The End........ or is it????

I really liked this blog idea and thoroughly enjoyed the entire assignment. It was a way of experiencing a class by thinking outside the box. I also enjoyed interacting with many of my classmates and seeing how they were experiencing the same thing I was doing. It is not often that we take a class and not only do we get to talk about our assignments but we also get a chance to read them and see how people comprehend the readings. I really do not think that any of the assignments were boring or pointless and I really enjoyed every one of them. There were a couple of assignments where I had to step out of my comfort zone including the first assignment about internet abstinence and the assignment we did about online communities. Some assignments got real emotional such as the snail mail assignment and the final one about or experience on the internet. It was amazing to see how other people interact on the internet and to read what they use it for. The discussion board was another part that I enjoyed, now I must say that I really do not like tests which is why my major focuses on writing, and this class was perfect for people who do not like tests, so the discussion board was a good way of “quizzing” us on the readings as well as making us incorporate the readings in to our blogs. So I would not change a thing when it comes to grading or the assignments. I think a class should make you think not only about the material but also how the material affects you and this class definitely did just that. After the first week I was questioning whether or not I was addicted to the internet and throughout the rest of the course I realized that I take a lot of things for granted. The most enjoyable part of this assignment was interacting with my classmates. It was really encouraging to see that people were actually reading what I was saying and that people were actually reading it. The other part I enjoyed was learning how to manage a blog, I’m for sure going to continue to blog because it’s a good way of writing down your thoughts and opinions. Hopefully more online classes follow this model because not only was it really helpful but it was also very entertaining. It was a pleasure to write and read with you all.

Online interactions and Rascism

I have never looked forward to an assignment more than this one. A few weeks back me and my buddy were playing Halo online against random people from all over the place. We interacted with some pretty cool people including a guy from Scotland, and a really cool woman from New Zealand; both had really cool accents or were really good at faking them. Anyway my friend and I got in a real heated battle with a couple of Gents who were as my friend put it “born without a verbal filter”. These guys were saying some of the most offensive stuff I have ever heard. Things that would make many Rated R comedies blush, but the most surprising of all were the racial epithets that were slung around. My friend who is African American couldn’t help but laugh every time the “N” word was used. I began to wonder why he was laughing and not getting offended and my buddy told me that people are much tougher on the internet where they know they can not get hit. This got me thinking about the internet and the use of freedom of speech. Throughout this whole course we have examined how people communicate through the internet and what kind of facades people put up to change there personalities and this has never rang true more than in the online gaming world. My friend told me he was not offended because he knows the people on the internet would never say that to his face because there would be repercussions, I know that if someone got in my face and insulted me I would not take it lightly, but he tells me that they use the internet to hide there true selves and he was right, had this interaction happened outside of cyberspace there would have probably been a huge brawl and those are never good. This interaction was not misinterpreted because the guy meant what he said but he used his advantage of being in his own space where he could not be hurt to speak his mind.
I liked the discussion on Discursive Resistance and the analogy of what to say and not say in a classroom. The same rules should be applied to the internet but sadly there is no one to relegate what happens on the internet all of the time. Though the one issue people would have with that is it takes away there freedom of speech which is a good argument but if you are going to use that freedom to bash another person for something they cannot control or what they believe you should really consider what you say and where you say it. Now I know I got a little preachy but this happens everyday where people abuse the freedom and know that if ever put in that scenario they would not utter the words they say when they are alone.

the internet and its various uses for various ages.

So this week we were asked to interview 3 people of varying ages about how they use the internet. This was a relatively fun exercise especially when it got to the older generations. For this assignment I interviewed my 21 year old tech savvy brother, my mom who has requested I don’t give her age but she fits the second demographic, and finally my grandmother who was my favorite interview. Ill start with my brother.
My brother uses his computer for pretty much everything and when he isn’t near it he uses his blackberry to go on the internet, there isn’t a moment in the day where I don’t see Brad either updating his Facebook status, browsing amazon or Ebay, or watching downloaded movies on his computer. He told me that he also uses it to communicate with his friends that are studying abroad via Skype. He says he is comfortable with communicating on the internet and this is made obvious by our abbreviated conversations with remarks like LOL, LMAO, BRB and many others. he wont admit to being addicted to technology but he is just like many of us in the world and it has changed how his life works, he lives in an apartment with no T.V or cable and uses various sites to keep up with the shows he enjoys. My brother likes the internet because it makes things easier for him, keeping in touch with friends to shopping he says that we are lucky that we get this tool to use but he does agree that we may exploit it too much.
Next is my mom who frequently complains about the internet and tells stories of a simpler time when it didn’t exist. This always makes me laugh. My mom says that she uses the internet for 3 things, Email, Shopping, and doing money affairs like deposits from one account to another and paying bills. Mom said the main ones are for emailing family about important things and doing the bills. She says that the internet has made it a lot easier to pay bills on time and know exactly where money is going and to who. My mom says she has no problem communicating on the internet but when she gets emails from relatives with abbreviations in them she turns to my brother to decipher them. My mom sees the internet as a place where both good and bad things happen but she mostly hears of the bad things like identity theft and people looking for kids on the internet. Mom has a very skewed view on the internet and doesn’t understand why we depend on it so much.
Now my favorite interview because my grandma is very opinionated about the internet and today youth using it. First off my grandma uses the internet for one specific thing and it is Ebay. Every time I visit she has something new she bought from ebay and usually its either a new piece of Mariners or Packers Memorabilia or some gadget she saw on TV. My grandma is well trained in the art of the Bid, here’s the problem though, she can never remember her passwords so she has sticky notes all over the computer reminding her of the different passwords she has on the computer. That is all my grandma uses it for, other than that she is very old fashioned, she would rather listen to the Mariners games on the radio than watch them on TV, she loves Dave Niehaus. She also sends snail mail rather than email and has never owned a cellular phone. Her opinion about the internet is the same opinion about TV and Video Games; it is just another “Idiot Box”. She often tells stories about her upbringing and how my generation is lucky and over privileged, but that doesn’t stop her from sending my youngest cousin to watch TV so he’ll stop crying.
I didn’t learn anything new but I did gather some opinions for myself. I realized that the older generations do t like the internet because it can get really confusing, the most common complaint I heard from my mom and my grandma is that everyday it seems like there is something new that needs to be clicked and that the internet should have some sort of simplification system installed to it so that people will stop getting confused. But I think even then they would still complain about it.