Visual Arts - Research Paper Example

Online dating sites include Match.com and E-Harmony while the most popular video sharing site is YouTube. Rather than focus on how to use these forms of social media, I will base my paper on how they are transforming how we watch television. I will also highlight on the impact they will have on network news, commercial television and cable TV in the coming, say ten years. The rise in the popularity of social media can be viewed as a revolution. Why would anyone come to this conclusion? Just to look at a few statistics about social media: According to a research by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 73% of teenagers, 72% of young adults, and 40% of all adults above 30 years use social networking sites.

As if that is not enough, if the number of Facebook users were the population of a country, it would be the third most populated country, just under China and India. Moreover, social media has overtaken pornography as the number one activity on the web. Before I jump into the exact questions I want to address, I find it is rather essential to show the relevance of social media on TV. First, we all agree that it is changing the way we watch TV. For instance, in the Spring of 2007, the number of people who tuned in TV dropped by 2.5 million. (Nielsen report)This was in comparison to the previous year, 2006.

In 2010, it was found that consumers in the U.S spent as much time on the internet as on TV. (Forrester). Since people are spending more time on the internet, people's interactions on the internet are also increasing. Companies have noted this and are shifting to the internet. No one can forget last summer’s Old Spice videos. In the videos, Isaiah Mustafa spent two days, dressed only in a towel and gives responses to fans in a setting that was made to appear as a bathroom. Within the first 24 hours after they were uploaded, they had a massive 83 million YouTube views.

This was way above the views of Obama’s victory speech. This can be attributed to the fact that there were instant responses to the users in real time. As such, they appeared to be conversational. This is one way in which social media is changing the way we view TV. Besides this, the following are the trends that we are likely to see in TV due to popularity of social media. First, all TV channels will be done away with. TV users will have a chance to watch what they want, and when they want.

There will be several customs made content on the internet which one can demand when they want. This will be enhanced by the availability of unlimited content, which will be available form online libraries. One will only be required to search for the content using powerful search engines to access the content. Traditional channels, which focus on their brands and limited sharing, will be entirely done away with. Already there are technological advances in TV devices connected to the internet such as Apple TV, Roku and Xbox.

These devices will be adopted by many people who will also demand that the entire TV experience is integrated as a simplified, single interface. The next trend in TV viewing will be to do away with the remote control. TV as we know it from the past required installation of interactive TV enhancements. In recent years, this has changed with companies such as Google launching the remote-keyboard interface. This has not achieved much success. Interface innovation companies are working on TV controls that do not require remote controls.

Comcast and Verizon,