Week 7 politics and social network

This weeks topic was politics and social networks. I feel as if I keep up with technology and some social networks. I however don't keep up with politics. Unless of course it's by the unwanted up date from my dad. He is a true Republican and I of course grew up with a republican so I vote republican also. BUT...I have to give Obama credit for using technology and social networks to reach the younger generation. The younger generation is more apt to form their own opinions rather than carrying on family preferance. There are so many web sites out there with information about politics that anyone can educate themself on the current political issues.

http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2008/The-Internet-and-the-2008-Election/01-Summary-of-Findings.aspx

Week 7 AHA

I really do not like politics. I think I have listened to more politics from this assignment than I have in my whole life! I guess the only thing I didn't mind was being able to watch the videos on my own time with out my regular TV shows being interrupted.

Week 7

This week we studied the use of social media in political elections, particularly the 2008 presidential campaign. I wasn’t really surprised by any of the information or statistics because the election wasn’t all that long ago, and I recall hearing a lot about Barack Obama’s ability to connect with younger voters through the internet. I was interested by the comment that politicians are so unreceptive to the use of technology in their campaigns. In this article from The New York Tims, Michael Cornfield (professor of political science at George Washington University ) said, "Politicians are having a hard time reconciling themselves to a medium where they can't control the message. Politics is lagging, but politics is not going to be immune to the digital revolution." I thought this was important because all of the candidates except for Obama seemed to be lagging behind in the last presidential election and I wonder how much of an impact this really had on the results.

I was also interested to read this article about the social profile of political candidates. Josh Bernoff divides internet users (or non-users) into the following categories: Creators, Critics, Collectors, Joiners, Spectators, and Inactives. I felt like this was a much better way of examining the role of social media in politics. Most other statistics just showed the rate of participation, not what that participation entailed. I think it says very different things for a person to be a Creator versus a Spectator. Both are “involved” in the political digital society, but one is a leader shaping that society while the other is a passive absorber.

Week 7 Aha

My Aha came from reading about the use of the internet and social media during the last few presidential campaigns. Although some people are probably surprised by how much the candidates use technology, I’m surprised by how little it was used in the 2000 and 2004 elections. I feel like the American public was already well on its way into the digital age, particularly by the 2004 election, and Howard Dean was the only one using the internet (he even admits the success came by accident). Perhaps the potential leaders of our country could have been more in tune with the way of the future.

Amanda week 7 aha

I had the AHA today that I am quite content not being so plugged in and need to take a break from it more often. Long live quiet time! :)

Amanda Week 7 post

This week we studied about politics and social media. I found this topic very interesting yet infuriating but that's mostly because some of the politics rubbed me the wrong way. I do have to say while interesting, I found some of the links that we were supposed to read as not very reliable resources. I believe one was someone's blog and while it's great to hear their opinion, however educated it may be, unless they are known as an expert or are associated in some way to a news outlet then I do not believe they are credible. There were a couple of links from the New York Times which I found to be very well written articles and credible. I believe that social media will continue to be used but it runs into the risk of becoming too impersonal. I believe that it needs to be well balanced. There must be some social media usage and some "old school" usage for people to really connect to someone, a blog and a website just isn't going to do it. I am a younger American and I did not utilize Twitter or Facebook for the 2008 election and I expect that I am receiving information that way that the president receives the opinion of his voters that way as well. That has not seemed to have been the case with Obama's forum that he set up so he could "hear" his voters. I do think it is good though because it has brought in the young Americans to vote and feel like their voice matters and I believe that is the best thing to come out of this social media push.

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2008/tc2008115_988160.htm
http://www.promotionworld.com/se/articles/article/081027SocialMediaandthe2008Election.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBzjRdEMjEU

Week 6 PEW Internet - Internet Usage

For this weeks assignment I was to survey five people over 50 on questions regarding their internet usage. I was so interested in the findings that I decided to go a step further and interview five people in each of the other age groups 40 to 40, 30 to 39, 20 to 29. The questions were:

1.Do you ever use the Internet to...send or read e-mail? Did you happen to do this yesterday, or not?

2.Do you ever use the Internet to...get news online? Did you happen to do this yesterday, or not?

3.Do you ever use the Internet to...do any banking online? Did you happen to do this yesterday, or not?

4.Do you ever use the Internet to...use online classified ads or sites like Craigslist? Did you happen to do this yesterday, or not?

5.Do you ever use the Internet to...use a social networking site like MySpace, Facebook or LinkedIn.com? Did you happen to do this yesterday, or not?

6.Do you ever use the Internet to...use Twitter or another service to share updates about yourself or to see updates about others? Did you happen to do this yesterday, or not?

E-mail was used by everyone but one person in the 30 to 39 and she said it was because of texting. She can text people easier than sending an e-mail.

News was interesting. The 50 and older group still likes to get the news from TV or the newspaper but the 30 to 49 year olds like the internet because they could access more news and also be able to search for what is interesting to them. the 20 to 29 year olds said they just don't like the news.

Banking shows a trend through the age groups. The 20 to 29 year olds bank on line and had used it the day before. The 30 to 39 year olds bank on line but one person didn't do it the day before. The 40 to 49 year olds everyone but one bank on line but only two checked it the day before. The 50 to 59 year olds only two bank online and those two did check it the day before. The older group said they didn't trust doing anything with financials on line.

Classifieds were more popular than I thought they would be. Only three out of the twenty interviewed did not use on line classifieds. I was one of the three. Maybe because my husband is on there all the time I don't feel the need to look for used stuff that I don't have money to buy anyway.

Social Networking had more 50 and older people than the 40 to 49 age group. Only two out of the five used the internet for social networking. I found that shocking. I also was shocked to see that not all of the 20 to 29 year olds used social networks. One guy said it was because his girlfriend had a Facebook so she keeps him up to date on anything happening.

Twitter or other sharing sites had very few people. In fact only three out of twenty used this. The three used blogs because they are in school and required to blog. That is the only reason I blog. Before this class I would not have even thought of blogging.

Check out http://www.pewinternet.org/ and see what surveys you find interesting.

Angela's Week 6 AHA Moment

I have to say I have learned so much by taking this class. I have done research papers before but I have never came across the PEW Internet. This was an interesting web site. I spent hours going through different surveys. I will remember this web site the next time I need to come up with some facts for a paper.

2008 Campaign

The 2008 election changed how elections will be campaigned in the future.  The ability of the internet and social media sites to reach such a large amount of people for free is a great resource for anyone.  The candidates were able to reach the youth voters with using these sources, and the response they received from the youth is amazing.  Some even going as far to make this YouTube video below, which is very entertaining, and supports everyone to go out and voice their opinion. 

The youth in politics has been a group that is typically less likely to voice their opinion by voting, but that could be forever changed.  Social media and the internet allow people to plan events much easier, and they are able to reach a larger audience for free and very fast because of the internet.  The YouTube video has 17,872 views, and this is what someone did on their free time, just to encourage people to get out and vote, and the video is slanted in Obama’s favor.  I can’t wait to see how much the internet and social media sites are going to affect the next election.  I have already seen websites that have some people who have had their name mentioned as potential candidates Donald Trump and Jeb Bush are the two most recent names.

I thoroughly enjoyed this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5sMBT_jmKg

It amazed me that someone looked into the statistics of the election like this report did.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#USP00p1

This website only has a couple facts on this page; there are a large number of facts through the pages.

http://obama-mccain.info/compare-obama-mccain-age.php

Week 7 Aha

My week 7 Aha came when researching statistics of the 2008 election.  I found it interesting that younger generations voted for Obama and as the age group increases their voting for McCain increased.  The most interesting statistic though was that 95% of African Americans voted for Obama.  While these numbers may be typical in some races, for this to occur for the highest race in the United States says to me that Racism is still in the minds of African Americans.  http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#USP00p1

Age & Technology

The common denominator that I came across in all of my research on the Pew Internet and American Life Project was age. While this wasn’t news to me, it was interesting to see the data to back up what I see in the world every day: younger people are much more technologically savvy and use more varieties of technology to communicate and share information.

The surveys that I studied were about the use of “apps” on cell phones, the use of wireless technology to access the internet (either from a laptop or a cell phone), and the concern over internet privacy and subsequent attempts to manage an “online reputation.” While the data confirmed that adults are less likely to use smart phone “apps” (many confessed to not even knowing if their phones have apps) and wireless internet, it was also nice to see that the numbers are growing. I’m sure that there will always be an age gap in the use of technology as younger people are the ones creating and using new innovations first, but more adults are quickly catching on.

Here are a couple of links that I found. This video is about the rising number of adults using Facebook. It cites statistics from 2009 showing an increase of over 150% in Facebook users over the age of 35. I’m sure this has grown even more since then. This article comes from Australia, but it describes a phenomenon occurring in the U.S. as well—more and more people are abandoning landline telephones for the sole use of a cell phone (again, this is led by young people). I fit into this group—after making it through four years of college relying on a cell phone, it just didn’t make any sense for my husband and I to pay for a landline when we graduated and bought our house.

Michelle's Week 6 Aha

My Aha comes from one of the Pew surveys that I researched for this week’s assignment. The topic was Reputation Management in Social Networking Sites and the data showed a decrease in the level of concern over sharing private information online as well as a decrease in the use of privacy settings to control the sharing of private information. I feel like internet privacy has been a bit of a “hot topic” over the last few years, so I was surprised to see that people are less concerned about it. I originally thought that the decrease in concern would be because more social media users are taking advantage of privacy controls to protect their information, but the survey data shows otherwise. So not only are we less concerned with privacy, we’re doing less to protect ourselves online.

Amanda Week 6 AHA

My week 6 AHA is about how adults are picking up social networking more and more each year and how young adults additions are starting to level off. It is amazing to me how adults are picking up technology and social sites more and more and not just adding but participating.

Week 6 Aha

The differences in how and how much people use the internet by age, sex, and race is somewhat interesting.  I figured that the younger groups would be higher than the older groups, but I was surprised that they were actually fairly close.  I was extremely surprised by the difference in how race and having the internet has an affect.  I didn't think there would be much of a difference, but I was completely wrong.  I wasn't surprised and found it amusing that men and women use the internet much the same way they act in real life.

Racial inequalities online and how men and women use the internet

This quote amazes me “When income and education are taken out of the equation, white people still are more likely than black people to have high-speed internet at home, by a factor of 10 percentage points. The gap between white and Hispanic homes is higher still -- at 14 percentage points.” (Sutter)

While I think it is funny that this is even studied, it is interesting.  I was amazed that there are people who still do not have access to the internet.  While the percentages don’t look like much, I thought about them compared to unemployment, and then I realized the real numbers were huge.  Whites are more likely to have the internet than Blacks and Hispanics by a combined 24%.  To me this is astonishing, yet it makes me wonder are White people  wasting time on the internet, or are Blacks and Hispanics out of a lot of loops because they do not have access to the internet. 

            I think these two quotes are not surprising, because they reflect how men and women act in the world without the internet. 

“Men reach farther and wider for topics, from getting financial information to political news. Along the way, they work search engines more aggressively, using engines more often and with more confidence than women.” (Fallows) 

“Women tend to treat information gathering online as a more textured and interactive process – one that includes gathering and exchanging information through support groups and personal email exchanges.” (Fallows)
I thought this video was interesting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XyWTGepCHo  while it isn't specific to any area, it does have statistics about the internet, and how much and how fast it has grown.

Works Cited

Fallows, Deborah. How Women and Men Use the Internet. 28 December 2005. 17 November 2010 <http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2005/How-Women-and-Men-Use-the-Internet.aspx>.

Sutter, John D. Report: Racial inequalities persist online. 8 November 2010. 17 November 2010 <http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/11/08/broadband.digital.divide/index.html>.

Cyberbullying

I found the website http://www.commonsensemedia.org/digital-citizenship/6-8 from our assignment very interesting and helpful as a parent. I have two young children growing up in this digital world where they are exposed to computers every day. Computers are introduced to them in Kindergarten. As a parent we need to be aware of what our kids are doing. I know it may seem easier to put a computer, tv, and gaming system in their rooms so they are out of your way but what kind of parenting is that? I allow my kids to us the lap top in the livingroom on the couch as I watch what they are doing. The school has plenty of interactive sites to go to for educational homework. I hope as my children grow older I'll keep the reigns tight enough that they feel they can talk to me about problems they may have in school or online with friends or not so good friends. I think the key is to keep the communication open with them so they fel comfortable coming to you for support. Our children have more issues to deal with than we did as a child. We delt with bullying but now cyberbullying seems harsh. I think it's easier to say things on line when they don't have to face the person looking at them.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4000500/

Angela's AHA Moment

I have to say that until this weeks assignment I didn't realize how bad cyber bullying had gotten. I have a child that is almost ten but I still limit the amount of time he is on the computer. I have also not allowed him to have a phone yet. I see some of the kids walking around the neighborhood with their phones out texting while they walk. The kids now days don't know how to play or socialize without a phone or computer. I don't want my kids to become obsessed with these devises! I think it's our responsibility as a parent to monitor our kids activity. I found this web site that a parent posted because his son committed suicide. It was touching and kind of an eye opener as to this can happen to anyone.

http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=JB10FCNU

Week 5—Personal Online Identities

This week’s topic of cyberbullying and personal responsibility is an important one in the discussion of the digital age. While technology makes it easy for people to communicate and share ideas, it also opens up its users to invasions of privacy and potentially negative situations.

I read this article by Lesli Roterberg about the importance of beginning internet safety education at a younger age, before it is too late. Roterberg cites a statistic that only ten percent of cyberbullied children tell their parents that anything is going on. I would assume that many children tell no one, not even a friend, because of embarrassment or shame about what is being done to them. While prevention is important, it is also necessary for parents to monitor their children’s internet activity and to provide support so that children won’t be too afraid to ask for help.

I came across this series of videos and the first one, “Feathers in the Wind,” struck a chord with me. I’d heard this parable before, that spreading gossip is like releasing feathers and it is impossible to collect the feathers or right the wrong, but I think it is a lesson that children and teenagers need to be reminded of from time to time. While this applies to spreading rumors both on and off the internet, I think it is always easier to spread untrue information online. Someone can easily forward or copy and paste the “feathers” until they are far out of reach.

Week 5 AHA

The thought that has stuck out in my mind over and over again this week is that today’s kids are lucky. When I was younger, the internet was just becoming popular and most of us didn’t know how to use it safely or comprehend its full potential. My friends and I frequently talked to people we didn’t know in real life and shared way too much personal information with the internet world. And this was years before Facebook even made it so simple.

I think that kids and teenagers today are lucky because they know from the start that the internet isn’t always good and they are (hopefully) taught how to be more careful than I was when I was younger. Luckily nothing bad ever happened to my friends or me, but we were certainly naïve at the time. Our parents knew even less about the internet than we did, so they weren’t doing a very good job of monitoring what we were doing. It’s unfortunate that we have to operate out of fear now, but it can be a good thing if it is teaching kids to be safer.

Week 5 aha

Although I have learned some things from websites this week, I think the simplest way to prevent cyber bullying is to have an open and honest communication with an adult.  I think cyber bullying would be easy to deal with, because most social networking sites like Facebook allow users to limit who can send them messages and post on their pages. 

I thought it was interesting to read that adults reported being victims of cyber bullies more often than kids.  I think part of this is adults are more willing to report this behavior, and kids are not sure who to talk to or how to handle the issue.

Nov. 9 - Nov. 15

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb2QDNt06Qc

James Tyler – 1990 to 2005

It amazes me that cyber bullying has not drawn more media attention, and only does when someone commits suicide, but then the media is off on a new topic in a very short time.  Cyber bullying happens every day around the world. 

I liked how the video showed the bullying escalating from jokes to cyber bullying, and the effects that bullying had as warning signs, Grades dropping, less friends, less effort, and physically hurt himself before hanging himself.  These kids don’t want to commit suicide, they want help stopping people from bullying them, and they give signals before they get to the point of suicide. 

The quote “I can’t take this anymore.  They’re always after me.  Why, why are they doing this?  I don’t know what I’ve done, no one is helping me.  Make them stop it please.  I don’t want to live like this anymore.”  Is interesting, all of the signals are subtle, but when put together, they throw up a giant red flag.  I wonder if he said directly to a caring adult that he needs help with this problem. 

Although there should be a punishment for bullying, the punishment could never be as evil as being bullied to the point of suicide.  Teenagers struggle enough with fitting in and creating their own identity.  Cyber bullying enables bullies to get to them even in what was their safest place, their home. 

I like the website http://cyberbullying.us/blog/ because it is a blog and people can post replies instead of just reading an article and moving on.  A collection of minds on how to stop cyber bullying is a great idea and should be a more popular site.  The article wrote yesterday is interesting because it discusses adults being victims of cyber bullying also.

I also like website http://www.ncpc.org/cyberbullying because although it has a large amount of information on the home page, it has bold headings, and bullets instead of paragraphs, which are much easier to skim through to the information the user is looking for.

Amanda week 5 AHA moment

My AHA moment came from watching the video in my week 5 post that adults are just as bad as children or worse because the adult needs to start realizing their actions and setting an example for their kids and other kids. Adults also need to monitor childrens internet use so that it can help with this.

Amanda Week 5 post

I have found this week pretty interesting because I did not know that much about digital citizenship or what that meant and how cyberbullying is growing rapidly in our community. I find the concept of digital citizenship to be almost self explanatory but yet a lot of people don't see it that way. I agree that while it is easier for me to be forward and make that comment that I wouldn't necessarily do to someone's face if I am making comments in the digital world or sending an email to someone, that when I do make the more forward comments I still try to be tactful and respectful. I haven't actually made a dig at that person and put them down to make them feel bad about themselves. That would make me look bad and feel bad as a person. So for those people who do that, I would bet that most don't do it in person because they don't have the guts to or would feel guilty or both. So if that's the case why be that way on the internet? It's like someone has dual personalities and just a thought but maybe one day the "bad" personality will override the good and they are no longer a good employee because they are negative and put people down. I just think why have two personalities, be yourself both in the digital world and in the real world. I think this is why cyberbullying is becoming rampant, because no one or few, have started to address this with their kids and students that if it isn't ok to do or say to that person face to face, it is not ok to do that to the person digitally. I think it has come to light that the ball has been dropped and have had to learn about it through suicides by students that have made the news. It's time to step up now and help parent and educate children and adults to make it stop.
http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/
http://www.cyberbullying.us/
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/cyber-bullying-familys-online-nightmare-11224685

Angela's AHA Moment

What is LinkedIn?

I've been getting a lot of request to be connected on LinkedIn. About six months ago realized how fast it was growing and what people were using it for. After doing research on Reid Hoffman it gave me a better understanding of where it came from and why he created it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsoEgbD3CxM

Reid Hoffman

Reid Hoffman’s first startup was Socialnet. Socialnet is an online dating network. From there he moved on to the board of PayPal. PayPal is an electronic money transmission service. When he sold PayPal he used that money when founding LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a business social network site. With this social network people can post information about their career and job experiences to share with other professional people in the work force. Reid stepped down from CEO of LinkedIn in June 2009 and is now an entrepreneur and partner at Greylock Partners. Greylock Partners is a firm that works with entrepreneurs to build market leading companies. At Greylock, Reid deals with consumer internet, enterprise 2.0, mobile, social gaming, online marketplaces, payments and social networks. Reid is also known as an Angel Investor. An Angel Investor is someone who provides capital for a business startup, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity. As you can see Reid keeps himself busy with his entrepreneurship.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/reidhoffman

http://www.greylock.com/team/team/43/

Global AHA

My aha moment came from watching Ethan Zuckerman's TED talk:

The segment when he shows the various maps and cartograms really put into perspective how narrow our world view is. I used to always feel good when I watched the news, as if I were being a responsible adult by knowing what is going on in the world. However, after realizing how little I actually learn about the world from watching the news, I think I need to reassess my media choices.

Movers & Shakers

The founders of some of the most popular social networking websites are almost all young, driven, and (now) extremely wealthy. The biggest commonality I see in many of the social network pioneers is that they created their websites in order to meet a need noticed among themselves and their friends. I saw this demonstrated a few different ways when I watch The Social Network a few weeks ago. In the movie, Mark Zuckerberg is basically just fooling around with various website ideas based on what he and his friends want to accomplish online. His enemies, the Winklevoss twins, are basically following the same process as they try to build their own social networking service. Although I didn’t research him for the “Who Are These People” assignment, I was interested in Jack Dorsey and the founding of Twitter after watching Ethan Zuckerman’s TED presentation that explained how huge the website is in some other countries. In this article, he gives an explanation similar to Zuckerberg’s for his original idea from ten years ago that evolved into Twitter. Basically, he wanted the benefits of websites like Live Journal where users could notify friends about where they were and what they were doing, but without being tied to a computer. Obviously his idea had to wait until smartphone technology caught up with him, but Twitter is huge now.

The other characteristic that has separated these website founders from many of the others who have been less successful is their cutting-edge work ethic. Some websites are successful until something newer and better comes along, leaving them in the dust. Both Facebook and YouTube have undergone upgrades and changes that keep them competitive amongst newer social networks. This video is from YouTube’s founders and was posted when they were acquired by Google four years ago. They explain how the partnership with Google will help to push YouTube forward—something that has definitely happened in the last few years.

Amanda Week 4 AHA

My AHA moment came from researching Reid Hoffman. I had the misconception that people who find Facebook or Napster, etc. are somewhat of a one-hit wonder. I now think that their "one-hit" helps them to get further into the market and give them opportunities that they wouldn't have had. Just like Reid is on the board for a couple of companies and is an angel investor in 5+ companies. It's nice to see that maybe their success wasn't a fluke and that they have the smarts to stay in the business, if they choose to after they make their millions :)

Amanda Week 4 topic

For week 4, I looked up Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn. I have posted the contents of my paper for discussion.

I decided to look up Reid Hoffman. He co-founded LinkedIn in 2003. LinkedIn has more than 63 million members in 200 countries around the world. He led LinkedIn through its first four years and also to its profitability as Chief Executive Officer. Prior to LinkedIn, he was executive vice president for PayPal where he was also a founding member. He was instrumental in Ebay’s acquisition of PayPal and was responsible for the partnerships with Intuit, Visa, Mastercard and Wells Fargo. Currently he observes on the board of Gowalla and Swipely and is also a director at Zynga, Mozilla Corp., Six Apart, Shopkick, and Kiva.org. He is an angel investor in multiple influential Internet companies that include Dig, Facebook, Flickr, Last.fm, Ning, Six Apart and Zynga. He also went through a period of writing articles speaking about how startup companies can help bail us out of the current recession. For one of the articles, he gives his “Rule of Three for Investing” and states that he hopes it helps someone out there to be successful. He calls himself a serial investor and with all of the companies he is currently invested in, I would say that is a pretty good name for himself.

I posted this so that other's could see. I just think it is amazing how much he is involved in now whether he is an investor or directly involved in the company. It was also very interesting to read that he is also a co-founder for Facebook. I guess it's a small world when it comes to niche technology markets!

http://www.greylock.com/team/team/43/
http://techcrunch.com/2009/04/19/reid-hoffman-my-rule-of-three-for-investing/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erLT4wttTnc

Week 4 aha

I thought it was interesting this week reading about Mark and his donation of $100 million to schools.  The timing made it appear that his intentions were to make is image better before the movie about him came out.  If he had done it at any other time, I would have thought it was just for a good cause, but there are obvious politics being played in this scenario.  The majority of the money is going to a group which his girlfriend runs, which has not been widely publicized.  Either way, the $100 million dollars back in the public instead of in his bank account, which will help a little bit of the economy.

Topic of the week

                While I think it’s a great idea to help schools out, I think that throwing money at the problem is the wrong way to solve the problem.  While higher salaries will attract more teachers, there is a reason that Newark has a 50% dropout rate.  There are social reasons why the dropout rate is so high, it doesn’t matter how good the teachers are in the schools, if the students do not go to school. 

                This is could all have been a political stunt to try and prove his character in the recent movie about him and Facebook portrays him incorrectly.  Either way, I think that he taking the wrong approach to solving the problem, but I think that putting the 100 million into the economy, instead of having it sit in his bank account will help the economy.  There are social and personal reasons that are driving kids to drop out of school, gangs, drugs, and substituting income for their parents are common reasons for dropouts.

                This video states that Mark is announcing on Opera his donation to the school later in the day.  It is interesting that this information was leaked before the Opera show.  I wonder if the “source” could have gotten in trouble for leaking information before it was supposed to air.

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZIYrDPVxSw

Website

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/09/facebook_ceo_mark_zuckerberg_s.html

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9J7FVV00.htm

Social Communities

I have always liked numbers, and the exercise with looking at the actual time spent online made me want to search more to find out how much time others spend on social sites.  It’s amazing that “Social Networking takes up nearly a quarter of all internet usage time.” (Ostrow)  I wonder if these stats include people using their cell phones.  I thought it was also interesting that people are using e-mail more and more on their cell phones.  To me, this is boarder-line over-connected, being an introvert, I need time daily to unwind from everything and relax.

The speed at which the internet has grown in such a short amount of time is amazing.  What could be even more amazing is the speed at which people are using social networking sites over the rest of the internet, like it is the only way to connect with people.  One stat that surprised me is “Facebook trailed the phone at 99%, it beat text messaging at 93% and email at 91%.” (Global Time Spent Social Networking Rises 82%)  Facebook is extremely popular, but when it comes to adding family members it can be a touchy subject.  I am really surprised that people use e-mail to communicate with family members.  I would have thought that people would use text more often for short messages, and call family members if the information was sensitive or there was a large amount of information.

This video is from 2006, but I think that it is still amazing at how powerful these websites are.  It is interesting to get responses from kids who use the websites continuously, one even stating “he has no life because he spends so much time on MySpace he doesn’t have time to hang out with friends face to face.”

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=1699088n

Works Cited

Global Time Spent Social Networking Rises 82%. 27 January 2010. 1 November 2010 <http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/global-time-spent-social-networking-rises-82-11767/>.

Ostrow, Adam. Social Networking Dominates Our Time Spent Online [STATS]. 2 August 2010. 1 November 2010 <http://mashable.com/2010/08/02/stats-time-spent-online/>.

Angela's AHA Moment

After doing the digital diary I was amazed at the amount of communication that took place during the day at work. I knew I always seem busy but never realized how much interaction between coworkers customers took place. It was hard to keep a diary. I really had to think about everything I was doing. Communication is taken for granted sometimes.

Digital Culture

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64-K6DVVXyQ

http://edfutures.com/blogs/kempedmonds/how-technology-creates-digital-culture

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network

Digital Culture is the technology of communication in which we have become accustomed to. How many people were blown away byte amount of time spent on digital communication when keeping the diary this week? I think as technology grows so does our desire to use it. I fought my husband about up grading our cell phone service. I didn't think it was necessary to pay for Internet service on our phone when we had it at home. He won but now I can't imagine not having the Internet on my phone. I've become accustomed to having everything I need at my finger tips.

It's amazing how fast the digital culture is growing and how many people use digital technology. Even my grandparents have become accustom to using cell phones. My grandma makes grandpa carry is cell phone when he does chores just in case something happens. It gives her peace of mind.

The digital culture is out there everywhere. It's up to you to decide how to use it; for good; for bad; or for ugly.

Amanda AHA moment

My AHA moment is that I have realized I want more socialization in my life but haven't been able to achieve that balance yet. I plan on trying to do that more and start to get a bit more organized so that I have more time. I will have more time as soon as I get done with one of my classes so I look forward to some down time and socializing more whether it would be virtually or in person.

Aha

With all of the discussions about time spent on social networking sites, I wonder about the accuracy of our statistics. I read several different articles through my research as well as those posted by others on their blogs and most surprised me. I'm not questioning the validity of the data so much as I question the samples that have been used to gather the information.
For example, one of Amanda's articles posted below says that people spend seven hours on average using Facebook per month. The problem with averages is that they really don't reveal that much information about a given topic. There could be people who check in on Facebook for one 5-minute session during a month. There could also be people who are spending over 5 hours per day on Facebook. In the end, it might all average out to seven hours per month, but without including the range, the average statistics don't mean much. Not to mention taking into account those who open several different browser windows on the computer screen and don't actively use all of them at once (I am definitely guilty of this). If I were keeping data just based on my own use like I did for the Digital Diary assignment, I would have to take into account that much of the time I spent "networking" is actually spent multi-tasking (i.e. I have Facebook open, but I'm really watching television or talking to my husband and then checking the webpage periodically).
My "aha" has to do with the media's portrayal of social networking. I think we have grown accustomed to hearing all about "Facebook addicts" and the people who spend hours at a time on social media. I've seen statistics to confirm this, but I have also seen statistics that show the opposite (such as the seven hours per month mentioned above). I think that the authors of these articles are using statistics to prove a point, whether they are biased or not.