2007

From Introduction to Electronic Literature
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It is crazy to think about how far social media has come. From MySpace to Facebook to Twitter to Instagram social media has changed the way we live our lives and connect with each other. I like to view social media as a form of electronic literature. Whether it is words, letters, symbols, photos or emojis, we compose these works online in order to captivate a certain image or "status" about our life. Many famous sites such as Instagram have found their way into the marketing industry due to their ability to connect with up to millions of users at once. Instagram has in a sense redefined the importance of aesthetic value in our daily lives and advertisers has used this to their advantage creating new pages daily. Through this popular site photography now has a bigger platform than ever before. Whether it is the stormy skies of Chicago, aerial images of New York City, or daily cuisines, the variety of accounts are endless. In a sense it seems as though Instagram and social media has become the new form of documentation for civilization. From paintings on a cave to a digitalized library open to any human with access to technology.