Showing posts with label social networking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social networking. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
The long lost friend.
It's always an amusing circumstance to get in touch with someone you have not seen or spoken to in years. If there is one reason to be pleased about the growth of digital networking communities and the social medium presented to us in this generation, it's the ability to FIND (as well as be FOUND) by people. These people come in all forms:
-the guy who never talked to you in high school
-the ex boyfriends/girlfriends
-extended relatives
-old best friends
-people you worked with at that one summer job
and then some.
But this is all stuff you already are familiar with I imagine, as many people are. You might even fall into one of the above categories for someone else. I bring it up because I want to draw a line. There is a gigantic difference between clicking "Request to Add Friend" on Facebook, and a face-to-face run in by chance or time to catch up over coffee/drinks. How has the meaning of "keep in touch" changed? Social media makes it so EASY...but equally, if not more, impersonal. As a twenty-something college student who moved 9 hours from her hometown and transferred colleges in the midst of it all, I have done my fair share of "keeping in touch". Yet it often feels meaningless. I was reminded of the glaring contrast of online interactions and those conducted in person while home for winter break this past January. While out downtown with a good friend, I met up with someone I haven't actually seen since my first year of college about four and a half years ago. It was bizarre. Pleasant, but bizarre. Real. Nothing can ever satifyingly replace reality.
-the guy who never talked to you in high school
-the ex boyfriends/girlfriends
-extended relatives
-old best friends
-people you worked with at that one summer job
and then some.
But this is all stuff you already are familiar with I imagine, as many people are. You might even fall into one of the above categories for someone else. I bring it up because I want to draw a line. There is a gigantic difference between clicking "Request to Add Friend" on Facebook, and a face-to-face run in by chance or time to catch up over coffee/drinks. How has the meaning of "keep in touch" changed? Social media makes it so EASY...but equally, if not more, impersonal. As a twenty-something college student who moved 9 hours from her hometown and transferred colleges in the midst of it all, I have done my fair share of "keeping in touch". Yet it often feels meaningless. I was reminded of the glaring contrast of online interactions and those conducted in person while home for winter break this past January. While out downtown with a good friend, I met up with someone I haven't actually seen since my first year of college about four and a half years ago. It was bizarre. Pleasant, but bizarre. Real. Nothing can ever satifyingly replace reality.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
The Facebook Organism
I've been tossing around ideas for my documentary film project and I think I finally found an interesting direction to follow! I'm going to look at Facebook, one of the most popular social networking websites in this generation, as a living organism. Pretty whacko huh? I know. Here are some of my thoughts:
-We, the individual people/users of Facebook are the individual cells that make up the Facebook community
-Mutations occur within Facebook...Do these happen randomly as in nature or are they induced by some outside force?
-Facebook can evolve...Does this happen by the evolution of the individual cells first, or does the organism evolve causing a change in its component parts?
-What is the relationship between cells? How has the growth of Facebook changed people's perceptions of interpersonal relationships?
-How does communication occur between cells? How has Facebook changed people's ideas about communication?
-What is the purpose of the Facebook organism?
-How can we define lifespan in this scenario, and do the cells have a limited time in the organism too?
-What is the "heart" of facebook...the thing that keeps it "alive"?
I'm going to try and physically map out a scheme of my ideas tonight so I can start getting some footage to use in the short film and start talking to people about these questions. We'll see what happens from there!
-We, the individual people/users of Facebook are the individual cells that make up the Facebook community
-Mutations occur within Facebook...Do these happen randomly as in nature or are they induced by some outside force?
-Facebook can evolve...Does this happen by the evolution of the individual cells first, or does the organism evolve causing a change in its component parts?
-What is the relationship between cells? How has the growth of Facebook changed people's perceptions of interpersonal relationships?
-How does communication occur between cells? How has Facebook changed people's ideas about communication?
-What is the purpose of the Facebook organism?
-How can we define lifespan in this scenario, and do the cells have a limited time in the organism too?
-What is the "heart" of facebook...the thing that keeps it "alive"?
I'm going to try and physically map out a scheme of my ideas tonight so I can start getting some footage to use in the short film and start talking to people about these questions. We'll see what happens from there!
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Twitter is for twits.
Twitter is a waste of time. I don't care that it is designed for cell phone use it sucks. Unless you are a stalker or have no job, classes, or social obligations, I guarantee you can find a better use for your time than checking other people's meaningless "status updates" every fifteen seconds.
I know that our generation is a fine line from addicted to computers and if you even meet someone who doesn't own a cellular telephone there must be something wrong with them, but we have to stop it somewhere. That somewhere should have been Twitter.
If you have never heard of it, and have no idea what I'm referring to, let me explain. I promise it won't take more than a few sentences to cover every aspect. After creating a nutshell-like profile consisting of a photo, name, location, and "bio" (which could really be anything you want), you are presented with a small text box. The purpose of this text box is equivalent to the status aspect of Facebook. If you're unfamiliar with this, basically you get to tell everyone and their mother what you are doing at a given point in time. As if people other than stalkers and losers have time or interest. STUPID.
Check it out. www.twitter.com
I know that our generation is a fine line from addicted to computers and if you even meet someone who doesn't own a cellular telephone there must be something wrong with them, but we have to stop it somewhere. That somewhere should have been Twitter.
If you have never heard of it, and have no idea what I'm referring to, let me explain. I promise it won't take more than a few sentences to cover every aspect. After creating a nutshell-like profile consisting of a photo, name, location, and "bio" (which could really be anything you want), you are presented with a small text box. The purpose of this text box is equivalent to the status aspect of Facebook. If you're unfamiliar with this, basically you get to tell everyone and their mother what you are doing at a given point in time. As if people other than stalkers and losers have time or interest. STUPID.
Check it out. www.twitter.com
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
