Johnson 1

Samuel Johnson
Grant
UWRT 1103
10/08/14
Inquiry Project Proposal
Social media brought to life a new way of exchanging ideas between people. At one time
there was no way of communication between the two halves of the world, then there was a way
to traverse the ocean and the messenger was brought to life. This escalated to mail, still being
transported by that messenger, but then air travel was developed. These inventions all cut the
time for the exchange of ideas, and now in this day in age, we have social media. No big time
company is going to exchange their ideas via Twitter or Facebook, but we, the common people
will. This brings to life the overlying question, how will social media effect cultural differences?
Will society eventually become homogeneous as a result of social media?
Its obvious that people will adopt new ideas based on how effective they are at
accomplishing the desired task. But, will it go to an extreme case where, because of the easy
access of spreading ideas, society will lose its differences. How will different cultures be able
to keep their own identity, if they even will be able to at all? Are years of tradition able to keep
up, or even be better than the new innovations and life hacks presented on todays social
media? Or will the traditional ways of doing tasks become obsolete, and with them, cultural
identities?

Johnson 2
The paper will discuss the way that the spread of ideas have changed over time, while
also outlining the new and traditional ideas that are used to accomplish common goals. These
goals include how cultures, pop and folk cultures, go about getting food, and what they can eat.
For example, how fast food restaurants have changed the diet of various cultures, and how said
cultures have maintained their traditional diet. The paper will also discuss the possibility of the
cultures of the world becoming one homogeneous culture. This will be effectively discussed by
the use of outside resources such as books, and a TedTalk. These reliable sources either discuss
how social media has effected society as a whole, or how it could impact the society.
The conclusion of the paper is expected to result in the possibility of a cultural
homogeneous feeling, but with some things remaining the same, such as religion. The general
ways of getting things accomplish will probably result in transferring to the pop culture, the
popular idea, just because of the effectiveness of the idea/ strategy.