Modelling Reality With Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds have a plethora of uses in new media. Some examples are: entertainment or enjoyment to more pragmatic uses such as therapy for those who have social or psychological issues. With virtual worlds, people can finally be open without having to be open in real life. It can help people adjust to the real world by simulating it virtually and helping to adjust to it after some time.

The pros of using virtual worlds is that it can be used to simulate the actual world in the event that you would not be able to enjoy fully (if at all) in real life or if you just live too far away (Itzkoff).  In the article on the New York Times by Dave Itzkoff, he mentions how he prefers to walk around the lower east side of Manhattan virtually in order to get away from the foul smelling neighborhoods in and the menacing bouncers guarding the clubs in real life. He also feels safer not having been exposed to the night time dangers of New York such as crime (Itzkoff). However, it comes at a cost  or cons as Itzkoff explains that there is a lack of excitement and the lack of actually being at the location to take in the fun.

Another pro of using virtual worlds is to create their own world in their own image using programs such as SecondLife (Saidi). In an article by Nicole Saidi, a man named David Savill has Asperger's Syndrome created a virtual world for himself and other suffering from mental disorders. By creating his own virtual world in SecondLife, he is able to have memorable and intimate connections with friends and loved ones. This helps him to communicate with others with relative ease whereas having to communicate in real life would have been a problem for him. The drawback in this case is the wanting to continue to interact with others in the virtual world and not leaving to actually interact with people (Saidi). Thus, in reality, people are even more isolated and introverted and in the long run, this man ultimately hurt the person as he does not engage in the human experience.

I think that the future of the virtual world is bright. I believe that it will continue to grow especially with the advent of Virtual Reality goggles such as Oculus Rift. This can also spur progress for new media to find ways to immerse the virtual world into the real world. Even though there is concern for those who do not want to leave the virtual world, I feel  that the expansion of the virtual world will not be hindered in any way or form. If you have any thoughts or questions, feel free to post them in the comments below.

Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/arts/television/06itzk.html?pagewanted=2
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/03/28/sl.autism.irpt/index.html#cnnSTCText

Creativity

New media fosters creativity by allowing us to collaborate online with posting and sharing ideas using social networking. According to the article by Claire Cain Miller, technology companies rely on the user to spur creativity and innovation since the Internet allows for people to share and exchange ideas and computing tools cheaply, easily and rapidly in large groups with new tools. In a way, these companies take the back seat and let the user curate their own user experience which can ultimately increase their bottom line. The people have effectively become their own means to create what they want. When users are in control of the creativity process, they can foster new forms of new media. An example from the article is that  users have developed a desktop client for Twitter called TweetDeck. It would not have been possible without Twitter allowing the developer community to enhance the website's experience. Creativity is essential to the continued success of new media. If you have any thoughts or questions, feel free to leave them in the comments below.


Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/technology/internet/26twitter.html?_r=0

Creativity and New Media

I created a website with new media. I did this by creating a website using Microsoft Notepad and I used HTML to code the website that I created. HTML is the default programing language of the Internet and I learned HTML over the years. I took several web design courses and I know how to code in HTML and use Adobe Dreamweaver. I also used a web hosting service to keep the website up and running.

Here's the link to my website. Check it out!
http://ash3810s1nt.ucoz.com/index.htm


If you have any thoughts or questions, feel free to leave them in the comments below.

Social Networking Sites

These days it's hard for people to connect without some form of Social Networking. I'll be honest, I also use Social Networking, so here are my thoughts on some of these websites.

Facebook:

I've used Facebook since 2010 and since then, it has been my go to site to connect with family and friends. However, in the past few years, I stopped flocking to Facebook because after some point, I lost interest in the countless stories that ended up in my newsfeed. I only ever use Facebook these days to just chat with friends who don't have texting and it's usually on my phone via the Facebook Messenger app. I was tired of being swamped with game requests, pokes and what not so I just gradually cut down on my access to the site. I only ever log in the site ever so often and I hardly post anything at all. Until my friends decide to get texting or find a different way to communicate with me, I'm stuck with Facebook.

Twitter:

I never really flirted with the idea of having a Twitter account until my last year in high school. When I did end up making a Twitter, I didn't have many followers, seldom tweeted and really just read other tweets. Needless to say, the account didn't really last. Even after taking this class, I'm not entirely swoon with having Twitter. Perhaps my outlook will change as we progress through the rest of the semester, but so far, I'm not convinced. We'll see how it goes...

Myspace:

Back in 2006, Myspace was a thing. Now...not so much... Either way, I wasn't sold on it then and I'm not sold on it now. I've had an aversion to Myspace growing up as I heard lots of news stories of misrepresentation of identity and serious crimes being committed as a result so that fueled my fear of Social Networking at the time especially with Myspace. Now I look at it as a failed website just desperately looking for visitors. I find the layout of content to be confusing as it's all over the place. It's not streamlined and not easy on the eyes despite its refined look. With information scattered about and no form of organization, I find it to be almost irrelevant. We live in a society that prefers simplicity and organization, and in my opinion, Myspace fails to deliver. Quite frankly, who even uses Myspace these days?

LinkedIn:

I've been using LinkedIn for the past two years now to build myself professionally and branch out for potential job opportunities. I find LinkedIn to be an excellent resource for people to connect and think that receiving endorsements for skills from connections is invaluable and irrefutable as compared to writing skills down on a resume. It is the exact opposite of any other Social Networking Site out in the world as it makes a clear distinction from work and play that other websites have not quite been able to do. Overall, LinkedIn seems to be an invaluable asset for career growth and development.

If you have any thoughts or questions, leave them down in the comments below.

Social Networking

Social Networking is a new form of communication that has rapidly changed the world over the past decade. With sites like Facebook and Twitter, it has become even easier to connect with family and friends especially when they are thousands of miles away. However, Social Networking comes at a price of privacy and quite possibly harassment.

Let's look at the positives first: Social Networking helps people become more aware of who they are dealing with and allows for them to make connections with people that they like or think that are worthwhile. This extends into the job market especially with sites like LinkedIn. These kinds of sites are connecting job recruiters with potential candidates that they believe are worthwhile and  likely to be beneficial to their company. Frank Langfitt says that "Social Networking technology is absolutely the best thing to happen to recruiting ever." He adds on to this claim by stating that the job application process is streamlined when using Social Networking as it would paint a better picture of a person's skills and abilities than an actual paper resume as they have the ability to check the background of the candidate and see whether he is beneficial to the company's cause.

However, with all good things, there is the "dark side" and the major dark side with Social Networking is that it can be used to hurt and harass others when abused. Jeffrey R. Young illustrates this point with the recent resurgence of college gossiping sites such as Campus Gossip which is aimed at teens and college students anonymously attacking fellow students with nasty comments and blackmail. The amount of heinous material posted on these sites really shocks the conscience, however, if authorities were to take action, they would be met with opposition as people would claim that the enforcement of restrictions on these kinds of sites impinge on their right to free speech as declared by the First Amendment. The way that I see it is that it is a lose-lose situation for both the person who is being harassed and society itself for allowing these deplorable sites to continue.

The best way for Social Networking technology to continue is to find a balance between communication and privacy. With sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, it may be easier to connect with others, but it comes at the price of exposure for harassment and blackmail. I also believe that some measure must be created to limit the influence of social gossiping sites to better society as a whole. If you have any thoughts or questions: feel free to comment down below.

Sources:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6522523&sc=emaf
www.chronicle.com/article/Theyre-BackTheyre-B/48220/

Blog v. Wiki

Both blogs and wikis are forms of new media. They both allow for communication of information by many people and encompasses the five c's of the internet. However, there are key crucial differences in blogs and wikis and how they share information. 

Blogs are a form of social media where they are created by one author and they are usually the expression of an author's opinion on a subject or issue related to the times. Wikis on the other hand are curated by multiple authors or contributors to share knowledge and information in regards to the subject that is being discussed. However, there have been criticisms in the past about wikis being factually incorrect. But developments to correct this have been in place for several years and the Wikipedia Foundation have employed public editors to manage the entries made by people to ensure accuracy of them. ("Wikipedia: No longer the Wild West?")

The importance of convergence in a networked world is vast and powerful. However, this new and novel power has the ability to be misused and quite possibly abused. In Noam Cohen's article, psychologist, James Heilman, faced severe backlash from his colleagues after posting the most common Roschach inkblots and the common answers for the inkblots on Wikipedia. They fear that since the inkblots are on Wikipedia, it would devalue the accuracy of the tests as the patients would research the most common answers to "cheat" the Roschach Test (Cohen). This shows the misuse of convergence as potentially dangerous people can study the inkblots' answers and benefit from being wrongly diagnosed with a certain disorder to prove insanity and escape potential criminal sentences.

Blogs can be used for convergence as people can follow one another for their opinions and gain a consensus in issues they feel strongly about. If the issue can be politically motivating, people would like to find like-minded individuals that have similar opinions and then allow them to converge and wok together to achieve a common goal.

I'm not sure whether wikis have this but I think a great addition to a wiki would be to add a forum for contributors to discuss and converge as a means to figure out what to add or omit from a wiki entry. This seems like an invaluable feature for a wiki to have. If you have any thoughts or questions, feel free to leave them down in the comments below.

Sources:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/08/26/wikipedia.editors/index.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/technology/internet/29inkblot.html?pagewanted=2&ref=business

Social Networking: A Purposeful Loss of Privacy

My research project will explore how people lose their privacy when they sign up for services like Facebook and Twitter among others. I will take a close look at why people choose to make themselves vulnerable to the world when they sign up and I will also examine the legalese of the terms of agreement of Facebook to fully explore how much the end user loses privacy. I am also thinking about mentioning the NSA and their surveillance programs to really discover the extent of the loss of privacy. If you have any thoughts or questions, leave them in the comments below.