This week's task is all about internet use and its extremeties. The article below
talks extensively about this also, pls follow the link below to read the article in full. Research show that there is a normal/abnormal use of the internet as seen
in the article below. Interestingly, this article's focus is on the pathological
effects of extreme internet use. Griffts (below) in his analysis of internet use looks at issues such as compulsive use despite harm (pathology), dependence on the
net, addiction etc. i suppose this relates to last week's discussions about the
"internet paradox", its psychological effects on users such as depression,
lonliness and so on.
Over the years, internet use has been an increasing cause for concern. Parents
have been really concerned not only about who uses the net but more about the
contents/use of the net. This article highlights the fears of misuse such as online
child grooming, paedophilia etc.
on the other hand, whilst the paradox seems to focus on people using the net
as a remedy to loneliness, 'internet use' presents the view of compulsive use
of the internet. in other words, that only the extreme/compulsive use of the
internet gives rise to issues such as paedophilia and not the 'normal' use of the net.
I suppose one could argue that the internet or rather, extreme use ofthe internet
gives rise to bad behaviour such as online child grooming, Arguably!
What is "Normal" Internet Use?
Psychologists have been studying abnormal Internet use since the late 1990s. In another article I discussed a presentation on pathological Internet use by Mark Griffiths at the American Psychological Association's 1997 annual convention. Griffiths used a model of addiction to analyze the behavior of several different people who had problems with their Internet use. What is normal Internet use? Several different answers were presented as a part of a symposium at APA. Victor Brenner studied Internet use through a World Wide Web survey. His preliminary results were published in Psychological Reports in 1997. He presented further results at APA that were consistent with the earlier results.
Brenner's subjects reported an average of 19 hours per week of Internet use. Many reported up to 10 signs of interference in role functioning (primarily failure to manage time, missing sleep, missing meals, etc.) .
A surprising result is that 80% of the sample reported at least five of these signs. These numbers suggest that the presence of some level of these problems is normal, and therefore should not be considered as pathological. The Internet seems to be a compelling medium, and some disruption in our lives is normal if we spend much time online.
http://mentalhealth.about.com/cs/sexaddict/a/normalinet.htm
"Netizens" different to "Newbies"
A Netizen (a portmanteau of Internet and citizen) [also known as a cybercitizen] is a person actively involved in online communities. Netizens use the Internet to engage in activities of the extended social groups of the internetworks (i.e., giving and receiving viewpoints, furnishing information, fostering the Internet as an intellectual and a social resource, and making choices for the self-assembled communities). Generally, a netizen can be any user of the worldwide, unstructured forums of the Internet. The word netizen itself was created by Michael Hauben (see first two external links below).
Netizens are Internet users who utilize the networks from their home, workplace, or school (among other places). Netizens try to be conducive to the Internet's use and growth. Netizens, who use and know about the network of networks, usually have a self-imposed responsibility to make certain that it is improved in its development while encouraging free speech and open access.
The term has been used most frequently recently in Korea and China where there are vigorous netizens movements. The election of President Roh Moo-hyun of South Korea in 2002 is widely attributed to the support for him among South Korean netizens, especially OhmyNews.
Netizens, one of the first books detailing the Internet, looks at the creation and development of this participatory global computer network. The authors conducted online research to find out what makes the Internet "tick". This research results in an informative examination of the pioneering vision and actions that have helped make the Net possible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netizen
Please follow the link to read a reviewof Netizens i found
http://www.jetcafe.org/~npc/reviews/computing/netizens.html
"Newbies"
The word newbie is used mostly in Internet gaming culture. Its definition is to be new to something, mainly video games or an internet service.
Tuesday 13 March 2007
Monday 12 March 2007
'THE INTERNET PARADOX' (Learning Journal Week 7)
This week's task seems quite interesting, i suppose it sums up
issues we have discussed and argued about in past weeks.
the 'internet paradox' refer to the issues of depression and
loneliness online and the pschological effects constant use of the
internet may have on users especially teenagers. Mellon's conclusion
from the study into 'internet paradox' is that "the internet actually
increases depression and loneliness". Whilst J.Newcomer opposes the
conclusion on the grounds that it is inconclusive as other factors have
not been taken into account, ( pls read the article below and follow
the links).
I find myself in a situation where i agree to some extent with both of them.
I have always been of the opinion that the internet to a great extent
increases anti-social behaviour as most people who spend hours chatting
on the web still find it difficult to relate with their peers in real life.
Although i agree with the conclusive find that the use of the internet
in most cases can be linked to boredom (i.e. we go on msn to chat with our
mates when we feel bored), My opposition in agreement with Newcomer's
views is that the internet cannot be solely blamed or responsible for the
depression and isolation felt by the teenage users. As Newcome said,
other factors such as family, society, economy etc can contribute to the
psychological well being of some users.
Deconstructing the Internet Paradox (ARTICLE)
By Joseph M. Newcomer
http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/views/j_newcomer_1.html
With or without -- the Internet, teenagers can become depressed and lonely. Recent studies have examined the effects of the Internet on its users. One such study is from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), entitled "Internet Paradox: A Social Technology That Reduces Social Involvement and Psychological Well-Being?" This report concludes that the Internet, in opposition to claims made otherwise, actually increases depression and loneliness
First off, you don't have to take my word for it. Read the original report at http://www.apa.org/journals/amp/amp5391017.html and decide for yourself.The CMU report states that it is demonstrated that after one to two years of using the Internet, individuals exhibited reduced social interactions and increased depression. Consequently, use of the Internet is responsible for reduced social interaction and increased depression. This is fodder for anti-technologists, demagogues of every stripe, and I believe is a destructive position for a society to take. It will panic any number of parents, educators and pseudo-scientists into attempting to regulate, ban or demean a new technology.
The most significant defect about this study, and one I find overwhelming, is that there is no control group. There is no way to say if the results are due to the Internet, due to the economy, due to the specific demographics of the group chosen, or could be induced by any activity with one or more characteristics of the Internet. In fact, for one of the results, there is no evidence to suggest that the variance is not due to simple statistical variance in the result.
The study showed teens used the Internet more than adults. No surprises here. Most teens have more curiosity and more "disposable time" than most adults. Greater use of the Internet showed subsequent declines in family communication. No surprises here. What this study really appears to show is that the introduction of any new, fascinating, individual activity decreases family communication. The Internet is merely one instance of such an activity, and why it is singled out as being a Bad Influence when compared with, say, chess playing, ham radio, computers without Internet access, amateur astronomy, learning a musical instrument, building model airplanes, or rebuilding a car makes me wonder. The conclusion isUsing the Internet decreases family communication.
PS: SEE SEMINAR COMMENTS FOR WEEK 6 TASK ON
COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE (COFP).
This week's task seems quite interesting, i suppose it sums up
issues we have discussed and argued about in past weeks.
the 'internet paradox' refer to the issues of depression and
loneliness online and the pschological effects constant use of the
internet may have on users especially teenagers. Mellon's conclusion
from the study into 'internet paradox' is that "the internet actually
increases depression and loneliness". Whilst J.Newcomer opposes the
conclusion on the grounds that it is inconclusive as other factors have
not been taken into account, ( pls read the article below and follow
the links).
I find myself in a situation where i agree to some extent with both of them.
I have always been of the opinion that the internet to a great extent
increases anti-social behaviour as most people who spend hours chatting
on the web still find it difficult to relate with their peers in real life.
Although i agree with the conclusive find that the use of the internet
in most cases can be linked to boredom (i.e. we go on msn to chat with our
mates when we feel bored), My opposition in agreement with Newcomer's
views is that the internet cannot be solely blamed or responsible for the
depression and isolation felt by the teenage users. As Newcome said,
other factors such as family, society, economy etc can contribute to the
psychological well being of some users.
Deconstructing the Internet Paradox (ARTICLE)
By Joseph M. Newcomer
http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/views/j_newcomer_1.html
With or without -- the Internet, teenagers can become depressed and lonely. Recent studies have examined the effects of the Internet on its users. One such study is from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), entitled "Internet Paradox: A Social Technology That Reduces Social Involvement and Psychological Well-Being?" This report concludes that the Internet, in opposition to claims made otherwise, actually increases depression and loneliness
First off, you don't have to take my word for it. Read the original report at http://www.apa.org/journals/amp/amp5391017.html and decide for yourself.The CMU report states that it is demonstrated that after one to two years of using the Internet, individuals exhibited reduced social interactions and increased depression. Consequently, use of the Internet is responsible for reduced social interaction and increased depression. This is fodder for anti-technologists, demagogues of every stripe, and I believe is a destructive position for a society to take. It will panic any number of parents, educators and pseudo-scientists into attempting to regulate, ban or demean a new technology.
The most significant defect about this study, and one I find overwhelming, is that there is no control group. There is no way to say if the results are due to the Internet, due to the economy, due to the specific demographics of the group chosen, or could be induced by any activity with one or more characteristics of the Internet. In fact, for one of the results, there is no evidence to suggest that the variance is not due to simple statistical variance in the result.
The study showed teens used the Internet more than adults. No surprises here. Most teens have more curiosity and more "disposable time" than most adults. Greater use of the Internet showed subsequent declines in family communication. No surprises here. What this study really appears to show is that the introduction of any new, fascinating, individual activity decreases family communication. The Internet is merely one instance of such an activity, and why it is singled out as being a Bad Influence when compared with, say, chess playing, ham radio, computers without Internet access, amateur astronomy, learning a musical instrument, building model airplanes, or rebuilding a car makes me wonder. The conclusion isUsing the Internet decreases family communication.
PS: SEE SEMINAR COMMENTS FOR WEEK 6 TASK ON
COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE (COFP).
Friday 2 March 2007
Blogs on Blogs, a Weblog Review
(Learning Journal Week 5)
My students have regularly used blogs in New Media Studies and in other Literature courses at Stockton for reading journal assignments, as a portfolio-building tool, and for special projects. Ken Tompkins, the senior faculty member of the LITT program, was an early adopter of weblogs and has long advocated the use of blogs as a pedagogical tool. This semseter was however the first time that my NMS class studied weblogs as a literary genre alongside hypertext, kinetic poetry, interactive fiction and the other evolving forms of electronic literature we study in the course. One of the questions we asked was whether or not weblogs can be considered a "genre" in the same sense as we understand other literary genres, for example confessional poetry or the historical novel. I think our conclusion was that weblogs might be thought of as "formal" genre -- the majority of blogs share certain technical characteristics (regularly updated, posted in reverse chronological order, various types of engagement with the larger network as detailed in Dr. Walker's weblog definition) -- and perhaps these technical commonalities define blogs as a genre in the same way that 5/7/5 syllables define haiku. Blogs cannot however be defined as a genre by virtue of content. Weblogs are as varied as their authors. Some weblogs are much like epistolary novels, some like confessional journals, some like newspapers, some like scrapbooks, some like writing portfolios, some like research papers, some like cookbooks. There is a seemingly infinite variety of approaches to blogging. (http://caxton.stockton.edu/BlogOnBlogs/)
Origin of Blogs (http://www.andreas.com/faq-blog.html)
In August 1999, Evan Williams in San Francisco figured out how to update his website by just typing text into a text box.
Normally, to update a website, you use an HTML editor, edit the text and add HTML formatting, use FTP to upload it, and the page is then available.
But his new method allowed him to open a webpage, type text into a text box, click Submit, and it was instantly available as a webpage.
This makes it easier to add content to websites without having to bother with HTML.
Jorn Barger coined the term weblog in December 1997 for his Robot Wisdom Weblog, which still exists at robotwisdom.com.
The first hand-made blogs showed up in early 1999. The first use of "blog" also appeared.
In August 1999, Evan Williams (at evhead.com) released what was to become blogger.com.
In January 2003, blogger.com reached one million users.
In February 2003, Google.com bought Pyra, the makers of blogger.com
I should also mention several more people who have been significant in developing blogs. Dave Winer created the Radio Userland blog tool radio.userland.com. Meg Hourihan megnut.com is the co-founder of Pyra (blogger.com) and she got together the funds that kept the company alive.
Origin of the word Blog
If a diary on the website is a log entry on a website, then it is a web log. This was shortened to weblog, which soon became blog.
There's also the verb, as in "she was blogging all morning."
This week, we have to find a blog and share it with others.
so, here's one i've found, it is one of the funniest blogs i
have read, it describes someone's liberal attitude to life
but more importantly presents issues of freedom of expression
we are entitiled to on the web. Enjoy!
An Expat Goth
viernes, marzo 02, 2007 (http://spanishgoth.blogspot.com/)
My Name is Not Earl
I started this list after watching My Name is Earl which simplistically, involves creating a list of everything bad you have ever done in your life that you feel you ought to correct before Karma takes a big royal shit on your head. The first portion of my list, My Name is Goth contained only 7 entries so I still have about 6......thousand to go.
Number 8 - Caused someone to stamp in dog shit -
hell, it seemed funny at the time. Dark winter evening, bored, as nothing was happening, collect a steaming dog turd in a piece of newspaper. Carefully position on an evil neighbours doorstep, set fire to the newspaper, ring the door bell and retreat, fast, to a suitable viewing point. Laugh hysterically as miserable neighbour appears at the door in slippers and attempts to stamp out the fire.
Number 9 - Took the piss out of foreign people -
not big, not clever, but velly funny (at the time). Cue chinese chip-shop assistant asking if I want salt and vinegar on my chips... me -> "Portion of chips please" "No ploblem, you want sore finger?", "I want sore finger?No thanks, my finger hurts already", "So you no want finger", "I want vinegar, but not on my finger, I might need it later", you want finger to tek home? "No, I want vinegar on my chips, does your daughter want finger?", "No, you want finger on your flies?", "I don't want flies, I want chips""So you want sore finger or not?", "No, I don't want sore finger"...etc (meanwhile, in the kitchen the chef is pissing in the wan ton soup smiling and saying "we make special soup for you, velly funny, velly funny".....)
Number 10 - Encouraged a moron to cheat - and fail an exam -
so IM kept looking at my paper for the answers during an exam and yes, I was pissed off and so in the multiple choice part I deliberately kept holding my pencil to my mouth before circling, very clearly, the wrong answer to every question knowing shit-for-brains would copy what he could see I was doing. 10 minutes before the end I stood up, as if to leave and moron followed suit "have you finished?" asked the teacher, "Yes", said moron and looked to me for confirmation "ok, you may leave" said the teacher and moron started walking away. "No" said I "just got pins and needles in my legs" and sat back down and then corrected all the answers on my paper.
Number 11 - Electrocuted my brother -
frequently. Unfortunately for my little brother, who is and always will be, three years younger than I am, I discovered one of the basic principles of electricity before he did. Namely that a current travels as far as it can before inflicting pain. To test this theory I pretended to change a light bulb, knowing the power was on and asked him to hold my hand to steady me. Lo and behold, when I touched the live circuit, I felt a slight tingle whereas it was his hair that went vertical and with a yelp of pain he ran away. I repeated this trick about 6 times before he learned not to trust me. Probably explains why people being interrogated him now have such a bad time.
Number 12 - Stabbed someone -
although in mitigation, said someone was attempting to mug me at the time but maybe a slight over reaction on my part. The muppet held a knife in my face and demanded my money not knowing that a) I studied martial arts for years and b) I was in a very bad mood. A split second later, he was on the ground with the knife stabbed very firmly into his thigh. In retrospect, I didn't need to stab him but then again he didn't need to try and mug me.
Number 13 - Ran my fathers car out of petrol - always.
My father begrudgingly admits I have a sixth sense when it comes to how much fuel is left in the tank. So much so that he always has at least two containers of petrol, one in the boot of his car and one, hidden.....now. The reason being I used to borrow his car but never put petrol in it. Didn't seem any point as there was petrol in it already. Bearing in mind that he lived 5 miles from the nearest petrol station this could prove slightly annoying to him. For example, the time when I went on a 200 mile triip, returned the car to him and left. When he decided to go to the shops, he got in the car, started it up and got precisely 4 metres before the car spluttered to a halt, still on his driveway and blatantly out of fuel.So now all I have to do is figure out how to "undo" these things on my list, well that's what Earl does. Then again, he won the lottery and I haven't so.....maybe I won't, yet.buen fin de semana y besos a todos,Sps will be quiet (blog wise) this weekend as I am going to see my angel, Mini-Gothess for her birthday.
Happy Birthday my beautiful princess. XXX
(Learning Journal Week 5)
My students have regularly used blogs in New Media Studies and in other Literature courses at Stockton for reading journal assignments, as a portfolio-building tool, and for special projects. Ken Tompkins, the senior faculty member of the LITT program, was an early adopter of weblogs and has long advocated the use of blogs as a pedagogical tool. This semseter was however the first time that my NMS class studied weblogs as a literary genre alongside hypertext, kinetic poetry, interactive fiction and the other evolving forms of electronic literature we study in the course. One of the questions we asked was whether or not weblogs can be considered a "genre" in the same sense as we understand other literary genres, for example confessional poetry or the historical novel. I think our conclusion was that weblogs might be thought of as "formal" genre -- the majority of blogs share certain technical characteristics (regularly updated, posted in reverse chronological order, various types of engagement with the larger network as detailed in Dr. Walker's weblog definition) -- and perhaps these technical commonalities define blogs as a genre in the same way that 5/7/5 syllables define haiku. Blogs cannot however be defined as a genre by virtue of content. Weblogs are as varied as their authors. Some weblogs are much like epistolary novels, some like confessional journals, some like newspapers, some like scrapbooks, some like writing portfolios, some like research papers, some like cookbooks. There is a seemingly infinite variety of approaches to blogging. (http://caxton.stockton.edu/BlogOnBlogs/)
Origin of Blogs (http://www.andreas.com/faq-blog.html)
In August 1999, Evan Williams in San Francisco figured out how to update his website by just typing text into a text box.
Normally, to update a website, you use an HTML editor, edit the text and add HTML formatting, use FTP to upload it, and the page is then available.
But his new method allowed him to open a webpage, type text into a text box, click Submit, and it was instantly available as a webpage.
This makes it easier to add content to websites without having to bother with HTML.
Jorn Barger coined the term weblog in December 1997 for his Robot Wisdom Weblog, which still exists at robotwisdom.com.
The first hand-made blogs showed up in early 1999. The first use of "blog" also appeared.
In August 1999, Evan Williams (at evhead.com) released what was to become blogger.com.
In January 2003, blogger.com reached one million users.
In February 2003, Google.com bought Pyra, the makers of blogger.com
I should also mention several more people who have been significant in developing blogs. Dave Winer created the Radio Userland blog tool radio.userland.com. Meg Hourihan megnut.com is the co-founder of Pyra (blogger.com) and she got together the funds that kept the company alive.
Origin of the word Blog
If a diary on the website is a log entry on a website, then it is a web log. This was shortened to weblog, which soon became blog.
There's also the verb, as in "she was blogging all morning."
This week, we have to find a blog and share it with others.
so, here's one i've found, it is one of the funniest blogs i
have read, it describes someone's liberal attitude to life
but more importantly presents issues of freedom of expression
we are entitiled to on the web. Enjoy!
An Expat Goth
viernes, marzo 02, 2007 (http://spanishgoth.blogspot.com/)
My Name is Not Earl
I started this list after watching My Name is Earl which simplistically, involves creating a list of everything bad you have ever done in your life that you feel you ought to correct before Karma takes a big royal shit on your head. The first portion of my list, My Name is Goth contained only 7 entries so I still have about 6......thousand to go.
Number 8 - Caused someone to stamp in dog shit -
hell, it seemed funny at the time. Dark winter evening, bored, as nothing was happening, collect a steaming dog turd in a piece of newspaper. Carefully position on an evil neighbours doorstep, set fire to the newspaper, ring the door bell and retreat, fast, to a suitable viewing point. Laugh hysterically as miserable neighbour appears at the door in slippers and attempts to stamp out the fire.
Number 9 - Took the piss out of foreign people -
not big, not clever, but velly funny (at the time). Cue chinese chip-shop assistant asking if I want salt and vinegar on my chips... me -> "Portion of chips please" "No ploblem, you want sore finger?", "I want sore finger?No thanks, my finger hurts already", "So you no want finger", "I want vinegar, but not on my finger, I might need it later", you want finger to tek home? "No, I want vinegar on my chips, does your daughter want finger?", "No, you want finger on your flies?", "I don't want flies, I want chips""So you want sore finger or not?", "No, I don't want sore finger"...etc (meanwhile, in the kitchen the chef is pissing in the wan ton soup smiling and saying "we make special soup for you, velly funny, velly funny".....)
Number 10 - Encouraged a moron to cheat - and fail an exam -
so IM kept looking at my paper for the answers during an exam and yes, I was pissed off and so in the multiple choice part I deliberately kept holding my pencil to my mouth before circling, very clearly, the wrong answer to every question knowing shit-for-brains would copy what he could see I was doing. 10 minutes before the end I stood up, as if to leave and moron followed suit "have you finished?" asked the teacher, "Yes", said moron and looked to me for confirmation "ok, you may leave" said the teacher and moron started walking away. "No" said I "just got pins and needles in my legs" and sat back down and then corrected all the answers on my paper.
Number 11 - Electrocuted my brother -
frequently. Unfortunately for my little brother, who is and always will be, three years younger than I am, I discovered one of the basic principles of electricity before he did. Namely that a current travels as far as it can before inflicting pain. To test this theory I pretended to change a light bulb, knowing the power was on and asked him to hold my hand to steady me. Lo and behold, when I touched the live circuit, I felt a slight tingle whereas it was his hair that went vertical and with a yelp of pain he ran away. I repeated this trick about 6 times before he learned not to trust me. Probably explains why people being interrogated him now have such a bad time.
Number 12 - Stabbed someone -
although in mitigation, said someone was attempting to mug me at the time but maybe a slight over reaction on my part. The muppet held a knife in my face and demanded my money not knowing that a) I studied martial arts for years and b) I was in a very bad mood. A split second later, he was on the ground with the knife stabbed very firmly into his thigh. In retrospect, I didn't need to stab him but then again he didn't need to try and mug me.
Number 13 - Ran my fathers car out of petrol - always.
My father begrudgingly admits I have a sixth sense when it comes to how much fuel is left in the tank. So much so that he always has at least two containers of petrol, one in the boot of his car and one, hidden.....now. The reason being I used to borrow his car but never put petrol in it. Didn't seem any point as there was petrol in it already. Bearing in mind that he lived 5 miles from the nearest petrol station this could prove slightly annoying to him. For example, the time when I went on a 200 mile triip, returned the car to him and left. When he decided to go to the shops, he got in the car, started it up and got precisely 4 metres before the car spluttered to a halt, still on his driveway and blatantly out of fuel.So now all I have to do is figure out how to "undo" these things on my list, well that's what Earl does. Then again, he won the lottery and I haven't so.....maybe I won't, yet.buen fin de semana y besos a todos,Sps will be quiet (blog wise) this weekend as I am going to see my angel, Mini-Gothess for her birthday.
Happy Birthday my beautiful princess. XXX
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