Bittersweet Social Media
Bittersweet Social Media – This book offers the essential information about social media, it does not contain highly technical information or analytical formulas but, in contrast, it offers an explanation of the new communication system and also provides ideas to spark off individual researches.
I wanted to create a book that was simple, effective and brief; focused on analyses and explanations of social media’s meaning, the idea behind them, and the influence they have on people’s lives.
Social media (SM) system is a next step of the Internet evolution and it represents the result of the interaction between new communication needs and technology development (based on internet).
Many important events occurred in the USA in 1969. For example, the military operations in Vietnam, the moon landing, the election of Nixon as the 37th President of the United States, and the Woodstock concert.
However, few remember that in that year four American universities connected their PCs together in one single network. This network was the civil implementation of an original military project, designed by ARPA (Advanced Research Project Agency).
This military project had the purpose of keeping the Pentagon information up and running also after a hypothetical nuclear attack from foreign countries. This is because the multiple locations, connected to each other, provided a solution of disaster recovery where essential data were stored in separate places and restored if needed.
The Internet came years later when it became easier to connect networks using the TCP/IP protocol, and it became popular with the development of browsers and search engines.
Initially, the Internet was conceived and developed to connect only machines, and to allow the exchange of information to make jobs easier and economically convenient for companies.
In just a few years, this technology affected company business on the one hand, and people’s socialization, interests and mobility on the other.