Smartphones and Society

For my final research paper in new media class, I wrote about the good and bad effects of smartphones on society. I chose this topic because of the impact that my iPhone has had on my life since I purchased my first one in 2009. Almost everybody I know that owns a smartphone no longer know knows what to do without it. There are so many things that people use their smartphones for reference throughout the day. I was talking to my neighbor yesterday who fell out of his boat into a river with his phone in his pocket, and it is no longer works. He said to me that he feels "naked" without it. I totally agree with him. When I forget my phone I feel lost. In my paper, I cover the effects of smartphones on education, work, and personal life. Check it out at http://klconnors.students.noctrl.edu/drip/index.html.

Internet and the News

In class we learned about how the news industry has been effected by the internet. It is unfortunate that many of the newspaper companies have gone bankrupt due to online journalism, but after all the internet is a more effective way to get the news stories seen. The internet has allowed citizens to become journalists as well. Especially with all of the cameras people have on their phones. When events take place there are always people to document them. On top of this, people can look at the news whenever, where ever they are as long as they have access to a computer, tablet, or smartphone. This is great because people no longer need to wait for the stories to be printed, or broadcasted.

I love the fact that I can read the news on my phone. I think the majority of my generation agrees with me because it is a hassle to go out and buy a newspaper. Now we don't even need to leave the house. Before I had the internet I would rarely hear the news because I had to go out of my way to get it, or wait for the news to come on TV. I honestly didn't care enough to hear the news. Now, I am more up to date with whats going on locally, and around the world because it's right at the tip of my fingers.

Image from: http://people.howstuffworks.com/newspaper.htm

Transmedia Storytelling

Transmedia storytelling is when a story is told over several different platforms. Instead of just watching a movie, playing a game, or reading a book, part of the story is in the movie, part of it is in the game, part is in the book, and more is on the internet, or somewhere else.  This allows the person to either participate in only one and get part of the story, or get the more out of the story by involving them self in one or more of the other platforms.
One example of transmedia storytelling that we learned about in class is the Matrix. There are three movies, a game, and the animatrix, which is a collection of different artists that have their own story in the matrix universe. There was also an online game at one point, but it no longer exists because it did not become very popular. The Matrix is a story that that you will not fully understand unless you get involved with the different platforms. Other notable franchises that are also engaged in transmedia story telling are Star Wars, Xmen, Halo, Avatar, and Batman.
I think transmedia storytelling is awesome for people that fall in love with these stories and worlds. Transmedia storytelling is a great way for these franchises to make money off of the worlds that they create. They put so much time and money put into creating these worlds that they get so much more out of them through these different platforms. On top of this, the fans get so much more out of the stories too.

Image from: http://bridgeartsmedia.com

Music and the Internet

The rise of the internet has had a huge effect on the music industry. It is so easy now to download music for free or just listen to it online, that May people have stopped buying music. There have been laws put in place trying to stop the sharing of music and video files, but people are always finding ways around it. In my opinion, once the person has a considerable amount of copies sold. they should just let us download the music for free, it's not like they make very much off of each purchase. It cant be effecting the famous musicians that bad, considering they still have enough money to have million dollar houses, nice cars, and all the clothes and accessories they could want. And after all that, they still have more spending money. Many of these musicians make enough off of their shows and other promotions to survive off of. If they allowed us to download their music for free, they may get more fans because their music could be played by more people, more often.

Image from: http://w8themes.com/music-wallpapers/

Crazy Life

These past few weeks have been crazy for me so I haven't had much time to log on, so I apologize. In new media class we have learned about a variety of topics, such as the effect of technology on the music industry, transmedia story telling, and how the internet has effected the news industry. I think it's interesting to see  how everything has evolved due to the internet. In the next few posts I will talk a little about each topic, and later I'll tell you about my research paper I just wrote called The Good and Bad Effects of Smartphones on Society.

Bullying

In class this week we discussed Danah Boyd’s chapter on bullying in “It’s Complicated”. She mentions the case of Amanda Todd, a 15-year old Canadian girl who committed suicide after being constantly harassed and bullied, both online and in person. Before Todd committed suicide, she posted a video online telling her story. Stories like this one have caused schools to create “zero tolerance” policies towards online bullying, but Danah Boyd thinks these policies do more harm than good. She mentioned in the chapter that school and parent involvement can make the situation worse because the parents don’t know all of the details. Boyd also argued that with no tolerance, the bully is often punished but the reasons why he/she is being a bully often aren’t attended to. She mentions that often times bullies act the way they do because they are having problems in their own life that they don’t know how to deal with. 

Online bullying is a tough situation to deal with. I believe that schools and parents getting involved, especially online, makes the teens feel like their privacy is being invaded. Victims of bullying will possibly even suffer more because of this. For example, a neighbor of mine was being bullied at school, online, and over text messages. The problem was brought to the school’s attention when the 13-year old’s father found out what was going on by reading the text messages coming through to his sons phone. The following day the two boys were taken to the office for counseling. A few days later, both boys were suspended for three days after getting in a fight in the hallway. The fight was started by the bully because he was now accusing the other boy of tattling, and started pushing him around. Because the boy’s father got involved and notified the school, the bullying for his child was taken to the next level, continued verbal and now physical attacks. The schools often get involved but don’t know the background of the situation and why it is happening. Now that the bully is being punished, the bullying has gotten worse. The reason for this is because the school jumped right to trying to get the two boys to make up before knowing the source of the problem. The boy felt like he was being attacked and then took it out on the other kid. Before the schools get involved they need to separate the kids involved ask them questions and try to find the reason for the bullying. Jumping to conclusions and trying to force the boys to make up is not a good way to solve a problem.

The Social Life of Teens

In class this week, we started reading Danah Boyd’s book “It’s Complicated”. In the first couple of chapters she mentions how teens these days are doing the same thing that teens twenty years ago were doing. They just go about it in a different way. Years ago, teens would be hanging out at malls, restaurants, parking lots, and many other public places. Now due to policing and laws these places aren’t as available for teens to group together and hang out. Don’t get me wrong, these places are still around for teens to hang out, but it is frowned upon by many business owners for them to loiter outside their buildings. Instead they use social media websites and other forms of online communication in order to interact with their friends. There is nothing unusual about teens using these websites, they just want to be able to connect with their friends without the constant surveillance by adults. 

In the introduction of the book, Boyd mentioned how when she was at a high school football game in Nashville, the students were still doing what they did at football games when she attended high school in Pennsylvania. The student section of the bleachers was filled with teens dressed in school colors. The upperclassmen were in the lower seats closer to the field while the freshmen were up at the top of the bleachers. The teens weren’t sucked in to their smartphones even though they each had one on them. The teens that were alone would be texting until they found the friends they were looking for, but after they were together the smartphones were put away, unless the unwanted phone call from their parents came in or they were showing a friend something on it. This goes to show that teens are not using social media and other forms of technology to separate themselves from a social life. They are using it to connect with their friends and peers when they are unable to go out of the house and hang out with them in person. Social media also allows them to interact with more people than they would if they were to go to a friend’s house or hang out at the mall.

Cybervetting

In class a few days ago we had a discussion about cybervetting. Cybervetting is when potential employers and school admissions use information from someone’s social media profile in evaluating them for hire or acceptance. Author of I Know Who You Are and I Saw  What You Did: Social Networks and the Death of Privacy, Lori Andrews thinks that we need to adopt a Social Network Constitution to protect our rights online. I can both agree and disagree with her proposal. I understand that by posting something to a social media site, you are putting the information/pictures out there for people to see, but I think we should have a right to post what we want our friends to see without the worry of being watched. I believe that the user of the SNS needs to be responsible about what they are posting online, and there shouldn’t be a problem. I definitely think that there needs to be some type of regulation on what the schools and businesses can use against you. For example, if you post a picture of yourself in possession of an illegal drug, obviously it can be used against you. If you post a picture of yourself (a person over the age of 21) holding a beer, the employer/school should not be able to use it against you because you're not breaking the law.

Will Facebook end up like the rest?

This week in my New Media class we learned about Social Networking Sites (SNS). As many of you know, these sites are a great way to connect with people you know to share pictures and update them with information about you and your everyday life. Since I started using the internet regularly, I’ve had an account on Xanga, Myspace, and Facebook. By using these websites over the years, I’ve noticed that they are comparable to a popular toy I had when I was a kid, the Furby. It was really awesome when it first came out; then I got it and it was kind of fun; then it wouldn’t shut-up and it got really annoying, so i took the batteries out. As time went on it got old and boring, and then something better came out, so I forgot all about it. When I got Xanga, I only used it for a year or two before MySpace came out, so I have only a vague memory of what it was like. I really enjoyed MySpace my first few years of high school. I was able to change the entire look of my page how I wanted it to be and I would spent hours doing this and talking back and forth with my friends. When I first heard about Facebook I thought it looked stupid because you couldn’t personalize it as much as MySpace. After using the site, I realized that it was much easier to find my friends since they were using their actual name and not a made up username. Eventually I started using Facebook more and more, and so did everyone else. Now, not a single one of my friends, or myself use MySpace. With this being said, I start to wonder if Facebook is just a fad like the other two websites were. I’ve noticed over the last year that the amount of my friends that regularly post on Facebook has drastically decreased. Even when I go on now, I rarely update my status. I only occasionally post pictures, but I don’t share entire albums like I did previously. I went from going on and posting everyday, to going on once a week just to scroll through my newsfeed to see if anyone posted cool pictures. I find it to be unassuming and a waste of my time. I think it’ll be interesting to see how long the excitement of Facebook actually lasts, or if it will become another addition to the SNS graveyard.

Image from: deepspacemarketing.com

Google

This week in my New Media class were learning about the central role that Google plays in people’s online lives. One question that was raised is, does Google have too much power over our lives? In some ways I feel that it does, and in others, it does not. I don’t personally feel like Google runs my life, although I use it everyday. When I go onto the Internet and want to find something quickly, the best way to find it is to Google it. I can look up any type of information or website that I want to just by typing it in. I think it is one of the best references there is out there for anything you need to find.  I’ve tried other search engines, but none of them were as helpful to me as Google. One thing that would be devastating to not only me, but almost everyone in the Internet using world, is if Google suddenly crashed or made their information unavailable. This is one way that I think Google does run our lives. Myself and probably millions of other people look at Google as the portal to the internet. I know I would be able to figure out how to find things on the internet without Google, but it wouldn’t be nearly as easy.

Another question that was raised is, are we addicted to Google? I’m not sure if people are just addicted to Google, or the internet as a whole. But one thing I do know is that almost every single internet using person that I have met uses Google regularly or at least has used it multiple times before. It’s just so easy to do. With this being said, I do think it is possibly a risk to our privacy. I say this because there is so much information and pictures being put up on the internet that you never know whose hands it’s going to land in. There are so many ways that people can find out information about people that it’s a little scary. I think the people to be most concerned about is kids. With the amount that kids use electronics and the internet now, there is still so much they don’t know about how to be safe on the internet.

Image from: velocityagency.com

A Blog About Bloggers

For my very first blog post I am going to share my response to an interview of Trine-Maria Kristensen conducted by Rebecca Blood, in February 2007. This was one of many interviews she did of bloggers talking about blogging. Kristensen has a blog called Hovedetpaabloggen, where she writes about her interests and things that she wants people to read and respond to. She is the founder of Social Square, a small company that helps organizations learn how to use and understand social media.

In the interview Kristensen said that one thing that got her interested in blogs was "the interconnection with people". I liked how she brought this up because I think one of the best things about blogs is that by writing about a specific topic or interest, one can bring a whole group of people together from all over the world, and allow them to share their own input, or opinion. This is a great way to learn and share information that otherwise might not be brought to peoples attention. 

Also brought up in her interview, was that when Kristensen started blogging, she was extremely shy with her posts and was unsure of what to write about This made it hard for her to get into it and she almost gave up, even though she thought it was a great way to connect with people she wouldn’t otherwise be able to. When she tried again the following year, she realized how open and inviting the blogging world really was. So many people were supportive of her ideas that it helped her become less shy where she felt comfortable sending out links to her blog. I’m glad that she brought this up in her interview because as an inexperienced writer starting a new blog, it is almost intimidating. I feel like there are so many other people out there that have way more knowledge about the topics that I would write about, that it’s hard for me to come up with something that people would actually want to read. I think her interview helped me see that regardless of what I write about, there will be people that are interested in reading and commenting about it. Which in the end we may all get a little bit smarter.

Trine-Maria Kristensen’s blog has become so successful that she was able to start a whole new career path from it. She now works full-time with corporate blogging where she does presentations, workshops, and works on projects with both large and small organizations. Her blog even became so recognized that she was contacted by an editor asking her to write a book about them, which was recently published, called Weblogs. I think its great that something that she originally did for fun in her free time has become so life changing for her.