Cartoon Profile Pics & Ideas about the 2nd Life

This past week I've seen tons of my Facebook friends update their profile pictures to cartoon characters. Once I found out it was to raise awareness for child abuse I thought it was a great idea. However, this morning I started to read a common status from some of my Facebook friends which said,

Apparently the group asking everyone to change their profile picture to their favorite cartoon is actually a group of pedophiles. They're doing it because kids will accept their friend request if they see a cartoon. Nothing to do with supporting child violence. It was on Dateline NBC. Its on Tonights News. Pass this on to everyone who has a cartoon profile picture!

This was shocking to me! When I told my roommates about it they were shocked too, especially since some of them changed their profile pictures to different cartoon characters. When I looked this up I found several articles saying it was true and several saying it was not true. The most recent article I found was from the Huffington Post and it stated that it was all a rumor. Here is their article. They got their information from the Facebook team. There is some speculation that the Facebook team is defending the rumor because they want Facebook to appear safe for people of all ages. Facebook did release a statement warning its users not to accept friend requests from people they do not know.

On a different note, I was surprised when I learned (from our class reading) that the Second Life is being used in schools still. I never even knew that the Second Life was used in schools. I feel like a lot of schools, well at least the schools I went to, discourage that.I think it is true that studying the Second Life could be a good way of learning, especially for students interested in that field. I found this blog that gives tons of information about the Second Life. The blog is titled "Managing a Class in Second Life." The blog is very informative and I learned a lot just by reading a few posts. It poses questions you could ask students and even gives an orientation outline for beginning a Second Life class. I think more and more schools will start opening up the idea of having a class on the Second Life because it truly can be used as a tool for studying computer skills.

Keep a Child Alive by Killing Digital Media

This week in honor of World Aids Day celebrities are "killing" their forms of digital media. Popular celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, and many more have decided to shut down their Twitters, Facebooks, Myspaces, and other forms of social media in order to save lives. These celebrities, who are well known for their constant Twitter and Facebook status's, will not get back on their social networking sites until 1 million dollars is raised for the AIDS foundation. Here is the website about this cause. Kim Kardashian tweeted this morning...

"I'm kinda sad that all of my social media will be dead tomorrow and I won't be tweeting. I love u guys! Bring me back to life soon!"

I think this is a great way to raise money for a great cause! I know many people that are going to donate simply because they want their favorite celebrities back on Twitter, Facebook, ect. I also know many people that want to donate just because they know it is a good cause. 1 million dollars will help save many kids in Africa and I am sure they will earn more than 1 million...I hope so! If anyone is interested in donating here are the directions:

Text "KIM" "Justin" or "Lady Gaga" to 90999 that you reply "YES" to confirm your donation to @keepachildalive.

Another interesting thing going on this week in social media is "cyber Monday" was yesterday. I honestly knew nothing about cyber Monday until I saw it facebook status's, which led me to Google it. Here is the website I found,basically on cyber Monday many online stores provide awesome discounts and free shipping to many of their customers. The reason the stores do this is because many people are not up for Black Friday shopping and are not into waking up at 4am to go shopping. Since cyber Monday was created people can do the shopping from their own homes online and not have to deal with the craziness of the malls and shops around the holidays. According the to the website above cyber Monday sales went up 20% from last year..that is ALOT! I was also shocked to read that 4% of all online shopping on cyber Mondays was done on Smartphones. I am not a big fan of shopping using my phone, but apparently others are. People do not just use their phones to purchase gifts they also use it to compare prices at different stores. Here is a quote from the article..

"Mobile phones play a key role. "People are using their mobile phones to compare prices, look for store locations and inventory in stock locally and find deals," read the Google blog.The blog said that 52% of U.S. smartphone users plan to use their phone to compare prices during the holiday season and 40% plan to read product reviews on their phones."

I think online shopping is a great thing. I do not think I will ever do all of my shopping online but this year I expect to do at least half of it online. Sometimes I just find the mall too stressful and shopping online is becoming easier and easier, so why not try it?!

The Death of Email & Spam Online

Recently in class we have been discuss the death of the World Wide Web due to Smartphones, Iphones, Ipads, ect. Today when reading the news online I found this website that suggest email is now dead. The article from Fox News says that email is becoming too troublesome and annoying with all of the spam and viruses that it now has. It says that since texting and bbming has become so easy, people would rather send a text than send an email. It also says emails are "too formal." I totally agree with that. Sometimes I would rather text my mom than send her an email because I find myself being too formal when I am typing an email. The same applies with my friends or family members. Texting is just so much easier. Another interesting thing I learned from the article is that Facebook just announced it has going to have a new messaging system that will be easier than email. Here is a quote from the article that describes the new messaging system...

"Facebook's system will recognize that and send quick notes and messages to those people's e-mail accounts. It will also recognize that you usually parlay with your girlfriend through text messages and only send your love missives to her that way. Plus there will be none of that onerous subject-line stuff any more."

I am excited to see this new system. I doubt I will use it, at least not at first. However, if it becomes popular, I wouldn't be opposed to it. The author of the article thinks it may be overwhelming to users at first, but then again, so was Facebook chat and that became a huge hit. I think Facebook chat may have totally replaced AIM and Ichat. I hardly know anyone that goes on AIM anymore and the only time my friends use Ichat is to video chat. Facebook is pairing with AOL to create this messaging center so I am curious to see what it is like. Keep an eye out for it!

Speaking of spam online and with emails...there has also been a lot of spam on Facebook lately. Did any of you hear of the page that says "A girl kills herself because of what her dad posted on Facebook!" I saw it but thankfully never clicked on it. This website says that it was all a scam! When you click on it you will be forced to share the page with all of your friends. The article says that Facebook needs to clean up its spam so that people do not end up getting viruses from clicking on these various sites. It says that Facebook is more powerful than the people creating these scams so they should be able to handle this. I searched this scam on Facebook and it still comes up in the search engine. I hope that Facebook gets a handle on this soon before it creates a problem for its users!

Students Constant Need for Internet Access

We discussed the digital divide several times in New Media Class. For this blog post I did some more research on the digital divide and how it is influencing children in today's society. This article shows some hope for this children whose families cannot afford the monthly internet bill, or even a laptop. The article tells how many teachers require internet research for nightly homework assignments and the kids that do not have internet are stuck at school or in a library late at night working on these assignments or even worse...not doing the assignments. The article says that you cannot blame the teachers for wanting the children to get exposed to the internet because the internet is the future of our generation. I was shocked with some of the statistics that I read regarding how many homes function (or do not function) without the internet. Here is a quote from the article...

"Nearly 69 percent of households in the United States have Internet access (including about 5 percent of homes with slower dial-up access), up from 44.5 percent in 2000, according to the U.S. Census. In Maryland, nearly 79 percent of individuals live in a household with Internet access."

I really liked the way the article ended. Since it was written for a local paper in Southern Maryland it gave some suggestions for children who still have yet to get internet access in their homes. For example, it gave a list of all the local libraries and told the audience how many computers each library had with available internet access. It also said that many public schools are extending their media lab hours so that no child feels rushed for time when trying to complete an assignment. Lastly, it encourages the students to go to libraries with free internet access, since most libraries offer free internet to their members.

To go along with this same topic of this digital divide I also read this article that I found informative. It tells how typically a family that has one or more college student or graduate have an 84% likelihood that they will have high-speed internet. A family without a college student or graduate is only 28% likely to be connected to the net. This article has more of a negative view of the digital divide because the author finds it rather annoying that our culture is "ALWAYS ON." By this he means that people are constantly texting or using their cell phones in some way. He even says how our generation cannot sit through an entire movie without looking at their phone. I found that statement to be rather funny because I know I most certainly cannot get through a movie with sending a text or checking my phone. I do not know if thats a good or a bad thing..I have not really decided yet. I just know that my addiction to my phone and other social media devices will most likely never change.

Youtube Lawsuits and Vicious Comments

Our reading for today was about Youtube and how it integrates all different types of people. For example, anyone from political figures to school teachers use Youtube for their profession. It is also used by students all over the world for entertainment and school projects. I decided to do some more research on the secrets behind Youtube and some lawsuits that have been brought against Youtube. I found this story in which a Columbia Business School Grad, who also holds a degree from Duke, sued Youtube for a comment posted on a video posted on the site. The video was one of her promoting the Columbia Business School and the comments below it were pretty harsh. One commenter posted "whore" another one posted "skank" and the last one called her an "old hag." The video had over 400 viewers, which does not even sound like a lot compared to other Youtube videos, however, it was enough to upset this Columbia student. The student has a good idea about who posted these comments but she wants proof and justice. The suit is still going on but the article leaves the audience with several questions....

1) Should commenters be allowed to post anonymously?

2) Should google(who owns Youtube) be forced to turn in the commenters names?

3) Will more lawsuits against Youtube happen as a result of this case?

These are all important questions to examine when looking and hearing about lawsuits on all types of social networking sites, not just Youtube.

I also found this article which tells the story of a mother that posted a 30 second video of her 18-month old son dancing around to the song "Lets go Crazy." In June 2007 the mother received an email from Youtube saying that the video had been removed due to copyright infringements. The mother was very confused because when she got this notice the Youtube video only had 28 hits..mostly from family and friends. This mother fought back by saying that she uses Youtube for her home videos and just because 3o second music clip was played in the background, no one has the right to remove her online home videos. After much talk between lawyers, the video was reposted and the mother was very happy. Many commenters on this article felt that Youtube should not have reposted her video because she did break the law. However, others felt that it was stupid that the woman ever even got in trouble since the video only had 28 hits. Since this lawsuit the video has gotten over 1 millions hits. Check it out!

New Media in Classrooms

The reading we discussed today talked a lot about the forms of new technology used in schools and how it is used interactively. The article said how we should use technology together and not apart, that way we will get the most effective type of new media advances. When I was in grade school we rarely ever used new media, except for in computer class. My brother is in grade school now and I feel like they do much more online work than I even did, which is a great thing. Without introducing kids to new media, you are not preparing them. They need to learn about new media because that is pretty much all the business world uses today. I found this website that gives teachers hints on how to expose kids more to new media and technology. Some of the ideas it suggest are; online homework, which I think is a great idea because in college a lot of my homework is on Blackboard or other online sites. They also suggest using overhead projections and powerpoints because they will draw kids attention more than just writing on the chalkboard. The thing I liked the most about this website is it mentions the "paperless classroom" which means that you submit everything online and there are no worksheets or handed in paper. This idea will teach kids how to be comfortable with the online world and also help the keep the world "green" by not wasting paper.

We also discussed in class the importance of Facebook and politics and mentioned how the most common reason people "defriend" others on Facebook is because they get annoyed with their political views that they post via their status. I have bad news for those who get annoyed with the politics on Facebook...it is NEVER going away! Well..at least according to this blog/website. This article states that Facebook is going to play a permanent place in Politics. The author cites several reasons for this. For example, Facebook is free, unlike many other campaign sites. It costs politicians nothing to campaign via Facebook, so why wouldn't they use that as their main source of getting their message out there. This article also makes another important point saying that unlike Google where ads are targeted at content keywords on a site, Facebook ads allow one to identify with the ads and target people who agree with your value system. The author of this article ends by saying, Facebook is around to stay because as of right now it is America's top social media source.

Lastly, I decided to do some more research on "defriending" others on Facebook and look more into the most common reasons people "defriend." This article states many top reasons that people "defriend" such as; annoying status' about politics and religions, also crude or racist comments on their walls or status updates. This article discusses a survey done about unfriending in which they discovered that the people being "unfriended" are typically the ones that go around "friending" random people. Those who rarely "friend" others are rarely ever "unfriended" by others. I thought this was interesting but it does sound about right. I know my friends that never friend request people on Facebook often get very annoyed when they get friend request from people they do not know well, so it does make sense that they would later unfriend those people.

Reviews of DIGG & Spying on Children Online

Today in class we discussed DIGG and how different people like and dislike it for certain reasons. I had never been on the DIGG website before today and I actually really liked it. Sometimes I am too lazy to look for interesting articles to read online so from now on I will turn to DIGG. The top articles on DIGG all sounded like articles I typically read when I am on a news website or when reading the newspaper. I found this website that provided various reviews of DIGG and went through the websites pros and cons. Here is the website, it is called Webtrends. It says that one of the cons would be that if someone does not like a certain topic or author, they can simply "sink" that article. However, I think the majority of the people using the website are judging the article by what it says or what point it makes, not if they agree with the article or author. The pros state that DIGG is extremely easy to use and it has a large variety of articles so it should appeal to a large audience. The website it came from, Webtrends, also has a cool concept. It gives ratings on various new and old online sites. For example, I found reviews for Propeller, Newsvine, and it even has a list of the top Social News and Networking sites. Check it out!

I also searched "Facebook" on the Webtrends website and it gave the top reasons why everyone should be on Facebook. It says you should use Facebook because you can find old friends on it, it can be your online photobook, it has game, and it is good for your job and business. All of these things are true and I feel like these days more and more adults are getting Facebook for their jobs and some jobs are even requiring their employees to get Facebooks so they can connect with others within the business. I am curious if Facebook started to charge people how many members would stop using Facebook. I also wonder if companies would pay for their employees accounts, since some employees are required to have a Facebook.

I also found this website called ALLFACEBOOK.com. Their tag line is "The unofficial Facebook Resource." The website includes tons of posts about things that happen on Facebook, both good and bad. This article from the website talks about a teacher who got fired for "flirting" with his students online and "friended" many of his students on Facebook. The teacher also commented on students pictures saying totally unprofessional and inappropriate things like "this is sexy" on student's photos. I know that many of my high school teachers would not accept our "friend requests" until after we graduated in order to avoid any trouble. I do not think some students realize just how much trouble a teacher can get in for communicating with a student online about non school related issues. People should really think twice before accepting a friend request or even worse, posting comments for the whole world to see.

Creator of Napster and new Facebook Advances

This past weekend I saw the new movie "The Social Network" and I loved it! I really did not think I was going to but after reading all the great reviews it was getting I had to check it out. I do not want to ruin the movie at all but the creator of Napster, Shawn Fanning, plays a large part in the making of Facebook. Seeing him in the movie made me want to know more about him. I found this interview with him. I was shocked to find that he is very similar to Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook. Fanning created Napster when he was a college student and was shocked to see how far it went. Even though it was eventually shut down, Napster started a huge revolution in the music industry, for the good and the bad. It made many artists more popular than they ever would have been if their songs were only played once and a while on the radio and it also caused many law suits because artists were not making any money off of their music. Napster was most certainly the start of the era of New Media. Even adults who were not good with computers turned to Napster to get their "free music." Check out this interview with Shawn Fanning.

Today in class we also were discussing the Facebook workers and I was curious how many people work for Facebook now. Since it is such a huge company I would have to imagine there are tons of employees. I found this on their website. I was amazed to find all of the careers they have to offer. Everything from HR to Sales. The Facebook team also gets great benefits, as you can see on their website. They have a 401K plan and great discounts with Apple, Dell and ATT and they have a laundry service that you can drop your clothes off at and the clothes will be dropped off at your desk by the end of the day. Another great perk of working with Facebook is they offer free shuttle services to and from their offices. The last great benefit I read on their website was that they offer FREE breakfast, lunch, and dinner at some of their locations. So for those of us beginning to search for jobs out of college, Facebook may be a good place to apply.

Lastly, we were discussing BING today in class. I decided to do some research on BING and social networking sites and I found this ABC News article. The article says that Facebook and BING are now coming together on the "Search" field. It describes how BING will now show results of ones Facebook friends searches so they can see what they have in common. They can also see what their friends "liked" or sites they commonly visit. This is a bit creepy to me and I hope there is a way to turn this off. I do not really care nor do I want to see any sites my Facebook friends visit. Here is the quote from the websites :

HOW IT WORKS: Bing is using Facebook's "instant personalization" feature, which customizes websites based on the likes and interests of Facebook members and their friends. Restaurant-review website Yelp and music site Pandora also use instant personalization. Bing will only show information that Facebook members already designate as public.

Common Sense about Location Sharing

This week I did my presentation on TWITCHANGE and SOCIALGO. They are two websites that show the positive aspects of Social Networking sites. They both allow for good things to happen on the Internet. As I said in my presentation, Social Networking sites are good things as long as they are used in the right way. It is only when people take advantage of these sites that things can go drastically wrong. However, that is not the fault of the website, it is the fault of the person.

Today in class we discussed Location Sharing and how it influences and effects young kids and how it is being banned in several schools. I decided to do my own research on the effects of location sharing with kids. I found this website, which caters mostly to teachers and parents. Parents are typically not updated on what is going on online with their kids so this website tells them everything they need to know. The website gave several facts about kids sharing their locations and the facts kind of shocked me. They state that a 2010 study showed that 69% of kids, ages 13-17, included their physical location on their social networking status update. I am sure many parents were shocked to read this because I think parents (including my own) are clueless when it comes to how much information their kids can post on Facebook. I checked out my little brother's, who is 14, Facebook page and I was shocked about how many times he wrote exactly where he was on his status update..for example, his status over the weekend was "At the Eagles game with the fam." He basically just told the whole world that my house was empty and was going to stay empty for at least 4 hours till the game was over. The website also has a video that I think everyone should check out because it truly does inform parents and the rest of the world how scary it can be when a child post exactly where they are and exactly who they are with. I think a lot of kids do not see anything wrong with sharing their location because they see all of their peers doing the same thing.

Does not having a Facebook result in Social Suicide?

It sounds like a crazy questions but according to some people its totally true. I was shocked to find this article. It comes from a website called "College Candy" that has daily postings from various authors about different real world issues. This article claims that its only "weird" people that do not have Facebooks and she often wonders what is wrong with people that do not have Facebooks. She even compares people without Facebook to people who have never tried PB&J. In class we have discussed a lot of things about Facebook but we never really discussed how people are treated for not having a Facebook. I know one of my friends deactivated his Facebook for a couple weeks and he said he would never do it again...when I asked why he said "way too many people have asked me what happened to my Facebook and I am sick of it" he also said that his girlfriend accused him of being shady for deleting his Facebook. I couldn't help but think..well that is a little shady?? Then I took a second to realize that maybe he just wanted to concentrate on school and studying instead of constantly logging on Facebook. I think maybe I should try it and see how much better I do in school..it would be a good test. This author of the above linked article also asks the audience how they live without Facebook, I think that statement may have been a little extreme but at the same time I know so many people that I know would go crazy if Facebook ever went away. Everyone should also check out the comments below the article because it is interesting to see how different people feel on the subject of having/not having a Facebook.

We also talked about the creator of Facebook a lot in class so I went and did some of my own research on him. Most of the stuff was repetitive but I did find this from the NY Daily News. The article states that Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, CANNOT be blocked on Facebook. This is a little scary because it is possible to block every other Facebook member in the world. It just shows that he wants the users to know that he is in control and no matter how many privacy settings you enable, he will always have access. After I read this article I did try to block him and an "error" message came up, just as the article said would happen if someone tried to block him.

Social Networking sites being used for the WRONG reasons.

Today in class we talked a lot about things that have gone wrong because of social networking sites. For example, students getting expelled for their Myspace pictures or events and parties getting cancelled because of teachers or deans finding the event on Facebook. I decided to do some of my own research about "things gone wrong" when using social networking websites. I found many different websites/blogs/postings about people getting in trouble from different social networking sites. However, after sorting through all of them I found 2 particular websites that really stuck out and surprised me.

Over the summer one of my co-workers told me that she was fighting with her husband because of something he saw on Facebook. My co-workers ex-boyfriend (from high school) was sending her private messages on Facebook asking her to meet up and talk to him. My co-worker never responded to the messages but never the less her husband was upset by what he saw. She explained to me that since her husband is not an avid Facebook user he did not understand that Facebook is used for keeping in touch and getting back in touch with old friends. I found this website which claims that 1 in 5 divorces is blamed on Facebook these days. The author of this article said that "Divorce Online" did a study which is where they are getting these horrifying results. Kennan, the person who headed the study, claims that sexual and inappropriate Facebook chats were the most common reason for these Facebook divorces. Another interesting fact I learned from this website was that divorce lawyers now check the Facebook of the other spouse to see if they can use any evidence from their Facebook during the court hearing.

This next website I found really freaked me out. I had seen something on TV about this case but I never really knew the details of it. This case involves a mother creating a Myspace hoax to hurt the feelings of a 13 year old girl (her daughters friend). This mom tricked the young girl into thinking an older boy, named "Josh", liked her and then eventually broke her heart. This insecure 13 year old committed suicide because she was unable to deal with this heartbreak and loss of friendship. I could not believe that a parent, who had a daughter the same age, would ever do that to a young insecure girl dealing with depression. Here is the link to this CNN story.

Both of these situations have a common factor...they both involve adults. I want to point this out because I can not tell you the amount of times I have heard a teacher, parents, ect. say that young teens do not know how to handle social networking sites. In the two above examples, grown adults clearly do not know how to handle social networking sites. This just goes to show that age does not matter when it comes to social networking sites...a 14 year old has to hide their facebook when they may just be using facebook to meet new friends going into high school...where as a 40 year old adult should be the one thats regulated when they are using social networking sites to cheat on their spouse or making a fake Myspace account. I think the stereotype of young people doing "bad things" on social networking sites should disappear and we should start to examine why people of all ages are using social networking sites.

The "like" button is causing controversy.

We have been talking a lot about social networking websites in class the past few weeks so I decided to write my blog on one of the most popular social networking sites...Facebook. One of my friends had told me they heard something on the news about controversy with the "Like" button on facebook. I decided to look more into this and I was surprised to find that many legitimate websites talking about the "Like" button. I never really thought twice about using the "Like" button. In my eyes it was just an easier way to comment on a picture or post without really commenting. For example, instead of writing "cute picture" I would just hit the "Like" button. I never really "Liked" pages or celebrity fan sites, even thought I get tons of people inviting me to "Like" pages they "Like." Here are two of the most interesting websites I found on controversy, and even lawsuits, surrounded around the "Like" button.

This first case deals with minors using the "Like" button. This article discusses David Cohen v. Facebook. Cohen says that there are been millions of cases where Facebook has "misappropriated a minors name or likeness for profit." Naturally, Facebook fights back and releases this statement, "We believe this suit is completely without merit and we will fight it vigorously. The complaint misunderstands the law, it’s intent and the way Facebook works. For example, plaintiffs assert that minors are marketing Facebook through search engines but we do not allow minors to include their profiles in search engines,” said Andrew Noyes, Facebook’s manager of public policy communications. Cohen says he was fighting for all Facebook users, especially minors, who have been "used" by Facebook and other advertising companies. Here is the link to the article; http://mashable.com/2010/08/27/facebook-class-action-suit/.

The second article I found was on CNN's website. This article discusses how the "Like" button is a security issue. Since the "Like" button is now linked to other Webpages, it tracks all of the sites that are viewed by a particular user. According to this article, the Facebook Chief Executive said this like to other webpages makes Facebook and its users more "social." I never really considered that this was a security issue until I read this CNN site. I think after learning more about the "Like" button I have learned to be much more careful when using it. Here is the link to the CNN article; http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/social.media/06/02/cnet.facebook.privacy.like/index.html

Racism Online; Kanye West.

Today in class we discussed the Jessie Daniels article about cyberacism and propaganda. I never really knew much about racism online until I read this article and until we had a discussion about about it during class. I looked up some more information about cyber racism and came up with a few interesting recent issues of cyber racism. We all remember the Taylor Swift/Kanye West incident at the MTV video music awards. If you dont remember, here is a video of what happened. Kanye took the microphone from Taylor and gave a shout out to Beyonce. Obviously, many people were upset by this and felt really bad for Taylor Swift. It is a shame however that this incident turned into a race issue. Not only were people blogging/facebooking/twittering ect. about this incident no stop but it soon turned into a race war. People were saying crazy racist remarks (especially on Twitter) for all the world to see.

I found a link to this website. Someone actually hacked into Wikipedia and changed Kanyes biography. His edited Wikipedia page was full of racist remarks. It is sad that someone would go that out of their way over an incident at the VMA's, even Taylor said she was over it once he said he was sorry. The website asks people to share their thoughts on the updated Wikipedia page, mostly everyone that commented disagreed with what the hacker had done, thankfully! I also found another website that talks more about the racist comments left about Kanye on Twitter. Some of these are even worse than the Wikipedia page..and thats pretty bad. I was shocked when I read all about this racism that Kanye was dealing with online because it probably makes him, and a lot of other people, feel so hopeless. There is really nothing they can do to get these comments offline, because like it says on the website, there is freedom of speech and people can think and act as they want online. This can relate back to what we discussed today in class about propaganda websites. There is really nothing anyone can do about them, unless they violate copyright issues or something like that. We discussed how a political career can be ruined by a simple facebook page that is created with false facts. It is sad that the world has come to this but it is something we must be aware of. We do not want to fall into the trap of propaganda.

Child Safety Online

We have been talking about online bullying for a while now, it comes up almost every time we discuss online security. I decided to write my blog on this because I was just talking with my parents last night and they just had to go to a "Cyber Bullying Information Session" for my brothers grade school. My brother is in 8th grade and apparently the have been having some issues in his school with cyber bullying. My parents are both pretty good with the computer and are usually pretty up on current events but they were shocked after this information session. They had no idea that any of this was going on, they were shocked that kids could be this mean to each other via the Internet. They also told me that during the meeting they talked about Skype and how it is becoming a problem because now kids are torturing other kids face-to-face. I was even shocked to hear this because I had no idea that people are using Skype for all the wrong reasons. The teachers and administrators giving the information session suggested that each parent limit their child's internet use to one hour per day and that they should have to sit in a common room of the house, not up in their rooms where they could be up to no good.

I decided to do some of my own research about how parents can keep their children safe online and keep them away from bullies or internet predators. I found this website. It is a link off of Microsoft's website and it is very helpful for parents who are trying to protect their kids. It basically goes through and gives age groups and how strict/not strict a parent should be with their child (when it comes to the Internet) at each child's particular age. For example, at age 11-14 parents should make sure that they talk to their teens and let them know what is acceptable and what is not, like what websites they are allowed on and what they aren't. Microsoft also suggests that all teens should have to keep their computers in a common room, not just in their bedrooms..which is the same thing they told my parents at their information session.

Overall, I think parents just need to watch closely what kids are doing. Parents, like my own, are always shocked when topics like this come up. Parents should do their best to stay up to date on what is going on with their child's age group. Even if it starts a fight with the child there should be controlled online use, there is no need for a child to stay online for 6 hours a day, they should be outside playing with friends or hanging out with family. All that time online at such a young age can never be a good thing.

Personalization Throughout the Years

We have discussed personalization many times throughout the semester but one thing I was curious about was how is has changed since the Internet has been active. For as long as I can remember I have been able to "personalize" my computer and internet choices. Now I can pretty much narrow every website I look at to be the way that I want it and to show the information that I want to see. For example, if I am on Facebook I can click "Hide Jen" if I do not want to read information about my friend Jen. I know many of my friends have used this method to get over ex boyfriends... although I am not sure how much "hiding" them will help the situation.

Since I was not really able to find information online about how personalization has changed throughout the years I decided to do some personal interviews with friends and family members who range from ages 35-60. I first explained to them what personalization was and then I asked them if they use it in their everyday Internet lives, I also asked them if personalization was popular when they were my age. Here are the responses I got...

"I use it everyday, especially with the news websites, some mornings I just want happy news and I don't want to read the depressing stories. I just recently discovered that personalization existed and just started personalizing the things I read about 2 months ago."

-Lori, age 36.

"I do not use personalization, maybe I am old school. I think that you should see and read as much as you can, even if it doesn't interest you. I never used it growing up either, I was always encouraged to read and study as much as I could..no matter what topic it was on."

-Tom, age 48.

"I am not that great with the computer but I think I personalize when I am reading magazines and the newspaper. I usually only read the sections that interest me."

-Felicia, age 60.

I found this mini survey to be very interesting. It seems that everyone still feels so different on the issue of personalization. I also realized that just because some people are not on the computer everyday that does not mean they do not personalize, even though the computer makes it extra easy to do. You can personalize your newspapers and magazines and even books. I agree that people should have a little knowledge on every topic so that they can know how to communicate with others, and have the "common experience" like Sunstein thinks we should have. Sunstein makes some great points about personalization and he has the power to really make you think about how diverse/not diverse the life you are living is.

CDA Cases Throughout the Years

Last night when I was reading the article by Goldsmith and Wu I found one topic that stood out to me, the CDA. As we discussed today in class CDA stands for the "Communications Decency Act," this act came about in 1996 and it basically went after inappropriate or indecent sexual internet and videos online. The CDA concentrated on images and videos that contained minors under the age of 18.

I decided to do more research on the CDA since I found it to be interesting and figured there would be a lot of information on it. I was right...there were tons of websites on the CDA and blogs with people expressing their opinions on it. However, I was able to find one website that went into different cases that the CDA enforced this rule on. This cyber-rights website goes into detail about certain cases in the US where judges used/did not use the CDA. I was shocked to read about some of these cases and found most of them to be very disturbing. One case talks about the US postal authorities shutting down a porn network that had children as young as 7 years old work for them and being active participants in videos. I honestly can not imagine what parent would ever want their child to be involved in something like that...I am sure that it is a big money maker though.

This website also discusses several teachers who were arrested for pretending to be child psychologist in online chat rooms. The case about the teachers reminded me of what we discussed today in class about the solidarity and accountability online. Whenever a person is online they need to be safe, it is so easy for people to make up websites and change their identity. I know even my own Grandmother was fooled by an online stock trade website, she ended up getting about $1000 stolen from her bank account. I realize some people (like my Grandmother) are naive to the way people can act and the fraud that can go on online. I think people just need to think twice before they make any type of online purchase or even chat with a stranger in a chat room.

Public Forum Doctrine

Hello!

Tonight while studying for my midterm I realized that there is one topic I really wanted to discuss in my blogs but haven't had the chance to address, this topic is the public forum doctrine. When we first read about this in Sunstein's article I thought it was really interesting. The first thing that came to my mind was when my friends, they go to school at a small university in Connecticut, I took them into Chinatown for dinner and they were SHOCKED when they saw all the people walking around holding flyers and chanting religious bible verses. They said they had never seen anything like that before, they were confused about why they were allowed to stand outside the metro saying these things and I really didn't have an answer for them. However, after learning about the public forum doctrine I now realize why people are allowed to stand on the sidewalks of public places and share information with the people around them.
I think that free speech and the public forum doctrine are great inventions. I admit at times I get very frustrated with people on the streets trying to get me to take their packets of information or tell me about their organization. In the end I feel that it is important to listen to what others have to say. I am one of those people who only reads/hears what I want, if they are talking about something on the news that I am not interested in, I would probably turn it off. I think learning about personalization has helped me to realize how much I limit myself. I need to become more open to ideas and news, even if I do not find it interesting. I plan on studying abroad and I think that I need to stop limiting myself if I want to have a good experience abroad. Sunstein brings up many good points in his article about why we should stop personalizing our lives. The one that stuck out to me the most was that it will stop us from being connected to other people because if we feel we have nothing in common with them, we probably will not try to mingle with them. As a Media Studies major, I plan on getting into the Public Relations world and I think I need to become more open to ideas and stay exposed to a wide range of topics so that I am able to communicate with my co-workers and clients.

-Liz

Presentation & PBS Video

Hi Everyone!

Here is the link to the website that Emma and I presented on today. We found this website to be very interesting and helpful in understanding the Richard Stallman article that we had to read. Feel free to check out the website.. it has a lot of thing on it that we were not able to cover today. For example, their NEWS page that updates its members and potential members on what is going on with the FSF and the improvements that have made with their campaigns.

On another note..I wanted to discuss the video that we watched today in class for my blog entry this week. I can honestly say that it was one of the most interesting videos that I have ever seen (in a classroom setting). I was really able to connect and agree with what the teachers and principal had to say about the internet. One of the teachers said that when kids come into a classroom and they do not have access to internet and computers it is like walking into a desert. I have never been a great test taker or had that great of a memory so I also agreed with the teacher that said that the world we live in today is not measured by memorization and almost no job today requires you to memorize things. I interned at a Public Relations firm this past summer and I found that all of the textbooks and readings that I have been studying for the past 17 years of my life really did not help me with my internship. The thing that helped me was my ability to communicate with my co-workers and my ability to research information online. Another teacher said, "technology is like oxygen" and although I think that may be a little bit of an overstatement, I do agree that for many kids it is. Giving them computers to do their work makes them want to do it, I remember how much I use to hate those math and english workbooks I was given in elementary school, I would have much rather done an online assignment or used an online workbook, it almost makes doing homework fun!

I found this website that allows schools and organizations to find grants for laptops and other things they need. I decided to look this up because at the end of class today we raised the question of how these schools pay for laptops. I could not find a solid answer but I have a feeling that many schools do apply for these grants and many people are wiling to put forth money for schools to buy laptops for their students. This website allows people to search for different types of grants as well as donate to a particular grant that they feel is close to their heart. It is only for educational purposes so that way the people who donate know that their money is going to the right place. Check it out!

-Liz

Tinkering with Apple Products

This week in class when discussing the Zittrain article we mentioned the Apple 2 produce that came out in 1977. We learned how many people would "tinker" with it in order to figure out how to "beat" Apples system or simply because they were bored. I was surprised to learn that this actually helped Apples sales, and did not hurt them. Today in 2009 Apple has made it nearly impossible to "tinker" with their products. Although I am not all that great with technology I do have an Iphone and a Mac and I feel like it would be very difficult to "tinker" with either of those products.

We also discussed how in the past the Iphone or intense Apple products were typically for "hobbyist" or those who were very into technology. Today, they are for everyone, even people that know nothing about technology at all. For example, my grandmother, she got the Iphone a few months after it first came out and LOVES it. She is constantly texting me and my brother or emailing her church friends. I like how Apple was able to create a product that was not just for tech savvy people. The Iphone is for everyone and if my grandmother could figure out how to use it I am pretty sure almost anyone could.

Lastly, I was telling the class about the application a friend of mine made, here is the link to the app. she created for the Iphone. It's pretty funny and creative.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bull-crack/id334816494?mt=8#

OLPC

Hey Everyone,

When a presentation was done last week on "One Laptop Per Child" I was very interested. In fact, I even picked that topic from the syllabus as one of the 3 things I would have liked to do a presentation on, even though I knew nothing about it, I thought it sounded interesting. I am glad "One Laptop Per Child" was incorporated into a presentation before we were assigned the reading by John Dvorak because it gave me a little background information on the topic.

After reading the article from John Dvorak I found this video(http://www.fastcompany.tv/video/inside-one-laptop-per-childs-wireless-features). The video shows Michall Biestas(VP of Advanced Technology and Connectivity with the OLPC project) talk about some of the amazing features that the laptops have to offer. For example, their wireless internet and their advanced power saving features. I also liked this video because it shows the audience around a "OLPC" studio and so you can see how they make the laptops and how busy the office is on a typical workday. The video is a little long but I think it is worth it to watch some of it. The interview with Michall Biestas is pretty casual so the audience can see how down to earth he is and how he believes "OLPC" will continue to be a success.

Hope you are all enjoying the week off/snow storm :)

Liz

Should we stop sharing the goods?

In class today when we were discussing the Brendan Luyt's article on who benefits from digital divide it suddenly began to click for me. At first when I was reading the article on my own I was a little confused and was not quite sure how this all relates to new media, it sounded like more of an economic issue. Now I understand that Internet and the social networking that we do on the Internet is all part of the new media world. If we do not look at the potential good and bad things that are going to happen with the Internet in the future all around the world we are simply being ignorant and taking it for granted.

I found the Information Capital topic to be the most interesting discussion that we have had so far in class. Probably because it hits close to home for me. My step-dad works in IT and they have just recently fired many of his coworkers in order to send their business over to India, where it is much cheaper. My step-dad has been fortunate enough to keep his job but his and my families life have been altered greatly because of these changes. Our house phone rings at least once every night between the hours of 1am-4am. This is because when the workers across the world have an issue during their day time, it is our night time. It is very frustrating to have to deal with this and has made my step-dad(and the rest of our family) resent a job he once loved. It is also frustrating for his co-workers in Indian because they had to learn, in a very short amount of time, how to deal with people in the United States and basically learn our cultures and customs even though some of them have never even been to the US and most likely will never travel here.

After listening to Dr. Akavan's lecture on the need for new markets for information technologies and reading the article I began to realize that maybe these countries do need a chance to learn about the Internet and they do deserve some of the jobs they are given because of all the hard work they put into learning our customs and dealing with difficult customers when taking customer service phone calls. So the question I leave unanswered because I am still unsure how I feel about it myself is... Should we stop sharing the goods? Or are we doing the right thing?