Blog Post 3

Circulation is a term with growing importance in our world today. It is very prevalent when speaking about social media and things circulating the Internet in general. Being college students, we are very familiar with Facebook and Twitter and the ability to share things and retweet them. This is one way in which posts circulate easily throughout different platforms. When thinking about circulation, we have to really take into consideration our audience and our credibility. What we post and share directly links to us and represents who we are as a person. The things we post describe our beliefs and how we feel about a certain topic, so we really need to be careful. In Smith’s article, we discover that we may be saying goodbye to the online comments section on certain websites. This will definitely have an effect on circulation. In his article he also explains that the purpose of these comment boxes has not been fulfilled, but instead they have been used for people to express hatred and were highly negative. Many people do not realize that what they write in these comment boxes will be attached to them forever. I understand that these are outlets for people to speak their mind, but there has to be some sort of filter when it comes to this. With the idea of circulation in mind, we can understand why people’s comments and posts get around so quickly. It is so easily accessible to copy someone’s post, or share it, or screen shot it and post it. Although circulation can we be almost invasive and sometimes negative, it is definitely a great tool that we have and can definitely be used for positives. With the idea of hashtags and even sharing posts, we can get across positive messages to large groups of people. For example, on Facebook there are sometimes posts about children with cancer or some type of illness holding a sign saying something along the lines of, “If I get to 500,000 likes my doctor will let me go to Disney.” Although sometimes these can be scams, that is not always the case. This is for a good cause, and can help a child fulfill a dream, just by sharing or liking the photo. Circulation is definitely a very powerful tool.