Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds can be used to create a "second life" where you can have the freedom to do anything you want without real-life consequences.  For example, Itzkoff's NYT article "I've Been in That Club, Just Not in Real Life" explains how MTV recreates a virtual version of the Lower East Side in an effort to bring "consumers and curiosity seekers" into their sphere of influence.  Virtual worlds are used in many games, such as "The Sims" and "World of Warcraft."  They can also be used for educational and research purposes.  The "virtual classroom" allows students to interact with each other and try new things in a safe environment.  According to Jacki Morie ("After Second Life, Can Virtual Worlds Get a Reboot?"), Minecraft is a game with a virtual world that provides kids with space to exercise their imagination and connect with other like-minded individuals.  A key advantage of virtual worlds would be the interaction and connection people feel that would help counter isolation and loneliness.  Morie also designed a virtual healing space for returning soldiers to help cope with psychological problems and stress.  Cons of being involved in a virtual world would include cyber-bullying. sexual harassment, and fraud.  People in virtual worlds could say or do whatever they want without feeling guilt and responsibility in this anonymous environment.  It is hard to trust what someone is saying without having ever met them in person and often times people get tricked or misled in these virtual worlds.  Virtual worlds foster creativity by creating an atmosphere where people could use their avatars to do anything they want within the limits produced in the virtual world.  People can take bigger risks since consequences in a virtual world do not affect real life.  In the future, virtual worlds would come to dominate social aspects of our lives.  People would shift more of their focus to these virtual worlds because of the realistic feel that future technology would provide.  Reality would be more of an afterthought and people's "actual" lives would deteriorate.

Blog About Twitter

A Twitter discussion is more brief than a Blackboard discussion since each tweet is limited to 140 characters only.  This makes Twitter discussions more concise and simple as compared to lengthy discussions on Blackboard that go in depth.  Twitter discussions also allows everyone to participate and express their thoughts at once as opposed to in-class discussions where people talk one at a time.

Social Networking Sites

The purpose of social networking sites is to express yourself in text, media, or any other digital form to your friends and to the world.  Instagram is a social media app that allows the sharing of pictures and feedback from those pictures through comments and likes.  Facebook is used in a more versatile way.  You can share pictures, statuses, create events, join groups, and surf your news feed.  Twitter is used to update your statuses at a frequent rate about something you are doing or thinking about.  Your followers can read your tweets and engage in them if they want to by retweeting, replying, and favoriting.  LinkedIn is a social networking platform catered to professional connections.  You can give a detailed description of your professional life and connect with others in a more formal way.

Social Networking

Social networking can be used effectively in several ways.  Many professional job recruiters used social network platforms to find their candidate for open positions.  For example, Maureen Crawford-Hentz is a recruiter for a global lighting company, Osram Sylvania, and uses Linkedin to find high quality candidates ("Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting" by Langfitt).  This can be a benefit to society because qualified candidates can be sought out easier through use of social media.  However, in order to personally know the candidate, the recruiter would have to reach out via a personal encounter or telephone call.
Another positive way social networking can be used is to keep people updated about the activities of their friends.  Mark Zuckerberg created the "News Feed" on Facebook to make it easier and quicker for people to see what their friends are up to ("Brave New World of Digital Intimacy" Thompson).  Not only are Facebook users better connected with their friends, they are also exposed to news much quicker and conveniently without having to flip through newspapers or turn on the TV.
 A "darker side" of using social media would include cyber-bullying, sexting, and its effects on children's changing relationships.  According to New York Times article "Antisocial Networking?" researchers believe kids nowadays are relying less on face-to-face socializing and relying more on the Internet to communicate.  Some believe kids lose the emotional aspect of personal encounters which may harm their ability to build trust among their close friends.
These technologies may continue to evolve to become even bigger aspects of our lives.  For example, companies may decide to review resumes completely on Linkedin rather than receiving printed versions.

Blogs vs. Wikis

Both wikis and blogs allow individuals to express their view on any subject they choose to.  A wiki allows the user to create and edit interlinked web pages, while a blog is like a personal online journal with the latest post shown first.  Wikis are used mostly for collaborative work, whose purpose are usually to provide relevant information for a targeted audience.  Blogs allow people to express themselves by publishing content (pictures, videos, links, text) they care about.  Bloggers may comment on each others' blog posts.
Convergence in today's networked world provides instant information to the receiver.  This allows for more efficiency in terms of the speed of communication, which may help businesses gain profits or allow people to receive news faster.
Blogs can be used for collaboration when individual bloggers express their own ideas and read each other's posts to learn and gain insight from one another.  For example, in Wilson's NYT article, "Brooklyn Blog Helps Lead to Drug Raid," bloggers' posts were read by police which lead to the eventual drug raid.
Wikis can be used by companies to promote their products based off of factual evidence.  These wikis should use "flagged revisions" in order to get the most accurate information possible, as explained by Cohen's NYT article, "Wikipedia to Limit Changes to Articles on People."

Research Paper on Twitter

My term paper for CIS 3810 will contain research about the emergence of Twitter in social media.  I will discuss this in multiple perspectives, starting with the history of Twitter and how it came about.  I will also discuss the sociological, technological, economic, moral, anthropological, and educational perspectives of Twitter.  Comparisons between Twitter and other forms of social media will also be a subtopic for my paper.