I know what you're expecting... "Morgan is in ITEC-333 so he is going to list facts and figures of the history of social networking blah blah blah"
Nawww... how about how social networking has changed our interactions from the early years until now.... "Niiiice."
I was checking out Digg.com and I saw an article on the front page called "7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable." The seven are:
#1. We don't have enough annoying strangers in our lives.This all resonated for me. I've talked with my dad who is obviously older than me (sorry dad, it's true) and he would talk about how all his interactions involved going outside and participating in activities which were ... well... active. Now, our social networks on the internet permit us to be "active" while sitting at home on our computer playing RPG games. Sometimes I find myself playing more Fifa or Madden than actual soccer or football! Until I got to college, my life was dominated by the outdoors. Now that I developed a new social network centered around technology, I find myself not needing to communicate as clearly or as with much tone. Simple answers to simple questions.
#2. We don't have enough annoying friends, either.
#3. Texting is a shitty way to communicate.
#4. Online company only makes us lonelier.
#5. We don't get criticized enough.
#6. We're victims of the Outrage Machine.
#7. We feel worthless, because we actually are worth less.
Another interesting point in the article talks about how we are loosing the art of real conversing. Through AIM and Facebook, people partaking in online networks don't have the need to have a real, one-on-one conversation with each other. Instead, it is done through quick responses to even quicker questions. With sites like MySpace and LinkedIn, you have people who have never met bond through virtual interaction. 93% of what a person says is communicated in ways other than words, e.x. body language, inflections. How are you supposed to really understand a person when all you get is 7% of them! Damn, I can't understand most people and I get the full 100!
All-in-all, social networks have detracted from more personable forms of communication from the early days, but as a community we will grow and understand these new forms of conversing while still getting the full 100 percent of what people mean... not just 7.
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4 comments:
I agree with you that our lives seem to be dominated by electronics these days, and that we don't get out enough, or don't interact with other human beings to a large enough extent. I am a huge advocate of in-person communication and as such, I dislike using instant messaging programs. I feel like I cannot tell between things like sarcasm and truth, and as a result I misunderstand what someone is trying to convey, simply because I cannot hear their intonation. Nice points covered in your post!
Great post Morgan, although to be honest I'm kind of bummed now. I have thought of all that we miss out on when we get so wrapped up in our online communities. And what can be even more frustrating is when we actually do want to go out and converse and experience the full "100" of a person, that doesn't mean they will necessarily be ready to join us. Now I know what my mom meant when she hid the remote and demanded I go outside.
first of all, I like the mathcing colors of the background with the font.However,I agree that life now is more controlled by technology instead of us contrlling the technologh. So I think this is the real problem and we should try to do something about it. I don't mean to abandon technology, but try to take advantage of the good things that it offers us.
I feel like I am making my life miserable because I am so obsessed with all techy things (Not super techy, but somehow) + all the internet stuffs. But, we still have rums, I mean, alcohol. lol well. We don't plan an on-line party. we still meet people in person, which is more comfortable sometime!
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