Social media is a polarizing topic of conversation today. While it no doubt brings a vast amount of good to our society, the negative impact is simply too great to ignore. Personally, I understand that social media allows us to communicate and connect in ways that were not previously possible, however, through the use of smartphones, social media is ruining our humanity. Next time you’re out to dinner at a restaurant, taking in a Sox game at Fenway, or even sitting on the couch with friends watching a game or show, take a look around. I guarantee—GUA-RAN-TEE—that around half—at least—of the people there will be staring down at their smartphones with a wide-eyed walking-dead stare, completely unaware of what is going on around them.

You see, what people don’t seem to understand is that for all the good that smartphones bring us, they are undoubtedly disintegrating our ability to act as human beings. That couple in the booth over there? Both refreshing their respective twitter and Instagram feeds, barely even aware of each other. Those sold out grandstands? Half the people are texting and liking pictures on Facebook while the other half are instagramming pictures of Ortiz standing in the box with a “#BigPapi #GoSox #Boston<3” rather than actually watching him launch another one into the bullpen. Oh and those times you’re sitting down to “watch” a game or a show with your friends? Yeah half of them couldn’t tell you the score, the last thing that happened, or how many characters are on the screen right now. That is, until they decide to peek up for a split second to ask “What just happened?”

You see, not only are smartphones stunting our ability to interact human being to human being, they’re also making us dumber. Why bother going out on a date with that pretty girl to that nice restaurant to just look at your phone all night? Why buy that ticket and pay $10 a beer when you can save money by staring at your phone while the televised game serves as background noise? Pretty soon, we are going to be reduced to a society of “smartphone operators”, only experiencing anything through the expensive handheld computers that fit in our pockets. My point is that everything that makes life worth living is being watered down or even destroyed by our constant need to know what’s happening on twitter, what pictures are being posted to Instagram, or what our friends are doing who aren’t with you that very second. Overall, while social media and smartphones do a good job enhancing our ability to communicate through an electronic screen, they do an even better job damaging our ability to interact with humans and enjoy that interaction.

When initially asked how television is in my life, it was surprising that I could not come up with a sufficient answer to the question. I was aware that television was very present in my life, as between Netflix, OnDemand, and good ole fashioned live watching, much of my time is spent sitting in front of some sort of screen. However, rather than having a quick answer to how television is in my life, it led me to pay closer attention to what I watch, how I watch, where I watch, and with whom I watch television with, as these factors significantly affect my television watching habits. Television itself is a staple of our culture today, so much so that it is nearly impossible to walk down a street or walk into a home without encountering a live television, “Television is a daily fact of existence for many today—from its role as electronic roommate and white noise device.” (Murphy, 7)

While there are an endless number of television programs that fall into every genre from soap-opera to zombie-apocalypse, what we choose to watch on television can have an effect on us that is not readily apparent. The shows we choose to watch, and the characters and their actions that star and support in them shape us in a way—stronger and easier—than much others. Especially today, well into what many call another “Golden Age of Television,” that popularity and both cultural and personal impact of television is at an all-time high. Started by shows such as The Sopranos and The Wire and continued by the likes of Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and The Walking Dead, despite the rise in DVR and services such as Netflix, certain episodes of these shows remain to be an event. An event that you gather with friends to eagerly watch Rick Grimes lead his group through another town overrun by walkers, or to see how Don Draper will keep his alcohol-fueled and womanizing life on the rails.

The characters in the shows we love, from Draper’s drink of choice to Rescue Me’s Tommy Gavin’s dark humor, to Entourage’s Ari Gold and his quick-firing of insults, we who watch these shows go on to imitate—sometimes purposely, sometimes not—these character and their quirks. When examining how the shows that I’ve watched—which is many—have potentially affected my character, I have certainly noticed traits adopted from the small screen. More so, many quotes from television have established themselves as permanent staples between my friends and I. This having been said, television is a consistent and unconditionally-loving friend that is not just always there when I need it, but makes me a more interesting person while bring together friends along the way.

Our discussion this past week has focused on the “Gang of Four” and their monopolistic aspects as both four separate entities, as well as one collective “team.” Though we spoke plenty about monopolies and whether or not the Gang of Four is/are one, the ultimate question remains to be: Are these companies, such as Amazon, evil? , or “how much can we trust these companies, if at all?” As the market appears to be increasingly cornered by the Gang of Four—Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook—the entire concept of the “Age of Platforms” comes into question.
The readings centered on the glorious sounding “Age of Platforms,” which they state that we are currently in, however, Platforms are consumer driven and essentially run from the bottom up. Which is clearly and unquestionably the opposite of market that is more or less run by four companies. FOUR. Everyone loves their fancy smart phones right? Guess who makes most of those smart phones. That would be Apple, while the rest are made by, you guessed it, Google. Speaking of Google, what do you do when you don’t know something or need to find something or someone, you Google it. The company name has even because a verb because of its popularity/dominance. What’s that? You want to buy something online? Guess where you’re going to find it. Amazon. Now, you might say, like the reading seems to attempt to claim, that Amazon doesn’t make smartphones, Apple isn’t an online shopping place, Google doesn’t own social media, and Facebook isn’t an online shopping supercenter. Sure, despite all of the above being legitimately possible in the future, perhaps each member of the Gang of Four isn’t their own monopoly. However, if you are using your Apple smartphone to Google a product/person which leads you to Amazon/Facebook, what’s the difference? The Gang of Four is an impressively dominant monopoly in this supposed “Age of Platforms,” which, having established that—regardless of what nonsense the reading is spewing—we are left with the question of whether or not to trust these Four Horsemen.
While I could sit here typing all day and all night about their values, motives, goals, etc, it would most likely be beneficial to everyone but simply cutting to the chase. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if we trust them or not because they aren’t going anywhere (for the foreseeable future, at least). Google is still going to be Google, Amazon still Amazon, Apple still Apple, and Facebook, despite people declaring it dead almost as often as the sport of baseball, is still Facebook. Each and every one of these companies remains dominant in their specific category, and together, are a clear monopoly working together to essentially own a market that is supposedly run by consumer driven and oriented platforms.