A Look at the Instantaneous World We Have Created

First it was myspace, then it was Facebook, then Twitter and LinkedIn popped up. These social media sites have given way to an aspect of communication that has become second nature to us. This aspect is the instantaneous way society now receives information. The world heard of the deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett on Twitter before any news medium could report on it, and when those news stations did report the story, the video of the coverage was instantly available on YouTube. And vice versa, ordinary citizens who have the ability to upload personal videos on YouTube become overnight sensations and end up on Good Morning America because of people like Ashton Kutcher tweeting about it. Remember "Jill and Kevin's Big Day" video? If you don't, here's a refresher :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8DCt3Lmi28

The biggest question I am left with is what does this mean for our news stations, journalist, and more importantly how our generation and generations after us will gather information? Will journalists be replaced with celebrity's publicist texting Kim Kardashian a news story who will in turn tweet about it where it will be picked up by hundreds of thousands of people in a matter of seconds? Will TV news stations cease to exist and become one person behind a computer updating a Facebook page with the top news stories of the day? Moreover, how will this affect the sources we use to get our news to gather information for reports, papers, secondary research and our personal knowledge consumption?

The social media tendencies our generation has now will greatly affect how information is produced and gathered for generations to come.

http://twitter.com/GMA

http://twitter.com/CNN

http://twitter.com/nytimes