Over the past half an hour that I've been reading other people's posts Ive logged into Facebook three times.. never once did anything on my profile or newsfeed change. I think what we're witnessing here is a new addiction. After watching the YouTube video with the results of surveys and polls collected from our generation concerning the internet and its effect on our everyday lives I decided to figure some of my own numbers. If I just logged into Facebook three times in the past half an hour, and say you subtract the hours Im asleep, at class or at work and you come up with nine extra hours I can spend doing what I choose.... I can almost guarantee that means Ill have logged onto Facebook somewhere between 10 to 30 times in one day, depending on how the day feels. I dont think there's anything unusual about that deep rooted seed of guilt we feel in the pit of our stomachs when we realize that we've just spent something to the extent of four hours of our day either watching TV or playing online. In the mindsets of previous generations both of these activities would be seen as stagnant activities; neither productive nor growth-inspiring. But I think something needs to be said about this society that we, as a generation, are day by day continually making and some questions should be addressed before we give into that guilt. Have we, as human beings and more specifically as Americans, through technology and communication made our day to day operations run so smoothly and efficiently that we no longer need to invest our time and energy on survival? Has the internet made us lazy or are we just bored?
What are these sites providing us that we so apparently and desperately need?
Boyd points out that persistance, searchability, exact copability and invisible audiences are all apart of the appeal of joining thes online sites and I'd agree. But I'd say that above and beyond all that the need to create and own a tangible identity My internet history has been a reflection of the stages I've gone through growing up. In high school I used Myspace as a way to share the identity I was too shy to show. Sometimes this identity accurately reflected who I was, but often it didn't, which makes sense since as a teenager your main goal in life is to fit in somewhere, anywhere even if sometimes you compromise who you are. In college, once my actual identity began to develop beyond my childhood and I began realizing who I really was and what I really liked I found that my online identity (which had now moved to facebook) was designed more as a teaser to entice people to meet me in person to learn more. This evolution of my identity has been reflected back and forth across my internet self and my real self, and I choose to see this as one more life lesson to keep in my pocket. The lesson learned being that people really DO judge a book by its cover, and the internet is just an easy way to design and show off the coolest cover. If the book doesn't match the cover the people who care will find out and if it does then heck, you've just proven to the world that you're one cool book.
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5 comments:
"The lesson learned being that people really DO judge a book by its cover, and the internet is just an easy way to design and show off the coolest cover. If the book doesn't match the cover the people who care will find out and if it does then heck, you've just proven to the world that you're one cool book."
This is a verying interesting point. It is like we can create whatever cover we wish. We can be who ever we want to be. It feels safe because we think we can say what ever we want to say. We are slowly learning though the series of falsities online that our lives are not really protected by our own being anymore. we share and once its out there there is no taking it back. I sometimes wonder if say e-mails, or web blogs in the future will ever be read in the academic setting. You know like how it some english classes you read letter between abigal adams and john adams for example. Writing yourself on to being online is similar like writing a character in a book. we can judge a book by its cover and it is so so so easy to do so, or we can realize that there are more to human being then what you can publish on facebook or myspace
"The lesson learned being that people really DO judge a book by its cover, and the internet is just an easy way to design and show off the coolest cover. If the book doesn't match the cover the people who care will find out and if it does then heck, you've just proven to the world that you're one cool book."
This is a verying interesting point. It is like we can create whatever cover we wish. We can be who ever we want to be. It feels safe because we think we can say what ever we want to say. We are slowly learning though the series of falsities online that our lives are not really protected by our own being anymore. we share and once its out there there is no taking it back. I sometimes wonder if say e-mails, or web blogs in the future will ever be read in the academic setting. You know like how it some english classes you read letter between abigal adams and john adams for example. Writing yourself on to being online is similar like writing a character in a book. we can judge a book by its cover and it is so so so easy to do so, or we can realize that there are more to human being then what you can publish on facebook or myspace
"The lesson learned being that people really DO judge a book by its cover, and the internet is just an easy way to design and show off the coolest cover. If the book doesn't match the cover the people who care will find out and if it does then heck, you've just proven to the world that you're one cool book."
This is a verying interesting point. It is like we can create whatever cover we wish. We can be who ever we want to be. It feels safe because we think we can say what ever we want to say. We are slowly learning though the series of falsities online that our lives are not really protected by our own being anymore. we share and once its out there there is no taking it back. I sometimes wonder if say e-mails, or web blogs in the future will ever be read in the academic setting. You know like how it some english classes you read letter between abigal adams and john adams for example. Writing yourself on to being online is similar like writing a character in a book. we can judge a book by its cover and it is so so so easy to do so, or we can realize that there are more to human being then what you can publish on facebook or myspace
"The lesson learned being that people really DO judge a book by its cover, and the internet is just an easy way to design and show off the coolest cover. If the book doesn't match the cover the people who care will find out and if it does then heck, you've just proven to the world that you're one cool book."
This is a verying interesting point. It is like we can create whatever cover we wish. We can be who ever we want to be. It feels safe because we think we can say what ever we want to say. We are slowly learning though the series of falsities online that our lives are not really protected by our own being anymore. we share and once its out there there is no taking it back. I sometimes wonder if say e-mails, or web blogs in the future will ever be read in the academic setting. You know like how it some english classes you read letter between abigal adams and john adams for example. Writing yourself on to being online is similar like writing a character in a book. we can judge a book by its cover and it is so so so easy to do so, or we can realize that there are more to human being then what you can publish on facebook or myspace
"The lesson learned being that people really DO judge a book by its cover, and the internet is just an easy way to design and show off the coolest cover. If the book doesn't match the cover the people who care will find out and if it does then heck, you've just proven to the world that you're one cool book."
This is a verying interesting point. It is like we can create whatever cover we wish. We can be who ever we want to be. It feels safe because we think we can say what ever we want to say. We are slowly learning though the series of falsities online that our lives are not really protected by our own being anymore. we share and once its out there there is no taking it back. I sometimes wonder if say e-mails, or web blogs in the future will ever be read in the academic setting. You know like how it some english classes you read letter between abigal adams and john adams for example. Writing yourself on to being online is similar like writing a character in a book. we can judge a book by its cover and it is so so so easy to do so, or we can realize that there are more to human being then what you can publish on facebook or myspace
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