SOCIAL MEDIA

DEFINITION:

Social media is typically defined today as: – “Web sites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking” – OxfordDictionaries.

Now that we have cleared that up, let’s take a look at the very beginning of social media.

Six Degrees, according to several sources, was the first modern-day attempt of providing access to communication relative to the “marvelous world” of social media. (I have chosen to put marvelous world in quotes because I’m not too sure it’s that marvelous. There is an obvious downside.)  Six Degrees was launched in 1997 and definitely was the first modern social network. It allowed users to create a profile and to become friends with other users. While the site is no longer functional, at one time it was actually quite popular and had approximately a million members at its peak.

Other sources indicate that social media has been around for the better part of forty (40) years with Usenet appearing in 1979.  Usenet is the first recorded network that enabled users to post news to newsgroups.  Although these Usenets and similar bulletin boards heralded the launch of the first, albeit very rudimentary, social networks, social media never really took off until almost thirty (30) years later, following the roll out of Facebook in 2006. Usenet was not identified as “social media” so the exact term was not used at that time.

If we take a very quick look at Internet and Social Media usage, we find the following:

As you can see from above, social media is incredibly popular and in use hourly if not minute-by-minute.  It’s big in our society today across the world and where allowed.

If we look at the fifteen most popular sites we see the following:

With out a doubt, the gorilla in the room is Facebook.

Facebook statistics

• Facebook adds 500,000 new users a day – that’s six new profiles a second – and just under a quarter (775) of adults in the US visit their account at least once a month
• The average (mean) number of Facebook friends is 155
• There are 60 million active small business pages (up from 40 million in 2015), 5 million of which pay for advertising
• There are thought to be 270 million fake Facebook profiles (there were only81 million in 2015)
• Facebook accounts for 1% of social logins made by consumers to sign into the apps and websites of publishers and brands.

It’s important we look at all social media sites so If we look at daily usage for the most popular web sites, we see the following:

BENEFITS:

• Ability to connect to other people all over the world. One of the most obvious pros of using social networks is the ability to instantly reach people from anywhere. Use Facebook to stay in touch with your old high school friends who’ve relocated all over the country, get on Google Hangouts with relatives who live halfway around the world, or meet brand new people on Twitter from cities or regions you’ve never even heard of before.
• Easy and instant communication. Now that we’re connected wherever we go, we don’t have to rely on our landlines, answering machines or snail mail to contact somebody. We can simply open up our laptops or pick up our smartphones and immediately start communicating with anyone on platforms like Twitter or one of the many social messaging apps
• Real-time news and information discovery. Gone are the days of waiting around for the six o’clock news to come on TV or for the delivery boy to bring the newspaper in the morning. If you want to know what’s going on in the world, all you need to do is jump on social media. An added bonus is that you can customize your news and information discovery experiences by choosing to follow exactly what you want.
• Great opportunities for business owners. Business owners and other types of professional organizations can connect with current customers, sell their products and expand their reach using social media. There are actually lots of entrepreneurs and businesses out there that thrive almost entirely on social networks and wouldn’t even be able to operate without it.
• General fun and enjoyment. You have to admit that social networking is just plain fun sometimes. A lot of people turn to it when they catch a break at work or just want to relax at home. Since people are naturally social creatures, it’s often quite satisfying to see comments and likes show up on our own posts, and it’s convenient to be able to see exactly what our friends are up to without having to ask them directly.

DISADVANTAGES:

• Information overwhelm. With so many people now on social media tweeting links and posting selfies and sharing YouTube videos, it sure can get pretty noisy. Becoming overwhelmed by too many Facebook friends to keep up with or too many Instagram photos to browse through isn’t all that uncommon. Over time, we tend to rack up a lot of friends and followers, and that can lead to lots of bloated news feeds with too much content we’re not all that interested in.
• Privacy issues. With so much sharing going on, issues over privacy will always be a big concern. Whether it’s a question of social sites owning your content after it’s posted, becoming a target after sharing your geographical location online, or even getting in trouble at work after tweeting something inappropriate – sharing too much with the public can open up all sorts of problems that sometimes can’t ever be undone.
• Social peer pressure and cyber bullying. For people struggling to fit in with their peers – especially teens and young adults – the pressure to do certain things or act a certain way can be even worse on social media than it is at school or any other offline setting. In some extreme cases, the overwhelming pressure to fit in with everyone posting on social media or becoming the target of a cyber-bullying attack can lead to serious stress, anxiety and even depression.
• Online interaction substitution for offline interaction. Since people are now connected all the time and you can pull up a friend’s social profile with a click of your mouse or a tap of your smartphone, it’s a lot easier to use online interaction as a substitute for face-to-face interaction. Some people argue that social media actually promotes antisocial human behavior.
• Distraction and procrastination. How often do you see someone look at their phone? People get distracted by all the social apps and news and messages they receive, leading to all sorts of problems like distracted driving or the lack of gaining someone’s full attention during a conversation. Browsing social media can also feed procrastination habits and become something people turn to in order to avoid certain tasks or responsibilities.
• Sedentary lifestyle habits and sleep disruption. Lastly, since social networking is all done on some sort of computer or mobile device, it can sometimes promote too much sitting down in one spot for too long. Likewise, staring into the artificial light from a computer or phone screen at night can negatively affect your ability to get a proper night’s sleep. (Here’s how you can reduce that blue light, by the way.)

Social media is NOT going away any time soon.  Those who choose to use it will continue using it although there are definite privacy issues. The top five (5) issues discussed by users are as follows:

• Account hacking and impersonation.
• Stalking and harassment
• Being compelled to turn over passwords
• The very fine line between effective marketing and privacy intrusion
• The privacy downside with location-based services

I think these issues are very important and certainly must be considered with using ANY social media platform.  Remember—someone is ALWAYS watching.

 

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DISCRIMINATION

When I think of discrimination I automatically think of whites discriminating against blacks. I’m sure that’s because I’m from the southeastern part of the United States although there is ample evidence that discrimination occurs in all states of the United States.   There are other manners in which discrimination can occur.

From the New York Times we read the following:

“A group that is suing Harvard University is demanding that it publicly release admissions data on hundreds of thousands of applicants, saying the records show a pattern of discrimination against Asian-Americans going back decades.

The group was able to view the documents through its lawsuit, which was filed in 2014 and challenges Harvard’s admissions policies. The plaintiffs said in a letter to the court last week that the documents were so compelling that there was no need for a trial, and that they would ask the judge to rule summarily in their favor based on the documents alone.

The plaintiffs also say that the public — which provides more than half a billion dollars a year in federal funding to Harvard — has a right to see the evidence that the judge will consider in her decision.

Harvard counters that the documents are tantamount to trade secrets, and that even in the unlikely event that the judge agrees to decide the case without a trial, she is likely to use only a fraction of the evidence in her decision. Only that portion, the university says, should be released.”

There is no doubt that Harvard University makes considerable efforts to be “all-inclusive”.  They discriminate against whites and Asian-Americans in favor of African-Americans, Hispanics and the LGBT community.  That is a fact and a form of discrimination.

The EEOC tells us the following are methods of discrimination:

• Age
• Disability
• Equal Pay/Compensation
• Genetic Information
• Harassment
• National Origin
• Pregnancy
• Race/Color
• Religion
• Retaliation
• Sex
• Sexual Harassment

I recently read a horrible story about a young man in the country of India.  This guy had completed a course of study at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi with a Masters Degree in computer science.  He came to know a fellow classmate.  They fell in love.  He asked her father for her hand in marriage.  He said absolutely not.  “My daughter will not marry an untouchable, a Dalit.”  Now, Article 17 of the Indian Constitution abolishes untouchability and makes it punishable by law, and the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act of 1989 spells out the safeguards against caste discrimination and violence. His daughter honored her father and they did not get married.  The young man moved to the United States and now is a citizen working for an aerospace company in New England. He is happily married with three children—all citizens.

The term caste was first used by Portuguese travelers who came to India in the 16th century. Caste comes from the Spanish and Portuguese word “casta” which means “race”, “breed”, or “lineage”. Many Indians use the term “jati”. There are 3,000 castes and 25,000 sub-castes in India, each related to a specific occupation. A caste system is a class structure determined by birth. Loosely, it means that in some societies, if your parents are poor, you’re going to be poor, also. Same goes for being rich, if you’re parents were rich, you would be rich.   According to one long-held theory about the origins of South Asia’s caste system, Aryans from central Asia invaded South Asia and introduced the caste system as a means of controlling the local populations. The Aryans defined key roles in society, then assigned groups of people to them.

If a Hindu were asked to explain the nature of the caste system, he or she might tell the story of Brahma — the four-headed, four-handed deity worshipped as the creator of the universe. According to an ancient text known as the Rigveda, the division of Indian society was based on Brahma’s divine manifestation of four groups. Priests and teachers were cast from his mouth, rulers and warriors from his arms, merchants and traders from his thighs, and workers and peasants from his feet.  Others might present a biological explanation of India’s stratification system, based on the notion that all living things inherit a particular set of qualities. Some inherit wisdom and intelligence, some get pride and passion, and others are stuck with less fortunate traits. Proponents of this theory attribute all aspects of one’s lifestyle — social status, occupation, and even diet — to these inherent qualities and thus use them to explain the foundation of the caste system.

The caste structure may be seen by the digital below.

India’s caste system has four main classes (also called varnas) based originally on personality, profession, and birth. In descending order, the classes are as follows:

• Brahmana (now more commonly spelled Brahmin): Consist of those engaged in scriptural education and teaching, essential for the continuation of knowledge.

• Kshatriya: Take on all forms of public service, including administration, maintenance of law and order, and defense.

• Vaishya: Engage in commercial activity as businessmen.

• Shudra: Work as semi-skilled and unskilled laborers.

You will notice the “untouchables” and not even considered as a class of Indian society. Traditionally, the groups characterized as untouchable were those whose occupations and habits of life involved ritually polluting activities, of which the most important were (1) taking life for a living, a category that included, for example, fishermen, (2) killing or disposing of dead cattle or working with their hides for a living, (3) pursuing activities that brought the participant into contact with emissions of the human body, such as feces, urine, sweat, and spittle, a category that included such occupational groups as sweepers and washermen, and (4) eating the flesh of cattle or of domestic pigs and chickens, a category into which most of the indigenous tribes of India fell.

As mentioned earlier, Article 17 of the Indian Constitution was introduced to eliminate the caste system.  Do you really think that happened?  Of course not.  Indians of the Dalit classification, and there are thousands, still face rejection and discrimination on a daily basis.  Maybe we here in “los estados unidos” have it better than we think.

WHEN I GET HOME I’M GOING TO CLYDE’S

I have been mentioning that Chattanooga has a great number of privately-owned restaurants.  These range from tapas bars, wine bars to truly gourmet offerings.  One of the most unique is CLYDE’S.  Clyde’s reminds me of the bar in Cheers except the seating capacity is considerably greater.  The name comes from an establishment called Clyde’s Auto-glass.  This company existed in Chattanooga for decades after which the owner retired and sold the building.   Located on Main Street, it is THE watering hole for hundreds of individuals on a daily basis.  Not only do you get atmosphere, you get wonderful food.

The facility opened in the fall of 2014.  Hi-Fi Clyde’s is a bar-focused concept with a menu that features a variety of sandwiches and entrees including a handcrafted barbecue. Hi-Fi Clyde’s features activities such as ping pong, shuffleboard, and occasionally features live music.

Peter Melloy is an operating partner and is quite possibly the biggest football fan among the Monen Family Restaurant Group staff. His favorite word is “VOLS!” and he hopes to one day visit every NFL Stadium. Born in Dubuque, Iowa, Peter claims making the decision to move to Chattanooga was the most impactful decision he has ever made. Since moving to Chattanooga, he has become the operating partner of Hi-Fi Clyde’s Chattanooga, and can still maintain his ability to shotgun a beer.

Beverley Urso is the General Manager and always has a smile on her face. She is known for hating all types of beans, reading the user manual to everything she owns, and being able to sew just about anything. Every Halloween she makes her nephew’s costume and loves every minute of it. Bev has always had a love for animals, stemming from her dreams as a little girl to become a marine biologist or a dolphin trainer. This explains her ‘collection’ of dogs – Chloe, Ruby, Ava, Skin, and Judge. Even her first date with her fiancé was at the zoo!

When you walk through the door, you immediately see the bar.  You cannot miss the bar.  It’s huge with an accompanying marquee—also huge.

As you can see from the JPEG below, seating is really no problem.  There is also an outdoor seating area. (Not shown.)  I suspect the entire facility could accommodate close to three hundred (300) people.

Additional seating is to the left of the bar.

If you read my posts you know I generally give reviews issued by other individuals.  That gives a balance.  Here we go:.

As you might expect—I can definitely recommend Clyde’s.  Great food-Great atmosphere.  Bring your ear plugs.

HONEST PINT

Chattanooga is very fortunate to have a great number of locally-owned truly wonderful restaurants.  One of the most unique is the HONEST PINT.   It is located at 35 Patten Pkwy in downtown Chattanooga.  You walk through the front door and you are in the heart of Dublin.

 

My family and I spent a week and one-half in Ireland several years ago and visited many pubs in Dublin and several other cities in the country.  The Honest Pint is definitely in line with the atmosphere we became accustomed to with most pubs in Ireland. Starting with the front door as given below, the interior design is absolutely striking.

Attention to detail is amazing and the woodwork was obviously produced and provided by craftsmen.

The first thing you see as you enter is the bar, shown below.

Then you notice the dining areas,

The picture above does not do the dining area justice.  You really need a wide-angle lens to capture the mahogany, oak and maple architectural designs of the woodwork and the overall layout.  The next two digital pictures will give you some idea as to the interior.

 

Well, you go there for the food and not so much the environment—we all know that.  On this one occasion, my wife had the pimento cheese sandwich and I had the shepherd’s pie. Both are shown below and again; the pictures do not really do justice to the appearance itself.  The food-delicious.  Over several visits I have had, bangers and mash, fish and chips, the Ruben, chicken tenders and their hamburger.  All were excellent.

Everyone has an opinion. You just heard mine so I thought I would give you several others, as follows:

 

For my wife and I this has always been a very good choice resulting is an excellent experience.  I would invite you to look at other reviews and form your own opinion.