“What constitutes social media?” This was my shower question of the day…

I’ve reflected much lately on my own relation to media. It’s cliché to say that it’s “all around us”. The media writ large usually refers to news outlets and journalism.

However, with the advent of ubiquitous social media–enter YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and WordPress–the way we define media has changed. Media now is social not only in a “family all in the room watching TV” sense: it’s grown to include a global community.

But this global community grew from the inventions of radio, TV, and computers in originally local contexts. Naturally, the hardware was built within these, going on to eventually be manufactured and distributed citywide (followed by state-, nation-, and finally world-wide).

So, media is ubiquitous. Social media is especially so given its dissemination across Web channels–from server-to-client-to-server, in a never-ending loop of communication and collaboration.

Technology is the means through which we communicate and interact. It augments our connections, allowing for one person to reach another instantaneously–all from the comfort (hopefully) of wherever we are.

But only about half of the world has access to the internet. This to me seems ideal, lest we risk imposing our lifestyle onto others who may not wish for it.

Let us enjoy what we’ve created. It is truly a marvelous infrastructure!