Reflective Blog

Awwww. Finally.  The end of the semester.  Time to take finals, pack up our bags and spend five glorious weeks away from the campus of Westminster.  (Of course, that's what I'm saying now, ask me again in two weeks and I'll tell you I'm dying to go back to my cramped campus dorm room.)  I've spent the past week cramming for exams, filling out evaluation sheets on profs, and at the end of the day walking away from it all and thinking about what I've learned.  When I look at COM301, I realize I have been a dedicated blogger since September, done an unofficial Facebook study, followed an online community, and participated in in-class  and online classes.   Now, it's the end of my time with Electronic Communications, and what have I learned?

What sticks out most in my mind is how I've learned about my own online behaviors.  The very first assignment we received was to give up Facebook, texting, and to have only limited emailing for one week.  Addiction is funny, people always convince themselves that they can stop doing something whenever they want to.  As my classmates moaned and groaned to Dr. Corso, I had confidence that I would do just fine.  Boy, was I wrong.  I spent the week longingly playing with my phone and creeping over my roommate's back to try to catch a glance of the Facebook homepage.  I have only had a Facebook account for three years, but this assignment showed me how it had become a habitual action in my everyday life.  As the semester progressed, I made one discovery after the next about how dependent I had become on social networking, texting, and other forms of communicating online.  Although the realization has hit me that I rely too much on electronic forms of communication, it hasn't really changed my habits.  I figure the first step is "admitting you might have a problem," but I haven't made it past that point.  

As much as I don't want to further my addiction to communication online, COM301 has showed me that there are resources online that have the potential to benefit my future career.  Joining LinkedIn was one of the smartest moves I've made during this past semester.  Although I don't have many people in my network yet, I can slowly start putting together a profile and expanding my career options for the future in a way that I would never have been able to without this social network.  Not only will it broaden my chances at finding a career, it will also enhance the career I end up in.  Sites like Flickr, Youtube, Facebook and Twitter are all remarkably popular.  The importance of reaching customers and clients who spend time on these sites is high.  We even talked about a sight were I could potentially go and look at other people's power point presentations and post my own, which would allow me to find and share new ideas.  There are endless possibilities to keep in mind when it social networks benefitting my future career.

Going into this class I really didn't know what to expect.  It was one of my first communications classes and it has made me look forward to future semesters of studying various types of communication.  This class hasn't changed my life, or helped me make some brilliant discovery about communications that I had no clue about before.  It has however, made me aware.  I stuck to the norm of Facebook and Instant Messaging and COM301 helped me see social networking outside of the stereotype I had in my head.  I have become aware of my own usage of social networking, aware of how I can use social networking in a more efficient manner, and what some of the pros and cons of online communicating are.  I have become aware of of how I spend my time online and what changes I need to make.  I have become aware of all of these aspects, and now its my decision on whether or not to turn this awareness into action.

Second Life Marriage, Real Life Divorce

I never heard of Second Life until Electronic Communications class this year, but now it seems that every news web page I bring up has a headline about this popular virtual world.  Most recently I read an article on CNN.com titled "Second Life affair ends in divorce."  Naturally, I was intrigued.  This is a relationship that started online, turned into a face-to-face relationship, which resulted in a face-to-face wedding as well as a virtual one, and then events occurred online that caused it to end for good.  This woman caught her husband's avatar having an affair with a female avatar prostitute.  Is cheating in a virtual world equivalent to cheating in the real world?

Recently in class, we watched videos about the adult world in Second Life.  We heard about a female avatar prostitute, who kept her actual identity hidden because she was a PTA mother-of-two and a wife.  She keeps her two identities completely separate and hopes that she will never

 be discovered.  During an interview with her avatar the woman said her job on Second Life is a "stress reliever."  However, she never said whether or not her husband knew she is a Second Life prostitute, so only assumptions can be made.  Suppose he didn't know, there is a strong possibility that he could view her actions as being unfaithful.  If an avatar, who is in a relationship, pursues sexual relations with another avatar, isn't it still considered cheating?  The avatars are able to talk to each other and state exactly what they are thinking, dirty thoughts and all.  They are also able to purchases beds that allow them to have "sex."  If avid Second Life users want people to take this virtual world seriously, shouldn't the users accept that their actions have repercussions?  If a person can have wedding ceremonies in Second Life, then they can be unfaithful there as well.

Although everyone has his or her own opinions as to what cheating consists of, Second Life is a gray area.  There is no actual contact between the two people; the only intimacy is from words and the actions between the electronic characters.  However, since there is a person behind every avatar, I strongly believe that cheating in Second Life deserves the same consequences as to when someone cheats in real life.  The intent, the desire, and the disrespect to a spouse are similarities between the two that cannot be ignored.

Let's Get Political

When I think of election night, I picture Americans glued to the TV screen waiting for results to be announced.  I imagine news reporters biting at the bit to get a good story.  I think of large groups of supporters of a respective party meeting to cheer on their candidate.  What I don't think about is what is going on in a completely different environment.  During election night, I never stopped to think about what was going on on the internet, that is, until I read this article.

Not everyone was sitting in front of a television screen, simply waiting to hear the results of the 2008 presidential election.  Some people were expressing their emotions, their success and their disappointments online.  Whether through blogging, video, or other means of communication, people were expressing how they felt about Barack Obama being chosen to be the 44th president of the United States.  

In class, we have been questioning how future generations will be affected by the age of the internet.  In addition, we discuss how the internet is already affecting our lives.  If the amount of CMC (computer-mediated-communication) related to the 2008 election was compared to the amount of CMC related to the 2004 election, I wonder what kind of results would be found.  Although I can only guess at the results, I would be willing to bet some high dollars that during this election, there was a vast increase in people who expressed his or her feelings about the election online.  People are becoming more comfortable using the internet as an outlet for expression.  The fear of putting your feeling out there for the world to see, are minimizing, as more people are sharing their thoughts with not only their friends and family, but with the entire world.  Who knows how this will change in the future, but if more people start using the internet as a device to state their political beliefs, the election of 2012 should definitely be an interesting one.

Feds Get a Feel for Facebook

Facebook can determine citizenship.  Plain and simple, authorities can use sources like Facebook and MySpace to determine if a foreigner should be granted access to the United States.  Also, airports can check these sites for security measures when a passenger buys a one-way ticket.  According to this article from foxnews.com federal authorities are not required to use any other sources to make decisions about a person in question.

We have spent a vast amount of time in COM301 discussing and debating the pros and cons of social networking.  Is it beneficial or not? How does it compare to other types of communication?  What is people's obsession with it?  This article suggests one possible theory to the last question.  People are lazy.  Since there are no laws telling federal authorities that they must have a more reliable source than Facebook to make a decision, they are not going to put in the extra effort to find more verification.  In class, we have often talked about people's uncanny abilities to create a different persona online.  If college students are able to figure out that on social networking, not all is what it seems, shouldn't the feds realize it too?  In addition, everyone knows that the security on social networking sites aren't exactly top of the line.  User's accounts can easily be hacked into or created by someone else.  There is no telling if there is any truth to what is found a person's social network page.

Honestly, I find this situation somewhat bizarre.  Americans trust homeland security to keep our borders safe, and now I find out that Facebook is being used as a "reliable" source for this?  There is an enormous amount of people trying to get into this country, and security could deny them because of a picture on his or her MySpace page from five years ago.  I don't even remember what kind of pictures I have on my Facebook from last year.  Who knew that a site like Facebook, which is supposed to help "you connect to people", could determine what country a person makes those connections in.

Virtual World and Real Punishment

In class recently, we began discussing virtual worlds.  In fact, we spent an entire 50 minutes class time discussing pros and cons of virtual worlds like Second Life and There.  Quickly, questions began to arise about how far these virtual worlds went to make the atmosphere as close to the "real world" as possible.  My classmates began asking if an avatar could die in virtual worlds, if an avatar could be arrested or married etc.  Well, when reading news stories on CNN.com, I found my answer.  

A Japanese woman killed her virtual world husband's avatar, and authorities are charging her for it.  The woman was a member of the "Maple Story" virtual world, and one day she logged in and discovered that her avatar had been divorced.  She  found a way to hack into the man's account and destroy his avatar.  She's facing jail time and fees.  Sounds a bit crazy, doesn't it?  For people like this, it seems that their virtual world has become the dominant world.  So what now?

If I have learned anything so far in COM301, it's that CMC (computer-mediated-communication) does not really have limits.  It is going to keep on expanding and creating more "reality-like" types of communication.  Virtual worlds like Second Life and Maple Story are only going to continue growing.  When browsing Second Life, I noticed that it is trying to take precautionary measures to deter incidents, like the one latter stated, from happening.  For example, a member's avatar cannot contain his or her real name.  Also, the avatar does not have to be created in likeness of the actual person.  If a member chooses to later disclose this information to a fellow user it is his or her decision.  This is a positive security measure taken by virtual worlds, but in the end, it is the users who decide whether or not virtual worlds become dangerous worlds.  In class we have learned about cyberbullying and becoming prey on the internet, and there is nothing stopping those kinds of people from finding a way into virtual worlds.

Lime Wire + Online Community = Opportunitie$

For most people my age, I'd say downloading music is about equivalent to getting dressed in the morning.  It is a habitual action, one that people take time doing, and use care and consideration when choosing what to download.  There are various way to download music.  One can use stores like iTunes or Rhapsody, and others use the more frowned-upon method of file sharing.  When thinking of the latter way of obtaining music one obvious candidate pops into my head... by some it is loved, by others it is hated, but to all it is called Lime Wire.

Recently, as I was browsing CNN.com I stumbled across an article called "Lime Wire seeks legitmacy."  The title basically gives away what the article entails, however, as I was reading through I was struck by how this company was trying accomplish exactly what we have been studying in class.  Lime Wire is trying to expand, it is trying to reel the other big names of music onto their side and become legal and yada yada yada.  Later on in the article it starts talking about a more internal kind of expansion, like making Lime Wire users be able to make profiles and creating a "peer-to-peer service."  In essence, Lime Wire is trying to transform from an online group to an online community.

Lately, I've been learning that creating an online community is not a goal easily obtained.  In class, we discussed the necessities a group must have in order to become a community.  Phrases like trust between users, there must be a dependency, frequency, a shared interest, a sense of belonging, and there must be participants, all floated around and enveloped the class until we became determine to come up with more guidelines.  In the end, there were over 30 different requirements that we felt were necessary for a group to have in order to become an online community.  So when I first started reading the Lime Wire article, my immediate reaction to Lime Wire trying to build a social networking site, was why?  Why would they even bother trying?  Since the company is already knee-deep in a court case against the music industry over file sharing, don't they already have a few strikes against them?  What would posses them to, ontop of all that Lime Wire is already dealing with, attempt to create an online community for its users when it is not a goal easily obtained?After some reflecting, I looked at the article again.  The article points out the huge success of Facebook and MySpace, and how Lime Wire trying to create an online community environment is a selling point.  It is alluring to label execs.  

Online communities are not just a term used in class that I will soon forget about after this semester ends.  No, online communities are something that is ingrained in society and will continue to be in my life long after COMM 301 is over.  They are popular, popular enough to help lure label executives away from the idea of denouncing Lime Wire and instead convincing them to partner up with the company.  Since this is so, then online communities certainly must bring in the cash.  Look at all the ads that pop up on Facebook and MySpace these days.  Companies want to be involved with online communities because, even if they are hard to create, they are popular moneymakers.   Looking at it that way, Lime Wire is pretty smart, and label execs are probably smart to join in with the notorious company. If Lime Wire's community becomes successful, but companies watch from the shore, then they'll be hit with the tidal wave of the mass popularity and influence of an online community, and left in the sand as Lime Wire sails to the future.

Facebook or Open Book?

Facebook.  A common aspect of life for young adults everywhere.  People spend hours on Facebook checking posts, posting pictures, requesting new friends etc.  With technology advancing everyday, when will Facebook become too much of an open book about its users?

Recently I read and article on CNN.com about how Facebook is "coming to the streets."  A German company called aka-aki (basically the German version of Facebook) is developing a social networking device for blue tooth users that will notify a user when they come within a 20 meter radius of another user.  Then, they will be able to view the profile of that user and find out their interests, activities, compare them to their profile pictures and so on and so forth.  

When I read this my jaw just about dropped.  What kind of society have we come to live in, that we feel it necessary to know the personal details of strangers lives because we pass them in the street?  This article is proof that the world we live in has become addicted to social networking and online communities.  

I admit I like to "creep" on Facebook.  I also admit that I spend a decent amount of time on this online community, and I think that many of my fellow peers would say they have similar habits.  However, I didn't realize there was obsessive enough use that today's market would feel compelled to create a device that allows a person to be in coffee house, and realize that barista is single and loves the movie Little Miss Sunshine.  No can really be sure that the device that aka-aki is developing will be successful, but the fact that even is being invented is proof that people feel that they need to be able to access their online community all of the time.  There is such a dependency on social networking that people want to know every time they are in contact with someone else who also social networks.  Mass amount of time and mass amount of dependency equals addiction.  People ARE addicted to Facebook, and this is evidence of it.

All Degrees Created Equal?

"Busy at work and with family?  Want to further your education online??  Click now and expand your knowledge!"

How many times a day do you see these ads pop-up when surfing the web?  It seems that we are surrounded and immersed in one of the newest and most popular forms of distance education... online degrees.  Whether seeking a bachelor's degree or a MBA, achieving a degree online has become a popular way to receive an education while still keeping up with the hustle and bustle of everyday life.  It has made it easier on single parents, full-time working teens, and those with families to get the degree he or she desires.  However, how does our society really look at online degrees?  Many agree that online education and traditional education create two different experiences for students.  Ultimately, the question arises, when it comes to distance learning versus traditional learning, are all degrees created equal?

According to an article from universities.com, in 2000 most corporate managers felt that earning a graduate degree online was equivalent to earning a degree through traditional education.  This was a leap from when only half of corporate managers thought that the degrees were equal in 1989.  Basically, I think this shows how the negative stigmas and stereotypes of online degrees are fading from society.  As society becomes more technologically savvy, there is more acceptance for what is achieved through this technology.  Since the Internet is such an integral part of many Americans' lives, we have become trusting of it.  As our trust grows, so does our trust of the learning devices that are offered.  Gradually our trust has turned into a kind of respect.  We respect those who know how to use the Internet efficiently, because we realize that the Internet is not some fad that is going to disappear.  The Internet is here to stay and as our trust grows, we become more aware of the opportunities it offers.  We also become more respectful of those who pursue the opportunities available.  In effect, the popularity, attainability and respectability of online degrees has increased.

Growing up in a rural area, with a high school that had limited classes that used the Internet as a tool for curriculum, I think I've become prejudice against online degrees.  The few people I know who do cyber-schooling often comment on how easy their schoolwork is to complete. Even when talking in my electronic communications class recently, a student pointed out that when taking a test online, a person could simply look up answers in his or her books and receive high marks.  This had led me to believe that online degrees are not as valuable as ones achieved in a traditional sense.  However, as we began discussing and learning about online degrees in my electronic communications class, I've realized that it is not so much the method of achieving the degree, but more so the person working to achieve it.

Different people work different ways.  To take classes online, a person needs to be more self driven than a person who goes to a class daily and is driven by professors to complete work.  If a person is introverted, they may feel more comfortable responding to a professor's question online because he or she has time to contemplate an answer.  However, if a student prefers verbal communication over written, he or she may struggle with an online class.

Are all degrees created equal?  In reality, that is a question of opinion.  Although, if the facts are examined, I think it is intelligent to say that whether a degree is achieved online or on-campus, there are challenges that a student has to overcome.  Honestly, there are a lot of aspects that factor into which is better, but as our world becomes more and more reliant on the Internet, it will also become more and more accepting of the online education offered.

Faceless Bullies

Cyberbulling.  I bet that many people have never even heard of the word or know what it means.  I never paid much attention to it myself until it was recently being discussed in my electronic communications class.  I am almost 20 years-old, so I guess I figured that cyberbulling will most likely never affect me.  I have privacy settings on all of my online networks, I don't IM or chat with people I don't know and I'm cautious about who I give my online information out to.  I restrict my online information and am mature enough not to respond to bullying on the internet.  I never thought that cyberbulling would affect me until I read this article.

Ryan Patrick Halligan was a 13 year-old boy, an average 13 year-old boy who was affected by online bullying.  I think it is pretty impossible to read this mother's story without being touched.  She loved her son and knew he was bullied, but had no idea as to the extent of the online torture he endured.  In the end, this cruelty coupled with his depression led him to end his life.  

We watched a video or two in class about cyberbullying, but the victims who told their stories or talked about the effects of the bullying, in my opinion, did not seem overly traumatized by what had happened.  The shock of Ryan's story, along with other similar stories, is what really opened my eyes to the horror of this kind of bullying.

I have a younger sister, she's in high school and one of the most sincere people I know.  If anyone asked I would definitely say that we are close, but I'm not naive enough to think that she tells me everything.  What I do know is that she gets picked on at school sometimes.  People make fun of her for being a bookworm and an athlete, or mistake her shyness for being stuck-up.  I also know that she has AIM, she has a MySpace, that she spends a decent amount of time on the computer, and that she is a vulnerable adolescent.  After reading Ryan's story and his mother's lack of knowledge about cyberbullies previous to his death, it made me realize cyberbulling could still play a prevalent role in my life.  According to the video we watched in my class a large percent of kids say that they have been bullied online.  It is a strong possibility that my sister could be one of those victims, and if she is, who is to say that something similar couldn't happen to her like it did to Ryan.

I'm not saying, in any way shape or form, that I think my younger sister is about to end her life, but I am saying that I don't know that she isn't bullied online.  I'm saying that those cheesy safety rules you hear about when it comes to being safe online, really aren't so cheesy when you realize that they're smart to follow.  I'm saying that you don't know how someone will react if they are harassed online.  What I am saying is, that cyberbulling affects everyone, whether they know it or not, and it has to stop.  Gone are the days where kids are beat up for their lunch money.  Let's not waste our time saying hello to the faceless cyberbullies making kids fear the technology our society is infatuated with.  Let us, instead focus our efforts on saying goodbye to this new and maybe most harmful form of bullying.

what r u doin/What are you doing?

Right now and for the rest of this blog I will be using my best grammar.  There are commas, capitalized letters, and hopefully no misspelled words.  However, no less than 15 seconds ago I sent a text message that had multiple sentences using no capitalization and abbreviated words that my grandpa would probably refer to as a bunch of garbage that makes no sense.  I don't think I am an unintelligent person, so why do I naturally use incorrect grammar when social networking?

Recently, I read an article in USA Today called Plugging in, tuning out.  Like many professors, Don Campbell, the writer, has fear for how social networking is affecting my generation.  I wasn't surprised to find his concern over students' lack of thirst for knowledge, or how he feels that they are less educated and prefer not to read.  What did awaken my interest was another point he made.  Basically, he said that people my age don't feel the need to use proper grammar in most situations.  Unless a student is writing for a class, he or she is most likely not checking or caring how written work is composed. Campbell also claims that youth craves the structure and "rewards of good writing."    If this is all true, which comparing it to my life I'd say it is, then why don't people take the few extra seconds on facebook or texting to construct a proper sentence?  I don't like to be considered a stupid person, but typing "what r u doin" in a text message can not possibly make me sound intelligent.  Am I really that concerned with time that I can't add the five extra letters to make the latter sentence constructive?  And if it is not a time issue, then what is stopping me from writing like I was taught to?

When I was in fifth grade, people started using AIM.  I don't even remember what my first screen name was, but I do remember that I thought I was ridiculously cool for having one.  Eventually my buddy list grew and I became obsessed with talking to friends.  I was at a new school and I wanted more than anything to fit in.  When people started IMing me, I imitated how and what they typed.  My intention isn't to be dramatic about my childhood and how I was peer pressured into bad grammar, but in a small way it is true.  I wanted to be like the cool kids and if the cool kids were typing "sup" or "ttyl" online, I was typing it too.  I would have to say this is where my social networking grammar came from.  It came from peer pressure and after a while it became more of a habit.  Now that I'm a little older and don't care as much what people think, I could probably switch to using proper grammar, but I have to admit that habits are hard to break.

What strikes me as somewhat amusing is how I felt that I was peer pressured into my abbreviations and terrible spelling, when in my electronic communications class we have been discussing how most people have more confidence when social networking.  Then I realized that this is because we were talking about people who are only communicating through computer mediated communication.  When I was IMing my new friends at my new school it was computer mediated communication, but there was also face-to-face communication.  The mixture of both types of communication created an odd balance between my confidence level at school and my confidence level when talking to someone I only knew on an online basis.  I still felt pressure to fit in, the grammar I use being an example of that, but it was also easier to get to know people better.  I wasn't afraid to say what I thought or what I liked.  The fact that I couldn't see a person's reaction gave me more confidence to be honest.

In the end, Plugging in, tuning out gave me some interesting food for thought.  I try not to go around speaking like someone who doesn't know what they're talking about, so maybe I should start using this technique for typing too.  If I want people to take me seriously, then I seriously need to start typing like a grown up.  Secondly, it gave me a way to directly relate to my electronic communication class.  All week we've been talking about differences between CMC and face-to-face communication.  Now I have a personal example to relate to and can realize how they both affect me, sometimes at the same time.

Buffy and the Internet

Everyday millions of people click open a browser and explore the world of online social networking.  Checking e-mails, facebook, MySpace, and online dating websites have become routine for many, especially the young technologically savvy generation.  It is not uncommon to have the ability to google a person and find out where they live, how old they are, what they look like and what they're interested in.  Although a great deal of this newfound power is beneficial, how much danger comes with it?

Recently in class we viewed an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which had a story line that centered around the dangers of social networking on the Internet.  Although it is beyond farfetched that a horrible monster, who escaped from a book and is wreaking havoc on vulnerable minds  through the school's computer network, is in existence, there is a valid point behind the plot.  The show's writers and producers make viewers question their online choices.  For example, during this particular episode the character Willow becomes involved with a boy named Malcolm over the Internet.  Buffy becomes wary of Malcolm and worries he is not who he says he is.  In the end it turns out that Malcolm is actually a demon who was playing on Willow's insecurities and vulnerabilities to manipulate her for his own benefit.  Naturally, Buffy saves the day and Willow realizes how susceptible one can be when online.  She assumed that since she was telling the truth about herself online, others were doing the same.

This episode of Buffy shows how playing with the Internet is like playing with fire.  There is no proof that a person in a chat room for dog lovers really loves dogs, or that a profile picture on someone's MySpace is actually that person.  Hence a major flaw in the security of the internet and the danger of not having face-to-face communication.  A predator may not be able to steal someone's identity online, but it would not be hard for a predator to lie and manipulate in order to gain power over someone unsuspecting.

Using the Internet is like everything else in life, there are pros and cons.  What is scary is the severity of each.  The Internet is an easy trap for predators to use, and for those not watching their step it is an easy place to become prey.