Imagine a life without social media, it’s impossible. Scrolling through Twitter and Facebook keeps people updated on what’s going in the world. All the information is easily accessible and a google search away. Information has been spreading in the past, and it will spread faster as we keep going in the future. So what has the power of technology been able to accomplish? Due to the power of technology and inventions, new information has been able to spread to more people around the world than ever before. Many people think that information is spreading recently, but it has been spreading since 1940, the invention of television. Information about campaign and politics has always been influenced by the television. The way candidates are selected and the way they campaign is through the information that is shown on television. Through advertisements and commercials, politicians are able to reach a large audience.
According to encyclopedia.com through 1890-1969 a Republican candidate for president, Dwight D. Eisenhower used commercials to express his views to his audience and relied on them to gain more voters. At one point in time, TV commercials were the most important form of communication between voters and candidates because it was able to reach a huge mass of people. But TV was also used to spread wrong information about a certain candidate, so political action committees (PACs) formed for the sole purpose of spreading negative information about certain campaigns. The creation of technology has affected everything, by doing so it has gained an extensive amount of power.
Because of the number of power televisions have gained when they were invented they spread information and influenced minds. This is a family that is watching TV in the 1900’s, this was an era where technology had started to diffuse information. The television was a new invention which has managed to gain popularity and almost every household had a TV. Another example where technology is currently spreading information is social media. Social networking websites always have the latest gossip. Sharing information has become much faster and easier because of apps like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Social media can reach almost every person on this planet, because of the large platform it has, gossip gets around faster.
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A famous YouTuber Logan Paul is a good example of how fast information spreads in today’s world. He filmed a dead body in a forest in Japan and the reaction upon encountering. He started to laugh and had no respect for the person. He put the body and his reaction on YouTube, but his reaction was all over the internet within hours of posting it. Because of the inappropriate content, he put on the internet he got a lot of hate and attention. Everyone knows about this event because of social media, information about this one person spread really fast because it was interesting and easily accessible. Famous celebrities tweeted about how offensive he was and how he turned a serious situation into a joke(Brandle).
Overall social media plays a huge role in circulating information. The power of technology made Logan Paul delete the video and it brought him a tremendous amount of hate. The power of technology has allowed people to have a say in what is wrong with the world and stand for what they believe in. “A wealthy banker goes out to lunch with a colleague. The banker disdainfully leaves a 1% tip on a $133 bill with the message, ‘Get a real job.’ The colleague, who runs a blog called ‘Future Ex-Banker,’ takes a picture of the receipt, which then goes viral” (Leopold).
Because the story was so intriguing, it went viral. People blindly accepted it and kept sharing it but in reality, this story was a hoax. The story caught people’s eye and they kept sharing it, no one stopped for a second to think if it was true or not. The reason the person posted a picture of the fake receipt was to get attention and be recognized by people. Because of the power of social media sometimes there is misinformation that is shared and it can lead to gaining a lot of fame. The need to know stories like these is the reason why information spreads and social media is just an aid along the way. During a time of crisis checking the news for the latest update is everyone’s initial reaction.
The spreading of information is extremely important in a time of need, and technology has a key role in this. Specifically, weather forecasts have helped save thousands of lives. Satellites have the to the ability to receive information about the current weather and people can access this by simply checking the weather app. Because the way technology has progressed people are able to take precautions and be safe. Hurricane Irma is a very current example of how technology has helped disperse information. More than 6.5 million residents in Florida were evacuated because of the predictions made by technology and the way the information was spread (Held).
The forecast helped save millions of innocent lives and saved so many families from falling apart. People would have been in danger even with the technological predictions, the reason people were safe was that the information was spread at the right time. The number of deaths and casualties caused by natural causes has decreased over time because the right information has been able to reach an area that has a crisis. Technology has been able to diffuse information which is spreading faster and faster, but it has positive and negative effects. It helps the crucial information get to the right place at the right time. Technology is going to take over people’s lives and it has a lot of power and majority of it is used to spread information.
