Week 1 Reflection

 As part of this week's assignments, we were to read Part 1 of Networked: The New Social Operating System by Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman. In the beginning of the book, the authors tell a story of Trudy Johnson-Lenz. In December 2007, Trudy, unfortunately, fell down and hit her head. Doctors ended up removing part of her skull and there was a chance she would not make it. While waiting for her to recover, her husband used his phone to take her picture with all the bandages and tubes. With these pictures, he sent them to friends so they could understand what was going on.

Little did Trudy's husband know that this picture would essentially go "viral." People all over the country would end up knowing about Trudy's story and were praying for them. Radio stations were dedicating shows to Trudy. Some people even organized fundraisers for Trudy with the family's permission.

However, I want you to think what would happen if Trudy's husband did not take that picture? What happened if he didn't share the picture with his friends? There was a time when social media or even the Internet did not exist. 

 Reading this story this week made me think about how fast the Internet and social media has changed over the last 32 years of my life, but even the last five years. People used to send pictures to family members in letters through "snail" mail. Now, people just need to post to their Facebook or Instagram accounts for people to see. A picture gets posted to Twitter or Instagram and it can go viral based on the amount of likes or retweets it has. The web is ever changing; however, the question will be, can people keep up with the rapid change? People must be willing to learn and adapt to all the changes, so they do not get lost in the shuffle when it comes to the Web or social media. 

While Trudy's friends were thinking of her the days that followed her injury, her network got bigger when her husband's photo went viral to the country. 

I can't wait to see what next week brings!

References

Rainie, L. & Wellman, B. (2013). Networked: The new social operating system. Boston, MA: MIT Press. 

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