How Online Networks Contribute to Our "Me-Centered" Culture

The web generation that wants it now, also wants it when they want it. Today’s on-demand culture continues to spread across a variety of media and entertainment outlets, making strides in the areas of television, cable, radio, and even cell phone advertising. Cell phone subscribers can select and choose from menus of channels; YouTube fans can introduce themselves to specific groups, subscription channels, and lists for content; and the rise in user-generated content powered by Web 2.0 platforms continues to allow people to get closer to their information requests than ever before, with limited searching and more targeted results.

Gone are the days when searching online was a lengthy process with the use of effective search engines and specialized keywords. Today’s search engines are becoming smarter, faster, and more efficient. As each search engine provider ramps up its innovations and structures, web users are becoming increasingly, shall we say, ‘attention-responsive’? A touch of a button, a click of a mouse, running multiple searches at once; it’s almost a frenzy of information exchange that can take place in new, fast, and innovative ways.

The ‘I want it now’ phenomena can be found on television and digital cable, and may be best described as the epitome of user-requested media. TiVo was one step towards interactive user engagement, allowing users to be completely in control of the programs, movies, and commercials (or lack therof) they watched. The remote control is a far cry from what it was originally intended for; today, a few buttons and menu options allow you to shop, browse, and search in a ‘live’ format. This personal connection to a media device has spun the market towards the iPod and Zune nation, cultivating the need for mobile programming and additional connectedness to media and electronics.