The reason I choose to participate or use social media ranges (as I am sure everyone else’s does). One of the main reason for my social media is it is our way of social networking. It sounds repetitive, but social media is the main way our generation chooses to socialize. Socializing only 20 years ago was still dominated by physical communication and dependent more on verbal skills. In today’s era, a person could really go all day without losing contact with any of their essential contacts. It is a luxury and curse because of the emphasis today’s communication puts on virtual communication skills. It is quite a luxury to be able to communicate with someone without having to see them. Its quite an affordance to be able to look up details (pictures, text conversations, search history, personal contacts/ information) about a person without having one conversation with them or someone who knows them. Its a curse in the way that newer generations are losing the fundamental skills of face to face communication which is still crucial to building lasting relationships. I think the luxury of social media agrees with the vision of the early Wellites. Their vision of creating a vehicle to transportation of information and knowledge seamlessly has been accomplished over and over again. With today’s technological innovations, creating/ sharing/ consuming information is as easy as it has ever been. Having the ability to send a word document from your cell phone across the world instantly is quite an upgrade when you think about the original mail/ phone system. The news system has drastically been altered by the growth of social media. Waiting to see the news on TV when you make it home or reading the newspaper every morning is ancient methods of finding out the latest move. I can’t remember the last time I made through any of social media feeds without seeing a real time news update of some sort. It really has changed the way news is presented and the way we expect to receive it. Being able the share so much knowledge through the many-to-many communication model so easily has changed the world we live in and the way we socialize.