Modern Family and the Implications of the "Like" Button - Media Meditation #2

(Courtesy of Google Images)

One of my current favorite shows is Modern Family on ABC. The second season just launched, and I think this show is a great contemporary take on the amount of diversity and non-traditional structure found in American families today. The show's witty and often awkward use of humor begs viewer's limbic brains to tune right in. 

While I typically am not the biggest fan of many prime-time TV series, I do think this show has a lot to offer.  It's an innovative, cleverly produced series that embraces both traditional American family values and the idea of a rapidly evolving norm of what we can consider your "average" American family.  

If more television were like this series, I think I would not be as wary as I am about how badly TV is otherwise polluting our minds.  

Here's a clip from the show:

Another interesting bit of news I recently stumbled upon was an article called What the 'Like' button means for web traffic

(Courtesy of Google Images)

The article discusses how the 'Like' button, which apparently has only been around since April of this year, is supplying Facebook even more endless amounts of statistics and user information.  

I've always been aware that Facebook is obviously a hugely influential tool for advertisers and social researchers, and it has always bothered me that people are constantly mining data to gather facts about every little detail of our life. But with all the new information the 'Like' button is providing, I think it's time to maybe reconsider how much time I really spend on the good old 'book. 

(Courtesy of Google Images)

It comes down to the issue of a cultural shift - from a time of privacy to an age of almost constant surveillance.  It's almost Orwellian, the amount of data out there that is always being collected and analyzed so that someone always knows what we're up to.  

Like we recently talked about in class, more and more people are having a hard time knowing when to unplug from their social media and technology sources.  

Which brings me to my final topic, that of Mashable.com's article titled When It's More Polite to Unplug, which brings up similar concerns.  This article basically offers a breakdown of situations when it's just absolutely unacceptable to communicate with someone via social media technology instead of face to face (or at least voice to voice).  On the list were birthdays, deaths, saying thank you for a gift, tragedies... etc. 

It's just sad we need people to write these articles for us.  We really don't know when to unplug! Digital devices are becoming an increasingly intrinsic part of our everyday lives, and who knows how far this trend will go.  In my opinion, the reality that MT Anderson presented in Feed is much more probable than some people might think.