The Invisability of Social Media Tools

If Shirky is right, and we’re headed to a period where social media tools like YouTube, Flickr, and social networks like Facebook become “invisible,” what’s the impact on things you spend money on as consumers? Books? Movies? Music?

“The invention of a tool doesn’t create change; it has to have been around long enough that most of society is using it. It’s when a technology becomes normal, then ubiquitous, and finally so pervasive as to be invisible, that the really profound changes happen, and for young people today, our new social tools have passed normal and are heading to ubiquitous , and invisible is coming.”

Social media tools have become extremely encompassing in today’s society. Soon they will be so pervasive that people will see them as a normal part of everyday life and won’t even see them as an interesting entity. These tools are getting more and more accepted because of the fact that people can create and share media with one another without any need for professionals. You don’t have to wait for others to approve your work before you publish it. On the other end of the spectrum are the things that consumers spend money on like books, movies, and music that are difficult and expensive to publish because they need to be filtered first. Eventually people might want to stop spending money on these things and the creators of them will not want to have to go through the publishing process but will just use online tools instead.