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.