A recent headline on social media is “Euro falls below dollar for the first time since 2002”. The headline was a link to a BBC news website page where the headline was expounded further, and what economists had to say about the Euro falling below the dollar was highlighted. This is an informative post, and through reading it, I gained knowledge on the economic state of the European countries and how the Russia- Ukraine war is affecting the economy in those countries. I believe everyone who read the post gained knowledge on how the Euro falling below the dollar affects imports and exports to and from European countries that trade using the Euro as their main currency. By reading this post we also understand what causes the rise or the fall of a currency and what role banks play in the rise and fall of a currency (King, 2022). The information reached the audience in real-time, meaning any investor could make decisions based on that information immediately. This information reached a large audience since most people have access to social media platforms hence most people got the information.
If this post was in the newspaper, the information would not be real-time since newspapers report the previous day or previous week’s news hence an investor depending on that information to make a decision would have already incurred great losses before getting the information. In this era of smartphones and easy internet access, most people do not buy newspapers but depend on the internet to get information as soon as events happen. Therefore, printing this information in a newspaper will reach very few people since most people do not read newspapers.
In 2004 Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook (“A Brief History of Social Media & timeline – 1973 to 2021”, 2021). During that period smartphones and internet access that could be used to access Facebook were only for the rich and the middle-class population. In 2017 TikTok was launched and caught on fast, and now people are using it to share videos for entertainment. It caught on fast since most people have access to the internet and video streaming is the norm among young people (“A Brief History of Social Media & timeline – 1973 to 2021”, 2021). During that time news on a catastrophic tragedy like a hurricane hitting major cities would be passed majorly through radios and televisions, not social media. Nowadays such an event would be distributed over the social media sites before anyone hear it on the radio or the television.
References
A Brief History of Social Media & timeline – 1973 to 2021. Dewzilla. (2021). Web.
King, B. (2022). Euro falls below dollar for first time in 20 years.BBC News.