A Texting Nation

Texting has become a big influence in many people's lives because they change their ways of speaking, writing, and how we, the people, communicate with each other. In Howard Rheingold's The Next Social Revolution, he talks about how texting first started and how big of an impact it has to our lives. First, the telephone comes out and now we have cell phones that can communicate to others by text messaging. Although Rheingold's data is out dated, his prediction about how our social world now is accurate.

In Rheingold's article, he says that he first noticed people using their telephones to "send text between tiny black and white screens." Rheingold first saw this when he visited Japan in 2001. He started to realize how people started to develop new forms communication and predicted that texting will become, within the next ten years, one of our basic ways of communicating. I know many people have read his article in today's society and might assume that Rheingold is "late on the new trends," but if you put yourself in the past where he started to realize this new way of communicating, you will see that Rheingold's prediction was accurate and he reveals how society started to change into this texting nation.

In today's society, many teenagers and adults use text messaging as a faster and better way of communication. In this video, you see many teenagers in high school discussing about how texting is a big part of their life. Many teenagers say that texting has affected their lives both negatively and positively. The negatives are because of how addicting texting is, many teenagers text in school and get in trouble. Many teens say that texting also effects their speech, meaning that when they speak to their teachers, parents, or a more professional adult, they tend to use text words that are considered non-professional. Some teenagers say that it affects them on the way they type on computers and on their papers. The positives is when teens text others, they tend to talk to alot more people. Some say that texting is better than talking on the phone because it eliminates long, awkward silences. Another positive look on how texting affects teenagers is sending messages to others about where parties are at, what's the latest trend going around, and/or where to meet up for study projects. This video relates to Rheingold's article by these teens, in the video, making Rheingold's prediction as accurate as possible. He said that in the future, people will tend to replace formal communication and that future, the one he predicted, is now.

As you can see, people are developing new ways of communication. People are tossing aside formal communication and using new a technological revolution in communicating to the world. Rheingold's data is very out dated but has interesting facts about how the texting world became to be. When someone buys a cell phone, they don't use it just for talking formally, it's now about the texting and sending picture messages. People want to communicate now without their arms getting tired from holding the phone up to their ear all the time. Since texting is now a big part of our social world, it makes it easier for people who know how to multi-tasks and makes conversations much longer. Texting is still developing new strategies and maybe in the next ten years, will evolve into something even more extraordinary.

Bullying is Not Allowed on Campus

Bullying in general, should be illegal. In all schools, some kind of bullying takes place in areas of the school that aren't being watched. In every school, at least one to two students say that they either witnessed, heard, or been the victim of bullying. My biggest concern is that it seems like every school has a bully, victim, or witness, but why are they not telling the faculty or an adult who exactly the bully is? If every school has a bully, why has not one person in the entire school confessed to who exactly is doing the bullying? Bullying should become illegal because it puts children's confidence levels low and when that happens, those kids tend to commits suicide. Bullying, in my opinion, is just another way for young kids to die, meaning that bullying is a weapon.

A type of bullying that has been talked about alot is Cyberbullying, which is bullying online. In Danah Boyd's article, she talks about how cyberbullying made a thirteen year old girl, named Megan Meier, commit suicide. The problem was that she was online talking to a guy she just met and it turns out that the guy was a fake profile but was one of her friend's mom who created that profile. In the article, the mom that made the fake profile says that, "Megan had it coming." She says this because of her child was experiencing Megan's "dark side," meaning that Megan was perhaps being mean to that mom's child. What Danah Boyd said in this article was that " The result of our child obsession is that parents are overprotective." That parent according to Boyd, is a "helicopter parent." What she's saying is that parents are overprotective of their children and tend to think that their children are the "best" and can never do any wrong. Boyd explains that "deceiving children is problematic to begin with, but tapping into their weaknesses is deadly," meaning parents should not get involved with thier children's painful problems. Instead, parents should negotiate with their painful problems responsibly. Boyd's point is that parent should stop being involved with thier children's emotional problems and weaknesses and should start negotiating with their children about how to either fix it or deal with, in other words, turn the other cheek and do a moving.

In this video, you see a parent talking about his child who committed suicide because of his cyberbullying incident. This former dad goes to schools to tell other kids his story about his son who committed suicide. In the video, you can see that they dad is hurt and wants to give his audience a message about being bullied. The dad says that some girls pretended to like him online, then copied and pasted their conversion to other instant messagers just to have "a good laugh." He believes that we should stop the bystanders, which are the people who are laughing at the victim. He wants his audiences to know that it's the bystanders that give these bullies the confidence to do the bullying. Boyd says, "such critiques are viewed as attacks and are used as weapons when parents want others to control their children their way." It seems like when parents get involved with their children's painful problems, their children tend to get more emotional on those things. This relates to Boyd's article because she talks about how parents want to be involved with their children's painful life. This parent is what Boyd calls a "helicopter parent." Although this video gives powerful messages to audiences, will those bullies in those audiences change their ways or will they continue?

Bullying should become illegal and should be put to an end. Bullying is what destroys our younger generation and puts them into stages where they do not want to be. If every school has a bully or has ever had a bully, someone should point that bully out so that they can possibly stop these problems. The parents should stay out of it but, in my opinion, the schools faculty should get involved in the bullying. Perhaps, we should stop the actual bully so that they can either go to counseling or their own parents can talk to them about why they bully people. If the bully's parents talk to them, perhaps, they will discontinue their hurtful ways, thus, stopping other parents getting involved with their children's emotional and painful problems.

If You Don't Know, Google Does!

Although Google is a very good search engine and we use it almost every time we browse the Internet, but Google, on the other hand, possesses too much power over our searches. In Siva Vaidhyanathan's The Googlization of Everything explains how Google possesses too much power. Google has the power to interfere with our "privacy," according to Siva. In the article, he explains five "privacy interfaces" (page 95) that is known about us. Each of these interfaces offers varying levels of control and surveillance. The five privacy interfaces are person to peer, person to power, person to firm, person to state, and person to public.

Google has too much power and is one of the biggest surveillance camera in the world. Google allows someone to type in what they need to find and then saves their searches, allowing others to search for what they were searching for, giving someone's private search away. How does Google take one's identity away? Simple, when someone is searching for someone online, they can just type in their names and Google will have many searches of their names. In my opinion, the two worse types of searches that Google has are the images and the world map. The problem with the image search is that when you type someone's name and click image search, many different pictures show up including the person your looking for. When you use Google's map search, you can type in someone's address and Google can give you the picture location of what your looking for. These two types of searches for Google, in my opinion, are the two worse privacy interferences Google can have because Google basically can give away all your information just from what others have searched for in past times, exposing you and your privacy.

In this video, you can see someone is looking at what people search for on Google. According to Siva's "privacy interfaces," this person is affecting person to public because he is searching for what people tend to search for most of the time. At this interface, which is located online, people have found their lives exposed and their names and faces ridiculed. This random person is on Google searching for what others have searched for in the past. Now, the first thought that comes to mind is that this person can be a ex-con, rapist, or even a killer, because is he searching for what others have searched for. This affects "person to public" because he gives away identities and privacy away by posting this video on YouTube, which is allowing others to view his video and looking at what people have searched for most. This video can also have other viewers type in what he typed and get more information about it.

Google is the best search engine and helps out alot with our computerized lives, but on the other hand, it possesses too much power over our privacies and identities.

Privacy? What's That?

In Simson Garfinkel's Privacy and the New technology: What They Do Know Can Hurt You, He explains some situations where "privacy will be one of our most important civil rights," coming into the twenty-first century. Garfinkel says this because he sees that privacy is not really the privacy we intend it to be in the computerized world. In the computerized world, Garfinkel argues that people have been, at least once in their lives, been in a "privacy invasion." He argues that it is important that people should have privacy in their computerized world because it protects one's personal freedom. He says that individuals actions are not enough. He suggested that people should try to get the government involved with fighting for privacy. It is obvious that Garfinkel is upset with the rights of privacy. All he wants is for the computerized world to have some sort of privacy that will protect an individual's personal freedom. He also suggests that if people revise the current direction of the government," it would be to create a permanent federal oversight agengy charged with protecting privacy." What Garfinkel is saying is that we should ask the government to create some kind of agnecy that will stop people or other invading privacy groups from invading our privacy space.

Privacy does not truly exist in this world. Everywhere you go, nothing is private. For example, I have a personal account set up with facebook. About two months ago, my facebook got hacked and someone was using my profile to promote pornagraphy on my profile. Everybody who is my friend on facebook thought that I was trying to promote pornagraphy. In the video, it shows how information brokers break into you private accounts online and sell your personal data. Thats how they tend to make money, by selling, packages, and collecting your personal data. They get all of there information from free and lost costs sources. Perhaps, a "information broker" broke into my account, sold all my information to marketing companies or to individual condensores, thus, creating a hacker who tried to promote pornagraphy websites. I would totally agree with Garfinkel because whats the use of "privacy" when we know that someone can hack into our personal profiles. For the people that are my friends on facebook, be aware of the "information broker," because according to the video, they can not only break into my privacy settings, but as well as my friend's privacy settings.

Invading one's privacy, whether online or in real life, is violating an individual's civil rights and should be demolished. This violates our personal freedom and should have the government get more involved with online privacy invasions. Garfinkel was right about privacy, saying that "privacy isn't jus about hiding things. It's about self-possessioin, autonomy, and integrity." These are the things that make up our personal freedom and should be protected. If someone asks you that some things are "private,' tell them that you do not know what privacy is or what is means because, unfortunately, it does not truly exist in today's computerized society.

She Loves me, She Loves me not

In the Flickr Project, the story that was decided in our group was called Murder & Deception at LU. The story is about a woman who was in love then gets heart broken and falls in love with another man. When the woman finds her new love, her old one becomes angry and wants to kill her as well as her new lover. The reason why this story was chosen between us was because it seemed like everyone, the class, would choose a horror story or a story that had something to do with Halloween, since it is near. We wanted to involve something to do with Halloween, but also a love story because our minds concluded that no one in the class would think about a love story. Although Flickr was not too difficult to use, this tool can be used to create false media online. This tool can also be used as the same concept as wikipedia, meaning that there can be some true information but yet again, people can tend to correct or add on false information. When we tagged each other in them, we tagged each other to tell the readers or watchers who was playing each part.

When preparing for this project, we decided to make Luke Galle the female in this story, due to his long hair. We decided to take the pictures by the river to make it seem as if she had called her old lover to meet up with her by the river to make it seem like she was breaking up with him. The river symbolized the break up in this story. When she breaks up with him, she sees a new lover who is interested in her. Eventually, they hit it off well for the rest of the day, not knowing that her ex-boyfriend is stalking her and watching them as they are on their first date. So when they decide to go on another date later on in the day, they depart ways and plan on meeting each other later in the day, not knowing that her ex is planning on killing her. Her ex's plan to kill her was stabbing her with a corkscrew or some shape object. When Lukey and Shawn part ways, her ex follows her and kills her right before her and her new lover meet up again. Her new lover comes back with some flowers that may interest her even more but sees her dead body on the ground. When seeing her dead, Shawn is shocked and then her murderer, also her ex, follows behind Shawn to attempt to kill him too. We decided to not show her ex, Max, killing her new lover, Shawn, because we wanted to build suspence. We wanted our audience to assume what can happen or what can not happen, meaning that we wanted our audience to figure out the outcome for themselves. Maybe Shawn escaped and called the police or maybe he was murdered too?

Experiencing Flickr for the first time, it seems interesting and can be a new way of telling stories. Instead of a typical story that is just told orally, Flickr can be a place where stories are told on internet. In the near future, perhaps, Flickr will become the new generation of story telling and telling stories orally around a bonfire will be diminished. The tagging in the Flickr project was interesting and it tells the viewer who was in it. Overall, the project was interesting and should be a great attribute in the future for storytelling. http://www.flickr.com/photos/68302494@N06/sets/72157627757779001/

Let's Go Photoshopping!!!

In his writing Photoshop for Democracy, Henry Jenkins would not "totally disagree" to the fact that some people would argue that circulating images is a poor way for more traditional forms of political activism.

Jenkins says that he would not "totally" disagree because in those situations, "people are simply hitting the send key and thoughtlessly forwarding the images to everyone they know." What Jenkins suggests is that crystallizing one's political perspectives into a "photomontage that is intended for broader circulation is no less an act of citizenship that writing a letter to the editor of local newspaper that may or may not actually print it."

In today's American youth society, the combination of words and images are much easier than giving someone a brochure about something. It makes life a lot easier for someone who wants to spread their campaign or something that they want to put out for the public to see how important it is to them. In Jenkins writing, he explains that the Internet is much faster and a easier way to spark people in America about the political campaign being presented at the time and spread it to anybody. Back before the Internet was invented, people used to only used the newspaper for political campaigns and ideas. In order for someone to have people read one's campaign, one must put their campaign in a newspaper article. In order for people to spread the news about a political campaign, one must either make copies of that newspaper or just spread the word to other. Nowadays, politics put their campaign on Internet because many youth cultures in America watch the news or political campaigns on Internet instead of the newspaper. Although the newspaper seems as if it will be diminished in about 20, or so, years, the younger generation prefers news on Internet because it is easier and they can spread the news quicker to family or friends.

In this video, Sarah Palin was running for Vice President and John McCain as president. Despite the hilarious spoof, the video is saying that people should vote for McCain so that Palin can become vice president. The video was originally Estelle featuring Kanye West called American Boy, but the spoof was putting Sarah Palin featuring John McCain called Vice President. This influences the youth by understanding what Sarah and McCain want for their campaign back in 2008. In the video, John McCain says that everybody, "gets their information on the Daily Show." McCain is, perhaps, preferring to that people should listen to more of the actual political channels and that the Daily Show has incorrect information about him. This video, perhaps, was to promote both of their campaigns by having people look at it on YouTube and spread it to everybody they know by sharing it on facebook, other YouTube accounts, or perhaps, to others emails.

Activists, fans, and parodists are using the popular graphic software called Photoshop to "appropriate and manipulate images to make a political statement." Jenkins prefers that people should use Photoshop, in an appropriate manner like this video, to be able to reach a larger public politically.

The Rise of Youtube

Last week in class, we discussed Youtube and how it came about to the internet. Youtube is a program on the internet that allows someone to download their videos. In Jean Burgess and Joshua Green's Youtube article, they said that Youtube came about in many ways. One way that they said how Youtube emerged was when Saturday Night Live had a satirical sketch. The Saturday Night Live crew downloaded a video of "two nerdy, stereotypical New Yorkers rappig about buyig cupcakes and going to see Chronicles of Narnia." After readig this in the article, Youtube has been a sucess in the world today because millions of people started downloading their videos online.

In the video of the Youtube Channel, there are some people that are using camcorders to record their own videos. Some of the users in the video use Youtube as a way to contact one another. They said that they use it as a contact to collaborate with one another on videos. What seemed interesting was that they used Youtube also for "marketing and promoting" purposes. This shows that Youtube can be used in many ways, not only for videos of one's self. Youtube expanded many markets by collaboration between one market and the other. This video, itself, is a marketing and promoting video. This video gives people the idea of advertising and marketing by telling the viewer that people can use Youtube for promotional ideas.

In the reading, it says that " Youtube's apparent or stated mission has continuously morphed as a result of both corporate practices and audience use" (page 3). Both Burgess and Green mentioned this because Youtube has shaped the world into a different way of communication, job opportunities, and marketing. In the video (http://www.youtube.com/user/youtube?blend=1&ob=4) the girl mentions that she got to meet many people through Youtube, which is communication. Youtube can offer job opportunities by someone submitting there resume or interest through a video on Youtube. The two guys in the video say that they do collaborations, meaning that they collaborate on marketing. Youtube has been a hit sensation and is still one of the most viewed websites in the world.

No I.D. Required!

Last week, in class, we discussed Sherry Turkle's Life on the Screen. In this reading, Turkle discusses things that I would have never known about the computer. She talks about how people go online and make false identities about themselves. She says that they make up identities from a fantasy of theirs. I think what Turkle is trying to say is that people make up multiple identities of themselves online and their identities, most of the time, have something to do with their own personalities.

Before I read Life on the Screen, I thought that the computer and internet were for only studying for classes and going on facebook. I used to think that online chatting was only for facebook and Skype. After I read the second paragraph on page 12  of the article, everything made sense to me now. When I go on facebook, I see all these profiles of beautiful women, but the profile is just something that can trick young men, like myself, into going on a dating website. I wondered why people still do that today on facebook but I guess it's just apart of a business or to get people to check out their website more.

My professor gave the class random buddies to talk to on this chat site called AIM. We created a profile and made up a person to experience what Turkle had said about people making up fake identities. I got this person that I never met before in my life. All I know is that he or she is in my class but I do not know who this person is exactly. This experience is amazing and I hope everybody in the class thinks this is cool too. I chatted online ot a random person that had a fake identity as well as I did. Now I know why people tend to make up fake identities and that is to express themselves online without anybody knowing who they are. Although this project is fun, I will not intend to make another fake profile in the future.