How is technology based social media changing our world?

From the "Arab Spring" to the recent riots across England, reports of how people are using social media technologies to orchestrate, cope with, help with the cleanup there of, or simply to report the ensuing chaos and the various reactions by the the governments and public at large have continued to increase. In your opinion, how are these technologies and the capabilities they allow affecting the world in which we live? Will this prove to be a good thing for humanity, the opposite, or do you have another take all together?