By Vartika Nanda
Count all the users of facebook and you will find a country with the third largest population in the world. 93% of the modern literate world is now hooked to the facebook. And how can one forget India. It is now world’s fourth biggest country with such huge number of facebook users.
When Prof Sreenivasan from Columbia University recently shared his views on facebook with the younger audience, there was lots of joy and energy in the auditorium. Venue was the American Center at New Delhi. This thought provoking discussion revolved around the use and scope of social media networking and thus intentionally aimed at a young audience across Delhi. From twitter to linkedin to facebook, it was quite evident that facebook is literally ruling the young mindset.
According to a release given by the American Center, Professor Sree Sreenivasan is a journalism educator at Columbia University and a technology guru who works to help journalists and consumers use technology in smarter ways. A commentator on tech and media issues, Sree is considered to be one of Poynter’s 35 most influential people in social media; one of AdAge’s 25 media people to follow on Twitter; one of the top 25 journalists to follow on Twitter; and one of 22 professors named to the "Top 100 Twitterers in Academia" by OnlineSchools.org.
Thus the data and experiences shared by him were mind boggling.
India is a country with more that 50% people below the age of 30. This makes it a unique breeding ground for a new media option like facebook. It appeared at many occasions that the discussion turned to be a PR exercise for the promotion of facebook but it got a balanced look when the audience started posing questions on the ethics and legal issues pertaining to facebook and the success of the new tool called the google +. It was evident that it will take a while to equip ourselves with the tools to handle cyber crime.
There was hardly any mention of the traditional modes of communication which had a long history in a country like India. Nevertheless it was successful in highlighting the fact that facebook rocks!
In the past six years, facebook has succeeded in creating an efficient cyber space and discussions like these are sure to add new dimensions to the ongoing technology driven thought process. Looking at its speed, velocity and popularity, one is sure facebook will touch the mark of one billion users soon and thus, ignoring this smarter mode is just impossible.
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