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I can say as a whole I really enjoyed this class.  The experience has been enjoyable and enlightening.  The blog assignment that I liked the best was the one on Facebook and MySpace.  I enjoy both of these sites and enjoyed sharing my thoughts with the class.  These sites have gotten a bad rap, which I totally understand and agree with, but just as with anything if they are used the correct way and used for what they were intended there is nothing wrong with them. 

I also enjoyed the letters.  Having my mom call and talk about the letter was very heartwarming and a touching moment for her and I.  I also enjoyed the last weeks blog about misuse of the internet.  It was sad and disgusting to read about the horrific things people do to both children and adults.   This assignmenet was interesting also in that I knew about child stalkers but I realized just how bad bad it was, including the stalking of adults. 

The blog assignment I enjoyed the least would be the internet community from week six.    The reason is that I’m not really big on internet communities.  In another class I had to join one and I didn’t care for it then either.  I do know other people who belong to internet communities who really enjoy them.

I like the Wood and Smith book, but didn’t really like the Postman book.  It was difficult to understand and follow, but I did like it when I got into the book.   It was an informative book, they both were.

I would keep the layout of the class the same.  I liked having the postings and the blogs.  The one thing I would change is the due dates.  I admit that it was difficult for me to get it done on Tuesdays..  Having a due date of Sunday I would have liked much better.    A little more input from the instructor would be good.  And I believe the most important change would be people not approving responses to posts.  I know I have to approve responses but have never taken longer than 12 hours to do so.  I have had to do more responses because of this, which isn’t right.  Responses should have to be approved right away.

Child stalkers

The article I chose to read was Beware of Cyber Stalkers by Clint Van Zantz and the website is:  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11101454/.   The article talks about how back before the internet predators had to actually go into the community and entice children and adults to go with them.  Now, all you need is a computer.  Predators will go onto sites such as myspace, facebook, or other blogs to find children or adults to fulfill the sick need they have.  These sites have little bits of information that predators need such as a hometown, interests, and the school the child attends.  This gives the predator a window of opportunity, a way to speak with the child and find common interests to try and lure them to a secluded place and hurt or kill them.  One older woman, she was 70 years old, she was called the “internet black widow.”  She would lure in older men and poison them once they were married at an attempt to take their money, she did this for fifteen years. 

Children are lured out and killed.  One such girl was a freshman in college.  She had a “space” (that’s what the article called it)  she had her picture posted, her likes, dislikes, interests, and activities on her site.   The girl was very trusting and met this man who killed her during rough sex.  She never knew that with so little information she gave the predator so much to work with.  These two cases are by far the only ones.  The article states that nearly one in five children are sexually solicited online usually by an adult or teenager posing as a child.

As for how to change this, that is a tough question.  I know myspace will not allow you have an account if your under fifteen, but you can lie about your birthdate so it is really not a deterrant.   Putting in a credit card (even though the site is free) would help some.  Children do not have credit cards so an adult would have to open the account.  These sites could also be monitored more than what they are now.  I also believe there should be tougher penalties for crimes against children as well as those on the internet.  Someone I do childcare for, their brother-in-law is on probation for sexually molesting a child.  He isn’t supposed to be on the computer or be alone with children.  It was proven that he is dating a girl with kids and he is alone with them.  He was caught and nothing happened.  But, my husbands wife is in prison for aggrivated theft and she received 19 months.  How is this?  A crime against a child is WAY worse than theft!! 

“However, it is a far less dangerous act to e-mail a hateful message or view a racist Website from a public computer than to stand in the middle of a town square in a white robe and pointy hood”  (Wood and Smith p. 189)  Although this is talking of members of the KKK, child predators can be in this group also.  It is easier to sit at your computer and stalk children in private than to go out in the community driving around looking for an unsuspecting child. 

Many people today just let their children roam free, both around town and in the internet.  Many children are home alone and have no supervision from an adult.  As a community this shows that our values have gone down, this is sad.  Children need their parents even as adults.  Leaving them to figure things out for themselves is reckless and negligent.

WILDCARD

I took a class in Woman Studies a few semesters ago.  One week we were talking about womens rights and whether women have the same rights as men and if in the home a husband and wife should have the same rights, and equal rights.   I know this may come across wrong in this class also so I will apologize now.

I stated that I do believe men and women should have the same rights both inside and outside of the home.  I believe housework as well as taking care of children should be split as equally as possible and everyone should do their share.  But (and this was the problem) I also believe that my husband is the head of the household.  We are equal in every way.  If you want to be honest I have a more dominant personality than my husband does.  I stand behind my husband but I admit that I let him take care of more difficult situations than I do.  I stayed home with my children, and technically still do, and I believe this is best for children.  I do childcare and earn a living on people who work outside the home but I still believe it’s best for the children if one parent stays home to raise them. 

So in this class this made all the women basically tell me off and tell me that I am part of the reason why women do not get a fair shake in the work force and it’s because of people like me why women aren’t treated equal.  Even though I tried to explain my side they never understood my side.  I believe one of the reasons is because I am nearly 36 years old and most of the people in my class were between 18 and 20 years old.  I have more life experience than they had (although one woman didn’t believe so because she had moved around a lot as a child).    I tried to reason with them all to no avail.  Needless to say not many of my posts after this one received much responses. 

I did speak with the professor and she understood what I had said and what I had meant.  So this would be the only way that the issue was resolved.   If this had happened fact to face I believe the students would have understood the point I was getting across and ;how I do believe in womens rights and equality. 

“People’s perceptions of the amount of telepresence in a given medium suggest that they are likely to consider how the messages they fashion through media are reflections on them.”  (Wood and Smith pg 56)  This is how I feel.  I believe that what I said was taken out of context and because of this the perception, or reflection, on me is poor.  I look like a 1940′s house wife who stands behind her man and lets him make all the decisions.

Interviews

The three people I chose to interview were my brother who is 20, myhusband who is 36, and a family friend who is 65. 

My brother uses the internet to play games, keep in touch with friends on myspace, and just search around the internet.    He is very comfortable communicating on the internet with both friends he knows and with people he plays his games against whom he doesn’t know.  Because of his age, technology hasn’t changed the way he lives his life.  Most of his teenage years there has been internet so he is quite comfortable.

The next person I interviewed is my husband.  He takes classes through Clackamas Community College so the primary reason he uses the internet is for school work and email.  He completely admits he is technologically challanged, and I can agree with that!  He isn’t comfortable just surfing the web or doing searches.  He feels like he may break something.  He does have a myspace and does feel comfortalbe communicating but won’t communicate outside of the people he knows.  Technology hasn’t really changed his life.  The main thing he says it has changed is that he can take classes online instead of in a traditional classroom.  If it wasn’t for the itnernet he wouldn’t be able to go to school.

The last person I talked to, Tom, is 65 years old and gets around the internet just about as well as my brother does!!!  He uses the internet to keep track of his families finances, keeping up with current events, emailing and keeping in touch with family as well as playing games online.  He communicates quite well and showed me a couple things when we talked.  He thinks the internet has make life a little easier, now he doens’t have to subscribe to the newspaper, and makes information more readily available for anyone to find. 

I thought I would see that the younger generations were the most comfortable with communication on the internet, but I was surprised that Tom knew so much.  It showed me that although some technologies are new, older people can learn to naviage just as easily as younger people can. 

In our Woods and Smith book on page 157 one quote really stood out, “During the late 1960s and early 1970s, few people imagined that the average person would need personal access to a computer; fewer still thought that “head-in-the-cloud” reasearchers hired by a company that made copy machines could offer society anything of much substance.”  Tom completely agreed with this.  We ended up talking about how technology has changed since he was a young boy.  He stated that he would never have imagined a computer the size of a book when he was a young child and is amazed at the changed in the last thirty years.

I really enjoyed hearing the different responses from the different age groups.

Internet community

My favorite hobby, when we are between semesters because it is so time consuming, I enjoy scrapbooking.  I love arranging the pictures of my children in new ways and decorating the pages (i’m sure this sounds boring to the men in the class…LOL) to reflect the mood of the day.  This is why for the group I chose to join a scrapbook discussion board.  I looked at a few and chose to peruse www.creativekeepsakes.com and www.scrapgirls.com.    Both of these sites have different discussion boards for users to go through different topics such as problems with tools, ideas, and new ways to use the tools most scrapbookers have.  I joined both approximately three weeks ago.  I chose these two because they had the most to offer in terms of different disucssions as well as more ideas presented than the others.

In this discussion board it is easy to assimilate into the group, every person is accepted.  The reason I know this is the case because I had a question on a post concerning a card idea someone had posted.  A couple days later the author of the post emailed me and we discussed the tools used  and she saw sweet and easy to talk to.  There were a couple other posts I posted and I was never confronted or put down for what I said. 

There were never any issues or problems while I was part of this online community.  In fact, two of the people I talked to I continue to communicate with then outside of the discussion board about things other than scrapbooking!!  They both live in Oregon and have lives that are similar to mine so we sort of became “internet buddies.”  LOL.  As stated in Woods and Smith, “Being part of a virtual community means more than merely having a group of people communicating online.”   (page 127)   Being a part of the scrapbook community helped me to find two women who could possibly become good friends of mine.   We all want to be a part of a group or social network, belonging to these two discussion boards was enjoyable. 

Another part of the discussion board concerns problems with tools or different ways to use the tools most scrapbookers already posess.  I have a cricut machine which is a machine that cuts shapes out.  There are many different cartridges you can purchase separately, I love this!  Anyway, one post had different ideas on how to combine some of the shapes I already had, it was wonderful!! 

I can honestly say I not only learned some things from this assignment, and I also plan on continuing to check the discussion board regularly for ideas and questions concerning scrapbooking.

Resources

If I were to write a paper I would choose culture and the what makes cultures different.  With a paper I would more than likely use resources from the library.  When I do write I usually choose references that are encyclopedias or history books because they are reliable.  I definately try to find a site that is creditable.  If it isn’t my entire paper is a lie and if that’s the case I know the grade I receive will reflect the oversights I have made.  If I use online sites, I learned through a class I had taken previously to cut shore the website so that all you see is the base page (such as www.wordpress.com, not www.tammyroebke.wordpress.com)  because you can get more information on the website this way.  You can see where the information came from and if there is any academic backing.  Also, using websites that are .org or .edu are better than .com because anyone can have a .com site. 

The following is one of the sources I would use:

http://www.analytictech.com/mb021/cultural.htm

I chose this one because there were many comparisons on cultural differences on the site.  I believe the site because I did break it down to the base site and it is a analytic technology site.   

The following site is the next one I chose:

http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/culture_conflict/

I believe this one partially because it ends in .org.  It is a project being done through the University of Colorado that speaks of the interaction between cultures and people. 

The third site I chose was the following:

http://blue.butler.edu/~jfmcgrat/culture.htm

Again, the site ends in .edu so I believe it is more believable than others I looked at.  It is also ran by a college, Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana.  This site talks about the history of cultures and the differences there are in them. 

If I were the professor, I would rate the sources by the believability they all posess.  I will be honest in that I would prefer an actual book (from a library or personal ownership) rather than an online source.  My reasoning is that using a book shows the initiative of going to the library to find your sources rather than sitting at the computer and typing in your search, quickly perusing the site, then picking what you want to use from the site. 

One problem in our culture and society is that we are drawn to the internet.  It is easy and convenient; much easier than going to the library.   Our dependence on the internet is shown in our reading from Woods and Smith.  The author states that 13% of people spend less time with family because of the dependence on the internet, 26% spent less time talking on the phone, and 8% attended fewer social events.   These statistics alone show how much people use the internet.  So, when it comes to using sources for a paper, these statistics show that people are more likely to use the internet rather than a different source just our of convenience.

Letters

The two people I chose to write letters to were my mom and and my ex-husband (I know that sounds odd but we get along very well).  The letter to my mom I wrote long hand.  My mother is the not the type of person to use the computer let alone the internet.  I knew she wouldn’t receive the letter if I sent it to her email because she only checks it every month or so. 

The letter to my ex was written through email.  He has his own business so I know he is on his email account multiple times a day.  The reason I wrote to him is because although we are not longer married, we have four children together and were married for nearly eleven years.  He has had an impact on my life and will continue to as our children grow older.  We are friends now and it is the best for us and the children.  I also chose to write via email becasue telling him the impact he has had on my life is very personal and I didn’t want to add to the personalness by writing long hand. 

The letter to my mom was longer than the one to my ex.  I believe it is because  I do enjoy writing more than email.  Also, when I was writing the email something happened and half the email was erased and I didn’t want to type as much out of frustration.  The emailed letter had more relaxed tone and language to it.  I think it is more impersonal and I just write more relaxed online.

According to our Online Communication text, communication online does lack the personal touch we have when we are face to face, or writing a letter, to someone.  “Initial research into interaction using computer networks seemed to confirm that this cues-filtered-out quality led to an impersonal perception of CMC.”  (pg 80)  I am able to put a personal touch in my letter by writing out the words and telling my mother how she has helped me thorugh out the years.  With my online letter it seemed more fun typing the letter and was more impersonal typing the letter than using my own handwriting to put my words down.

I received an email from my ex-husband by the end of the same day I wrote him.  He thanked me and returned comments that I have helped him through some rough times also and the influence I have on him and our children.  The letter from my mom received a phone call.  She isn’t much of a writer so she called to thank me and talk about what I had written.  She was brought to tears from the letter I wrote so that was very touching for both of us. 

Another thing I realized when writing these is the nonverbal communication is absent from writing unlike in face to face communication.  The text mentions how when we flirt we use nonverbal cues to show interest or other emotions we feel at the time.  In both letters this was obviously absent.  When I spoke with my mom we were better able to hear what each other felt and thought.  Writing the letters was very impersonal, the email was more impersonal to me, than talking to someone in person.  But, I will admit I am able to say more in a letter than in person.  The impersonalness helps me to completely speak my mind and hold nothing back, probably because there is no judging my words or bad looks or funny faces to what i’ve said.

Myspace and Facebook

I have had a myspace for approximately the last four years and I just signed up for facebook about three months ago.    I don’t really hide anything online on either site.  I am open about who I am and what my life is like.  I personally use both sites to stay in touch with friends and family as well as people I graduated with High School with so long ago.  

I reveal information that is not too personal.  I do not tell my income, I don’t reveal any information that states where I live exactly or how well off or not well off I am.  I keep the information fairly basic because anyone can look you up if you keep your profile public.   I do post pictures on both sites, this is the most private information on my profile.

I know there are some people who do distort who they are.  One in particular is my sister in law.  On her profile she is “average” in body type, she is not average.  She is over weight some, not a lot, but some.  Another person distorted their income, and others will say things in their “About Me” that is completely not true.  I believe people do this to make themselves look better than what they really are.  What they distort is usually what they are most  insecure about.  As a society, and this is especially true for women, we are all insecure about something.  For women it is usually something with our bodies and men sometimes are insecure about their job or their income. 

According to our text concerning online identity people want to feel “a connection to others through technology.”  (pg 54)  We all want to be liked and have friends.  When online we want to connect with others, I know I do when I am online, so we may distort who or what we are to make ourselves more attractive to those we are talking to.  We may make ourselves thinner, richer, taller, or talk about how honest and trustworthy we are even when in reality these things are not true. 

“…..Internet technologies offer us the possibility of controlling more aspects of our identity for public consideration than has been possible before”  (pg. 57).  This is true on both of these sites because we have the key to what we will let the general public know about us and our lives.    So someone who is a little over weight can choose to omit this information where as in face-to-face communication we can’t do that.  As a society in general people judge others by what they can see physically before talking to the person.  Online, a person is not judged first by their outward appearance, instead they are judged by what they choose to reveal about themselves. 

Generally speaking most people I know who have a facebook or myspace do tell the truth about who they are what their lives are like in their profiles.  There are of course exceptions to the rule.

You’ve Got Mail

I saw this movie when it first came out and I will admit that I like the movie better the second time around.  Each character came across differently for their online “personality.”  Tom Hanks is a very nice guy both in person and online, but in person he also has a strong personality when confronted and very quick with come backs when Meg Ryan confronts hime for having a book chain store.  In their online communication the characters took part in both Synchronous communication, this happened when they were both online at the same time and answered each others emails in real time.  They mostly took part in asychronous communication and answered each others emails when they were able to get back to the other. 

 

Also, when you are online you can be someone different than what you really are.  After he realized it was Meg Ryan that he was talking to he beganj to feel remorse and emailed her and his nice side came out.  Tom Hanks was able to show his remore (without her knowing) for standing her up. 

We can account for their feelings of coming closer emotionally before meeting because they helped fill a void each was missing.  They were there for each other when the times were tough and gave each other a pep talk to raise their spirits. 

On a personal note I will say that I met my husband online.  This type of meeting is becoming more popular (except for with my mom because she doesn’t know) with people looking for friends, old acquaintances, or the love of their life.  It is easy to protray yourself as someone you are not.  I will say though that both my husband and I were very honest with who we were and what we wanted, but it would be very easy to lie or stretch the truth a little.  Because of this, I will say this scenario is very likely in the real world.  My ex-husband’s girlfriend and him met online, my aunt met her boyfriend online, and many of my friends have met significant others online.  I look at it this way, we can’t be everywhere, we can’t meet everyone, so why not look online.  You can put in your preferences in a mate and do the search.   One part of the movie I didn’t quite think would happen is not knowing what the other person looks like.  Most of us are first attracted to our mate (and friends) by their outside appearance.  Meg Ryan and Tom Hands had no idea what the other looked like before meeting.  (Granted the movie wouldn’t happen then)  So this is the one part I don’t believe happens this way. 

According to Postman we are a tool using culture (pg. 25).  I believe this is another reason why we go towards the computer.  We use it as a tool to fulfill what we are missing.  The internet can be used for communication with loved ones who live far away, or for work, or even just as a passtime for playing games or just surfing the net.

Abstinence

I will admit that not going on the internet was difficult for me.  I use the internet quite a bit for school and for personal reasons.  I first checked all my emails, schoolwork, bulletin boards, and myspace before I logged off of everything.  I will admit that I chose a busy day to obstain from the internet.  Both my little girls had pictures for basketball so that took up a large part of our day.  We went shopping and bought a new Uno game, Uno Spin, and my husband and I played it with the kids for awhile.  Then I made everyone lunch.  We all chatted for awhile after about what had been going on each others lives, what they wanted to do the next day, and other silly things kids come up with.  My husband is going to school also for Criminal Justice so both of us decided to read our textbooks for a bit.  I actually read the Postman book for this class.  I wrote out my bulletinboard post for the class then decided to read for pleasure for a bit (as you all know it’s hard to do that during any term), so I read the third Twilight book.  After that my husband and I played cribbage for a bit.  I made dinner for all of us and at the same time helped my daughter with some weekend homework she had brought home.  After we ate my husband and I got ready to go out with friends.  When we got home it was obviously too late to get on the internet so this was the easiest time to stay away.  In the mornings I usually check my emails and bulletin boards.  Instead I busied myself with housework (not much fun at all).  At this point I only had just over an hour when my twenty-four period was over.  For this last period of time I hung out with the kids playing games and reading my youngest a book.  The kids enjoyed it, and so did I.  I will say that not going on the internet gave me time to hang with the kids.  I do on a regular basis any way, but staying off the internet pushed me to be involved even more.  It didn’t really affet what I did with my time.  I always read my texts at some point anyway, my husband and I always play games, and I play games and read to the kids anyway.  So, staying off the internet didn’t change what I did, it just gave me a little extra time.  When I do go online it is usually for a short period of time anyway.  Staying off just bothers me because i’m always afraid i’m going to miss a deadline (just like I almost did with this assignment).  I do not email anyone regularly so that didn’t change.  I will ay that even though it was difficult staying off the computer I knew I could do it.  It just would have been easier if it wouldn’t have been at the beginning of a term.