New New Media Ch. 6-10

I don’t know if I’m the only one, but comments are one of my favorite parts of reading blogs. Whenever I read an article that someone has shared on Facebook, as soon as I finish it I scroll down right to the comments section to see what everyone else that has to say about it. Some of the comments are funny, but I think I do it more to see if people had the same reactions or questions that I did while reading it, although I rarely ever post a comment myself unless I have an account for that site. 

Comments, however, get dangerous when it comes to cyberbullies and trolls. I know on blogs, YouTube, Vine, Twitter, I see many rude, unnecessary, and derogatory statements posted in the comments mainly just to stir up trouble. Most of these “trolls,” I’ve noticed, are usually strangers to the original poster, and they usually target people with large followings, like celebrities. The amount of negative comments on one of Miley Cyrus’s tweets, for example, would be astronomical compared to the ones on an FDU students. The comments box on Vine even says, “Say something nice,” to encourage users to avoid these kinds of problems and cyberbullying. 

On the same token, I think cyberbullying almost goes hand-in-hand with privacy. If your social media is private, then only those that you accept can comment on your posts, therefore severely limiting your chances of being attacked by trolls. Privacy is a huge issue for people on the internet, especially in the case of new new media, because there is a constant struggle between wanting to put yourself out there and not wanting to be judged by it or having it come back to bite you. For a long time I had all of my accounts set to public view because I would put my music and writing out there and I liked getting feedback from strangers. However, at the same time, I didn’t want future employers or family members seeing the other things I posted if they had something like profanity it it, for example. It’s hard to find a balance with new new media, but as we said in class last week, there’s a whole new generation coming up in the workplace that will probably be much more understanding about new new media problems. But for now, I’m going to continue to keep my media private in order to protect myself from the multiple dangers and “dark sides” of new new media.