Social Media and Digital Humanities

After spending most of reading week considering further direction on my final project I have yet to report anything new or exciting so this week’s blog post will pertain to our last class. Social media is something which has completely taken over our society and changed the way people act and behave using the internet. Websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr have allowed people from across the globe to connect to one another with the click of a button. While these sites are great for friends and family who want to connect with each other I feel that the academic community has somewhat ignored the phenomenon. One of the greatest uses that I believe academics could take from such sites as Twitter and Facebook is data collection. On Facebook surveys and questionnaires can be taken by participants and then shared with their friends who will in turn follow the same procedure. By using this method data collectors would be able to obtain large amounts of data in a fraction of the time that has been taken in the past. Twitter would also be useful for researchers by taking advantage of the hashtag function by collecting thoughts and ideas of thousands of users by following a certain hashtagged topic.

Sticking with the topic of Twitter, I decided after our last class to follow the twitter feed @RealTimeWWII for the last two weeks. I was unaware that such feeds were prevalent on Twitter and was even more surprised to go through the list of similar accounts. Twitter is a vast machine that pumps short pieces of information to user’s laptops and smart phones throughout the day. I know myself I sometimes find the amount of information overwhelming at points as it is impossible to keep up with. With the @RealTimeWWII feed however I found myself slowing down, and actually taking a second to acknowledge the tweet that I had just read. In between the sports news, general interest stories, and world news, this feed provides real time updates as if it were still 1941 which had far more of an impact on my twitter experience than I originally thought it would. I’m looking forward to finding more historical feeds to follow which will have a similar impact and I feel that anyone with an avid interest in history could benefit from following accounts like this as well.