Are digital photographs too plentiful to be meaningful?

Today everyone has a camera in their pocket that they carry around with them everyday. These cameras built into our cell phones are more powerful and can take better pictures than many professional cameras from years ago.

Since everyone has these capabilities built into their devices "everyone is a photographer". You could have someone use their iPhone and take a picture that looks identical to something a professional photographer can take on their multiple thousand dollar camera.

This is making digital photography less meaningful because everyone can do it. A true photographer cares about the art and knows the proper way of setting the scene and manipulating lighting. They can also then edit them in photography programs instead of just on instagram and what not.

I do enjoy seeing the things that my friends and family post on social media that they obviously take with their cell phones. I think the accessibility of cameras is a double edged sword. It allows people to share things they could never have shared in the past.

Does Facebook ever make you feel bad?

Don't you love when your  friends and family post updates on their lives on Facebook? I know I do. However, I sometimes get the feeling that people are just posting things on the internet to make others aware that they are "having fun" or "doing well".

Have you ever scrolled through Facebook and viewed a post by someone that you follow that just makes you feel bad? That you just wish you could be them, or do what they are doing? I think this is one of the new problems with social media today. Now instead of simply posting status' and pictures to update your friends and family on what you're up to, people are posting edited pictures and made up stories to make their life seem more eventful.

I myself am even guilty of this at times. From first hand experience I know what it is like when you post a picture that is super happy and uplifting, but in reality I was super stressed out with school or work or my normal day to day life. However, I post a happy picture of myself or my dogs so that people think I have my stuff together.

There is nothing wrong with wanting people to know that you're happy or having a good time, however I think it is a dangerous thing to play with because if you keep letting people think you are doing so well those friends and family that are normally your support system will not be able to tell if or when anything is wrong.

Does technology make us more alone?

As technology has advanced more and more over the last few years, we are able to do so much more online that we used to have to leave our houses to do.This includes watching movies, playing games, talking with friends. 

I have noticed that both my friends and myself stay in more often and don't leave the house but instead go on our computers or our phones. We might be "hanging out" online, but we never actually see each other in person.

This is something I really want to fix this summer. Even if I am texting my friends 24/7 it is far less satisfying than actually hanging out with them for a even just a few hours. I plan on challenging both myself and my friends this summer to lay off of technology a little bit more this summer and actually spend more time together by going out and doing things! 

How has the internet changed the way people watch TV?

Over the past ten years the way someone watches television has changed drastically. Originally you would have to catch whatever game, show, or movie that was on TV you would have to be there exactly when it was scheduled to air. If you missed it's air time you would have to wait hours or even days for that show or movie to be re-ran.

Eventually different recording methods were developed to record live tv. I remember when we were little and if we wanted to watch a show like American Idol or something else that would only show when it is live you would have to set the VCR to record at whatever time that show was going to be on. If the show ended up ending after the scheduled time you often missed sections of it because the tape cut itself off. Along with that issue if you chose to record something with a VHS you would not be able to watch another show at the same time. So even if you had two shows that aired at the same time you would still have to pick only one.

The next version of tv recordings were DVR that would be built into a lot of cable providers boxes. Many of these DVR's still worked like a VCR where you could not watch another show if you were already recording one. The main difference however was that you would not have to load a cassett into the tape recorder. Soon DVR's became more advanced to the point that you could record a show and watch one at the same time, or now to the point where you can even record more than one show at a time.

Today you don't even have to bother recording a show or game if you are not going to be home when it is going to air live. You can now watch those shows on demand on your tv at home or even on your mobile computer, tablet, or phone.

This has changed the way that many shows advertise themselves. Now these shows and companies don't focus all of their advertising and money on tv commercials but instead on ads on the computer and on phones. This is because viewers watch shows on the go much more often.

This has led many networks to start offering their shows through their own applications on different mobile platforms and on their own website. Networks that don't do this are appearing to lose a lot of their viewers because so many people are not watching shows on the actual tv anymore.

I for one very rarely watch show if it is live on tv. The only thing I still will watch live is a sporting event, especially hockey. Anything else however I watch on comcast.net or on my Apple TV in my own time.