With Twitter facilitating Amazon and CNN to change their wicked ways through #AmazonFail and #CNNFail, the speed of social media has enabled itself to become a beacon and ultimate soundboard for news and information.
According to Mashable, at it’s peak, hashtag #IranElection was tweeting 221,744 tweets per hour on Twitter. And it’s thanks to social media outlets, the likes of people like Faramarz Hashemi and @Change_For_Iran get the ‘word out.’
Back in 2007, YouTube was where the story broke about Police officers at the University of Florida tasering a student.
Thanks to technology and a mobile phone, the story went viral on the internet before any major news networks around the United States picked it up.
Soon after, the Facebook became an international hub for coverage of the 2008 United States Presidential election with pages popping up belonging to news anchors and candidates alike spreading ‘the(ir) word.’
Society’s need for information and new technologies isn’t slowing down, on the contrary, it’s becoming near obsessive.
The Millennial Generation seems to have and have ignited a spark of curiosity and thirst for knowledge not so easily quenched by a simple book or watching the news in real-time. But then again, that is expected with each new generation pushing limits into the the next one.
No, the only base to extinguish the flame seems to be immediate availability and accessibility to information.
This is the need for the ‘right now’ and the end of a ‘little patience.’
Companies, employers and associates alike who are readily, often easily, rejecting the many ‘isms’ of the Millennial Generation will have another thing coming.
Long gone are the days, where “breaking news” on the television was enough and listening to the radio for traffic reports satisfied.
In today’s world, there are GPS systems that can ‘sense’ traffic and people can access more up-to-the minute news on their iPhones and Blackberries versus traditional media.
In the work place, while many employers blatantly reject the Millennial children’s desire for multiple jobs over a period of time, what they are failing to understand is: not that the kids of the Millennial Generation want to be job hoppers, but rather, they need a challenge. They need to feel as if they are making their marks on the world and that they are constantly striving to get more.
Does this mean Gen-Y is a generation of excess?
‘More,’ being the key word; it is the need to discover and seek, to search and to find; it is the need to find their niche in society. If a Millennial cannot find it with one job, they move on to the next. They are nomadic, techies with a need for terabyte speed.
It’s nothing personal, it’s simply business.
That’s the hook of social media: it is a rapidly growing outlet to discover uncharted and profound thoughts.
Del.icio.us enough for you?
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Sasha Muradali runs the ‘Little Pink Book’ . She holds a B.S. in Public Relations from the University of Florida (’07) and an M.A. in International Administration from the University of Miami(’08). She loves Twitter and all things social media, so you should find her @SashaHalima.
Copyright © 2009 Sasha H. Muradali. All Rights Reserved.
