How Social Media has changed the world

                                                   How social media has changed the
                                                                     world

I am going to be writing my first blog on how social media has changed the world around us in the 21st century. I have chosen to write about this topic because social media is all around us and it is prominent in everyone's every day life. The main phonomenon that has set off the hype for social media was Facebook. Facebook has been available to people to access for ten years. Facebook started on the 4th February 2004. When it originally started Facebook was made purely as a website for people who were at university so that they could interact with fellow university students and also their lecturers. Mark Zuckerberg never intended for Facebook to become the worldwide phonemenon that it is today.

Facebook started to hit popularity around August 26th 2006, this is shown in the fact the percentage increase of monthly users of Facebook was 178.3%. This is a very large increase in users for a website that was only supposed to be used for university students. One of the main reasons why Facebook got so popular was because it was the thing to have at that moment in time, meaning that if one person you knew had Facebook then you had to get Facebook because you had to see what your friend was doing on Facebook. At the last check of users on Facebook the amount of users that use the social media site had hit over 1.2 billion users that is a huge number when you take into consideration there are 7 million people in the world which means around a seventh of them are using Facebook. The number of people still using Facebook is growing each and every day which i find very surprising taking into account the number of people i know that have de- activated their Facebook accounts. As a user of Facebook i can see why people are starting to diactivate their accounts because Facebook is becoming very repetitive with the same people saying the same things every day, sigh!


 The next big phenomenon that has hit social media but that has become big over the last couple of years and has become hugely popular over the last two years is Twitter. Twitter was first created on March 21st 2006. The popularity of Twitter didn't start to happen until around 2010. This happened around the time that the New twitter experience had been released which made Twitter much more easy to use. The main reason that Twitter has hit popularity is because people feel that if they are on twitter and they interact with their favourite celebrities then they will get a response. I find that a bit ridiculous because most celebrities that are around nowadays couldn't care any less about their fans if they tried they are just in their professions for the money so i find people who do that very annoying.

Currently around the world there are 645 million people around the world who currently use twitter this is a very high number for a social media site. Twitter is still lagging behind Facebook in being the most popular social media site but i can see this changing within the next five or so years because more people are rapidly leaving Facebook to open up a Twitter account as they feel it is better than Facebook. In my opinion i believe that Twitter is only slightly better than Facebook but obviously more people disagree with my views because a lot more people use Facebook then Twitter. One of the reasons i believe this figure may be higher is because if you have a Facebook and/or twitter then you will mainly see more older people on Facebook then you would on Twitter.

Other forms of social media that have been popular in the past but have now died out of popularity the main one of these being MySpace. MySpace was big in popularity from around 2004-2006, this is because this is when Facebook began to hit poularity so less and less people were using myspace as they felt it was 'old' - which is an annoying way in which people decsribe something that was popular about three weeks beforehand. Social media is a major force around the world nowadays and in teh future social media will only continue to increase and will gbecome more of a major force in the future.

So in conclusion social media has changed the world by before it existed people actually use to speak to people via speaking whereas nowadays everything is mostly done online and it also makes it easier for people to meet new people because there are so many people on these sites.

 

 

Alan Pardew Headbutt

                                            

                                            Seven match ban for Alan Pardew

                                          
                                               

It was the 1^st of March 2014 and Newcastle United were beating Hull city 3-1 away from home which is regarded as one of their best performances of the season. As the match entered the 71^st minute the ball went out of play and Hull City midfielder David Meyler want to retrieve the ball (and pushed Pardew out the way to get it) and then got involved in an altercation with Newcastle United manager Alan Pardew, this altercation led to Pardew head butting the Hull City midfielder which led to the Hull City midfielder and the Newcastle United manager coming to blows, Even though Meyler’s team mate Ahmed Elmohamady tried to stop the two coming to blows. After the incident referee Kevin Friend showed Meyler a yellow card for his reaction to the initial head butt and referee had no choice but to send Newcastle manager Pardew to the stands for the rest of the game. This incident didn’t distract the Newcastle United players though as they went on to score again and win the game 4-1.

After the match the media/football pundits were waiting anxiously to see what would happen to Pardew as many believed he would lose his job. These members of the media then gathered for Pardew’s post match comments on the incident, Pardew regretted the incident and had the following to say on the incident to Sky sports "It was just a heat of the moment thing. Obviously I massively regret it”. He then further commented by saying “ I think I am going to have to sit down from now on because that's about two or three incidents I have been involved in on the line”. He then also said "I didn't mean to do anything aggressive, but I did move my head forward and that's enough”. He ended his comments by saying "It was just because of the situation, if I was on the other side of the line, that wouldn't have happened, perhaps it will teach me to sit down”. 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EhLp-cnvsA - Footage of the incident

His opposite number Steve Bruce had this to say about the incident to Sky Sports "Also I have to say, we've seen people play-acting and all the rest of it. I don't think he really smashed (his head) in there but David Meyler, it's a good job it was him because we see people rolling around the floor. David's reacted - OK, he's angry of course - but I think Alan knows he's been stupid on the day and rightly apologised."

The football world was well and truly shocked by the actions of Alan Pardew as this is something that you don’t see football managers ever doing. Most of the comments from pundits offered Pardew in a very negative light. Newcastle legend and Match of the day pundit Alan Shearer had this to say on the incident "What on earth can Alan Pardew say to his players when they misbehave? I have never seen anything like that before, ever. Frankly I wouldn't be surprised, and I don't think anybody will be surprised at all, if Alan Pardew were to resign over this. Even if he doesn't want to resign, the club might be saying to him, "We might be doing you a favour - you resign rather than us sack you", because that will have to be in his thinking also. It will be very difficult for him to keep his job now."

Gary Lineker also commented on the incident by saying “Alan Pardew has just head-butted David Meyler. Yes head-butted. Inexcusable from a manager”. Joey Barton also had a comment on the incident by saying “Seen Pardew incident. As per usual. Massively over-hyped. Don't let a couple of stupid incidents detract from the job he has done at Newcastle. Especially with what goes on behind the scenes there”. Barton view is not a view which is shared by most other people who have seen or commented on the incident.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNCqGcS4VC8 - Match of the Day Reaction to incident

Newcastle later on in the day released a statement stating how they were going to punish Pardew for his actions. The main points of the statement are as follows "Newcastle United are disappointed with the actions of its manager Alan Pardew this afternoon. His behaviour was unacceptable and is not the behaviour we expect from the manager of Newcastle United. Alan has accepted a formal warning from the club in relation to his behaviour today and also a club fine of £100,000”.

Pardew was then charged by the FA with a misconduct and after accepting the charge was told he would find out his fate Tuesday 11^th March. Pardew then found out he had been handed a 7 game ban – four of which his is banned from entering the stadium for and three he isn’t allowed on the touchline. He was also fined £60,000 pounds for the offence. He has also been involved in two other controversial incidents including verbally abusing Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini and also had to apologise to Arsene Wenger for over celebrating a goal when he was West Ham manager.