Thursday, July 21, 2011

Electronic Fad

Pause for one second and think about the number of electronics you are currently using. I am currently using the computer and listening to my iPod, which is a surprisingly small number of electronics I am using. Most of the time we find ourselves using our phone, on the computer, and listening to music and/or watching TV all at the same time, and on these individual electronic devices we will be doing multiple things, I have three tabs open on my computer right now and under some tabs there are even more tabs open.

This dependence on electric devices sounds exhausting, but most of us are unable to even go a day without using some sort of electric device. I constantly have my phone within reach, in case of an "emergency", but truthfully I am 20, I do not have anyone who need to ask me questions after work hours, I do not have kids, I do not own a house, I do not have a spouse, the chances of me having an "emergency" are very slim. The real truth of why most of us cannot handle being separated from our electronics is the thrill of them. We can go from being bored to having a thousand things to entertain you with one device.

Now I do not want to get into the debate about how the new generations are doing poorly because they need electronics at all time, but I simply want to establish that people now need these devices and that is going to cause change. I am one of the Event and Marketing interns here at The Mustard Seed, and although I have done some print marketing most of the marketing I do now is online. It is amazing how specific marketing is sent to target audiences. My boyfriend and I recently broke up and immediately I had ads on Facebook for dating sites and before the break up Facebook was giving me ads for wedding related stuff. It was shocking how quickly Facebook realized I needed to be placed in a different demographic, it was even before I had told everyone about the break up. I wanted to tell Facebook that it had only been a few hours, I am not ready to starting dating again, and I seriously doubt I will meet that gorgeous guy you are advertising for your site. If some of you have not seen how quickly Facebook will market their ads towards you likes, change or add an interest on your page and immediately you will start getting ads relating to that interest.

So we know this addition to electronic is not going to go away ever unless some new exciting thing comes out that will replace having electronics around all the time, so what do we do? We might as well roll with the flow and use it to our advantage. Learn how to get the most use out of them, social media can be a great way to keep up with companies you like, to do research, and keep up with old bosses who can give you a great reference. Here at The Mustard Seed, we are trying to gear more of our information towards our audience, if you would like to help us do this, please take our survey at http://ow.ly/5Jm3c . If you have a business, you can use social media like we do to get your message out to the public more, and now people we have never met can see our message. Being addicted to electronic devices may have so down falls, but it is like a magic carpet, we can now see and learn about things that before we would not have access to unless we were there. People can now see live streams of an event as it is happening, allowing us to feel like we are a part of that moment, great distances no longer stop people.

And for those of you whose friends and family refuse to accept this new additions, well just pretend that they will be able to not become one of those people who are not addicted. My dad says when he retires, he wants to spend a month without his cell phone, and well this freaked me out. I asked him what if I need to get a hold of him; his response was "well you can get a hold of someone else who will be able to get a hold of me". I giggled inside when he told me this because I knew it would probably only last a few days. It is a great idea and probably would make him less stressed but everyone else will probably be so annoyed because they cannot get a hold of him or that they have to constantly relay messages back to him, that it will not be possible to last a whole month.

So my closing thoughts on the subject, if something is there that will help you advance in a healthy legal way, use it but try to not become addicted because you usually waste a lot of time using electronics when you should be doing something else. I wish all of use luck when the new fad comes out, and hopefully we can adapt to it and not refuse to use the new innovation because we do not understand it or how it is helpful.

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