Discourses of Attention

I thought this article was very straight forward and incredibly interesting.  This article got me thinking about how much TV I watched at certain points in my life and how my attention span changed over time.  As a youngster, I watched a moderate amount of TV and had a decent attention span.  As a teenager, I saw my attention span decrease while my TV watching increased.  Currently, I watch a lot of TV before bed and have recently realized that I need to start reading more.  I feel there is no comparison to reading a good book.  They are full of description and a person's mind is much more active while reading.  I also feel like my vocabulary drastically improves when I'm reading consistently.  A quote from the article that stood out to me was when the author said that people today are "unlikely to devote more than a few minutes at a time to any kind of activity" (p. 593).  I feel like this is true when I think about a lot of my family and friends.  This article has really made me think about how I spend my downtime and I want to make a collective effort to get back to reading as much as I used to.

Burkitt Text

Social Selves by Ian Burkitt was a really helpful book that really helped me gain a better understanding of the self and helped me learn to answer the question "Who am I?"  What I realized from reading the book was "that it is possible to be both a social being and an individual self" (p. 192).  An individual is able to grow from the his/her inner self, but surroundings and social worlds also have a big part in shaping an individual.  Another important quote from Chapter 8 that reflects this idea is when the author states, "to have a self is to be able to orient oneself in the social world; to be recognized by others and to be called to account for your actions, having the capacity to reciprocate" (p. 193).  Our self helps reflect who we are as individuals in the social world and how we interact with one another.  Reading this book has helped me understand many different theories and concepts about the self.  This book was relevant to this class because with social media, it is now more important than ever to have a true understanding of what the self really is. 

World Wide Web

When reading the article, World Wide Web, I came across many familiar terms and words that are still part of the online world today.  Although common, I didn't know what a lot of them stood for or what their actual role was.  This article was very informative and helped me come to understand the meaning behind these online terms.  For example, I learned that HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol.  It’s a protocol that transfers "information with the efficiency necessary for making hypertext jumps.  The data transferred may be plain text, hypertext, images, or anything else" (p. 794).  Learning about all of these different protocols helped me understand the history of the world wide web.  The information in this article is most likely overlooked today, as many people use the internet, but probably don't know the history behind it.  I was one of those people until reading this article. 

The part of the article about the future was also very intriguing.  It was interesting to gain a perspective of how the future might look from someone in 1994. A lot of the predictions were right on and the world wide web continues to grow every day before our very eyes.  Technology continues to evolve at a rapid pace and the internet has already changed so much.  It will be interesting to see how much more it can evolve.

Burkitt Post

After reading the Burkitt text, I came away thinking about a couple different ideas.  In the text, the author talks about some of the key factors of the social world being “technologies of social saturation.”  These technologies included various pieces of technology such as telecommunication systems, Internet, e-mail and things that have been around forever such as newspapers, magazines and cinema.  The quote that stuck out to me when I was reading was when the author stated, “the technologies of social saturation now make it possible for people to relate to a variety of different and divergent others in ways they could never do in the past” (p. 163).  This got me thinking about all the different means of communication and how much more information is being spread around currently compared to years ago.  There are so many different views and opinions being spread over these different forms of media.  It is impossible to really know which one to follow.  People have to really think about things and can bond with others with similar voices or opinions because of technology.   There has never so many outlets for information and it only continues to grow. 

A Virtual Death and A Real Dilemma

After reading the article, A Virtual Death and A Real Dilemma, I was very surprised to see that Debbie Swenson led an entire virtual community into believing a tragic story about a fake persona.  I was also surprised to learn how angry the virtual community members got after hearing that Debbie Swenson came up with the entire story.  People can become whoever they please when hiding behind a computer.  This is supported in the article, "One of the most touted beliefs about Internet communication is that the medium strips away users' offline identities and leaves them free to reconstruct a tetherless online persona" (p. 203).  To me, blogging on virtual communities has the user taking a big risk.  For me personally, I  go into these situations with some skepticism because I know there is a possibility that someone out there isn't who they say they are.  I rarely post or debate with people in a blogging setting, however when I do, it isn't about personal information.  I will usually talk about movies, sports, or even politics.  Trust is a big part of having a successful online community and I don't think I would be able to sincerely appreciate the other individuals input unless I really knew who they were.  Virtual communities are still growing and maybe someday there will be a way to eliminate some of these inconsistencies.   

The End of Books

The End of Books by Robert Coover was a very entertaining article that took complete focus to comprehend.  There were times where I was confused with what the author was trying to say, but I was able to understand most of it.  This article, like many others we have read seemed ahead of its time for being written in 1992.  One thing that I really liked about the article was how Coover defined the three great events in the history of literacy.  He stated that they were, "the invention of writing, the invention of movable type and the invention of hypertext".  This was very interesting to me. 

Another quote that stood out to me was when Coover quoted George P. Landow.  Landow stated, "Electronic text processing marks the next major shift in information technology after the development of the printed book. It promises (or threatens) to produce effects on our culture, particularly on our literature, education, criticism and scholarship, just as radical as those produced by Gutenberg's movable type."  This quote was definitely one of the more important ones in the entire article.  This prediction made me think about how I use hypertext.  Generally, when I'm reading an article with hypertext,  I usually tend to keep following the main ideas of the article, but there are times when my attention is swayed and  hyperlinks are clicked.  I believe it does produce effects on our culture, just as the quote states.  Overall, a very interesting read by Robert Coover. 

Research Topic

After deliberating about what my topic would be for this project, I finally decided to do public figures and social media.  After reading about all the positives that come from social media, I also wanted to look at how it negatively affects these public figures lives.  My research will include athletes, politicians, actors, and actresses.  Over the last few years, many public figures have gotten in trouble by using social media.  There have been politicians and actors that have gotten in trouble for posting scandalous photos and athletes that have gotten in trouble for using social media during games and sporting events.  A lot of these public figures are looked at as role models to younger children and some of their reputations have been damaged due to what they post on their social media pages.  I believe that a lot of these athletes have good intentions behind their social media use like letting fans get view into their daily lives.  It will be interesting to collect data and look at the positives and negatives behind social media and public figures.  I'm looking forward to the task and hopefully I find some surprising and interesting results.

Personal Dynamic Media

Personal Dynamic Media by Kay and Goldberg was another fascinating read, as it was amazing to see how far ahead of their time these people were.  The whole concept behind the Dynabook was very interesting to me.  If I were to have guessed when this article was written, I would've probably guessed sometime in the mid 1980s.  I was shocked to see that this article was written in the 1970s.  The Dynabook seems to be the model of most of the computers today.  It was stunning to see the similarities  in different fonts, filing, editing, drawing/painting, animation and music that we have with today's computers.  These ideas were the blueprint to the machines we are currently using for our online experiences.  It is amazing to see how spot on Kay and Goldberg were about their predictions for the future.  Two quotes that stuck out to me when reading this article were, "an architect might wish to simulate three-dimensional space in order to peruse and edit his current designs, which could be conveniently stored and cross-referenced," and  "a doctor could have on file all of his patients, his business records, a drug reaction system, and so on, all of which could travel with him wherever he went" (p. 403).  Their plan was to make life easier for people in the future and their work ended up coming to fruition.  It's very amusing to think about how many different careers have been affected positively due to computers and their advancement.  This was about 40 years ago.  What will happen 40 years from now?  The possibilities are endless and I'm excited to see what transpires.