation (Descartes & Kottak, 2009). It has taken communication into higher levels as breaking news are now accessible worldwide within minutes after their occurrence
Work cited
Bargh, J. A., & Mckenna, K. A. The internet and social life. Retrieved from http://www.yale.edu/acmelab/articles/Internet_and_Social_Life.pdf, 2004
Descartes, L., & Kottak, C. P. Media and middle class moms: Images and realities of work and family. New York: Routledge, 2009
Leung, Angela K. Cultural Processes: A Social Psychological Perspective. Cambridge University Press, 2010. Internet resource
Rubin, Kenneth H, William M. Bukowski, and Brett P. Laursen. Handbook of Peer Interactions, Relationships, and Groups. New York: Guilford Press, 2009. Print
Trujillo, Kelli B. Engaging the Culture. Nashville, Tn: Thomas Nelson Inc, 2008. Print
Haugen, David M, and Rachael Mach. Globalization. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2010. Print
