Popular Culture Media

The Popular Culture media in our society is a good and bad thing. It can be a good thing because anything and everything that we have ever thought about or wondered can be accessed in 2.3 seconds on GOOGLE, Yahoo!, or any other search engine that we have. We also have so many people that are involved with Networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. We can find people that we haven't talked to since elementary school or keep in touch with relatives that are 2,000 miles away and send pictures back and forth that would have never been seen if it weren't for Facebook.  My 70 year old grandparents have Facebooks and comment on my things that I have and understand the basic knowledge of how it works.  I also have an aunt that lives in Korea that used to live with me and we can keep up with each others lives and can see each other live on Skype.  Also it has become more and more common to use internet dating sites.  According to Match.com 1 in 5 relationships are started by an internet dating site.  It's amazing what our world has become.

But on the other hand it's not all clouds and rainbows.  Facebook and Twitter have evolved into cyber-bullying central.  There was a story that I read in a magazine about a kid who was a freshman in high school who committed suicide because his roommate left his web cam on and recorded this kid kissing another guy.  The roommate displayed the video on facebook and Twitter-ed that his roommate was in fact gay.  Since when has being a homosexual become a taboo again?  Who cares?  I really think that this roommate of his is just so bored with his own life that he tries to get into this kids life and try to ruin it.  He is not the only victim of cyber-bullying.  It's sad that something that was supposed to be a good thing has turned evil.  There is also the problem with older men pretending to be younger and talking to younger girls and getting caught for it on Dateline's To Catch A Predator.   When I was younger and used AIM, my parents would be crazy about pounding into my head to not talk to anyone that I didn't know personally.  There is also a HUGE problem with kids being addicted to video games at such a young age.  My brother is 11 and since he was like 9 he has had a Nintendo Gameboy thing and the PSP.  He would go through days where that was all he would do WHEN HE WAS ONLY 9!  When I was 9 years old I was a dirtball who was always outside catching bugs and making tree houses.  And the worst part is that my parents have a pool and a trampoline in their backyard that would never be used.  Then my parents decided that enough was enough so they stopped buying him all of the games that he wanted and took his hand held games away and he has yet to have them. Now he will go outside and play from the morning until it's dark.  I think that a lot more parents need to do the same thing.  I also dated this guy in high school that would spend hours and hours playing this real life game called WOW.  Obviously I am not with him anymore, but when I was he would ditch me and not want to hang out because of this stupid game.  And he would spend like $30 a month on his membership for it. He was literally addicted.  This isn't an abnormal situation and it's really sad.