Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Introduction- Assignment #1

Assignment #1- Introduction
Hello,
My name is Susannie Watt, a junior in CALS currently majoring in Atmospheric Science and Communications. I am from New York City, specifically the Bronx from a Jamaican decent.Now my parents reside in Orlando, Florida, retiring in the sun. This is my very first blogging experience and I am pretty excited to start it.
An internet-related phenomenon that I am interested in is facebook. It intrigues me so much because of the captivity level it has for so many users including myself. Not only is it a prime means communcation between friends/strangers, but it is the place to share pictures, see keep up with what's going on with people across the world, and even start an relationship. It opens the door for so many opportunites in terms of contact but why is it so addicting and commanding presence and need in out daily lives.For most people i know, facebook has become more of an priority than texts, phone calls, and even e-mails.
This summer, throughout the whole three months of my break my Internet connection was down. I did not worry about the important e-mails from school or the possible bills I need to pay online, but I was concerned about losing contact with people of facebook. All I though about finding a library to go facebook to change my status and and put funny comments on my friends' wall about the things we did together to reminisce on good times. I could not shake the feeling off that I was missing a part of my life until I was able to checked my profile, read the mini-feed an write a couple of messages.
I think that facebook is what it is to many people because of the connections it easily makes with a click of a button. It is quick way to keep in contact with and virtually stalk whoever you want, in addition to keeping up with what people think of you. People automatically become more open when there is no direct face to face contact involved, so hence facebook is the prime means of doing this.
Facebook would categorize under the asynchronous space being that the message, wall posts, and pictures can be read now and be responded to any time in the future.Not only came the message be limited for only a specified reader but it can be a public message for all to see if posted on one's wall.

There is a missing online space...

Hello world, I am Ellis Weng, a sophomore Computer Science, Information Science, Economics triple major (or trying to be) in the college of Arts and Sciences. Computer Science because Cornell has the finest CS program out of all Ivy League schools; Info Science because I realized that I fulfilled 8 of the core requirements before I even knew the major existed, plus information science is a very broad major that deals with many different fields of study (psychology, economics, computer science, statistics, and various other majors) and incorporates them in a very interesting unifying manner; and Economics because I only need to take 3 additional classes after all my CS and IS requirements, so might as well get it... I am interested in the internet and all its wondrous applications and music. Music is my life and should be its own “online space.”

Like many of you, I am interested in many different internet-phenomenons: addiction with metaworlds and social networks, deception of online communication and dating, differences of real-life interaction and asynchronous/synchronous discussions, etc. It is heartbreaking to decide to address only one of these and categorize it into its online space, but I decided to talk about…music. Yes, music in itself is an internet phenomenon and should be considered an online space. Think about it, music is a large part of the internet. The top interest of any Facebook network is guaranteed to be music. There are numerous sites dedicated to listening, exploring, and discussing music: Pandora, Last.fm, Billboard, iLike, iMeem… (I can probably name another 50 sites). This is on top of all the blogs and forums dedicated to specific genres, bands, and albums. Some of you might disagree…maybe music IS just a hobby and the internet has plenty of sites dedicated to different hobbies, but none of these hobbies fall under a separate online space. While this is true, ever since the internet began, file sharing has become possible and violently abused. Piracy is one of the top uses of the internet. See… evidence Interestingly enough, none of these major uses of the internet fall under any of the online spaces. Porn, videos, piracy, or any form of entertainment are not included or even hinted at in any of the online spaces. Maybe it’s just me, but I find it hard to believe that there are 4 different spaces to categorize online communication: email, asynchronous discussion forums, synchronous chats, and interactive video/voice; 2 different spaces to categorize virtual worlds: MUD and metaworlds—but not even one online space that covers a huge part of internet usage: entertainment. It is impossible to find a person who has not listened to a single song, watched porn, saw a short video clip, downloaded a file, or read a comic strip on the internet. Go ahead, I dare you to find one person who engaged in the activities from all the 7 online spaces, but has not used the internet for entertainment. I can understand why social networks, such as Facebook and MySpace, were not included as one of the seven online spaces—because these were not a large part of the internet in back then, but I am pretty sure music and entertainment were invented prior to the 90s.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Assignment 1

Hi everyone, my name is Sarah. I'm interested in the whole youtube phenomenon, like what motivates people to post thier videos on youtube and especially the rise of "youtube celebrities" like the star wars kid and lonelygirl15.
I would call youtube asynchronous since the videos can be watched at any time by going onto the site. Also, youtube has a comments feature where users can comment on videos. This is also asynchronous, as users can just post a comment and leave the video- instead of engaging in a real time discussion with other users. Sometimes “conversations” (users responding to each other’s comments) on the comments section go on for weeks since people respond to the comments sporadically. I was going to put up an example of a youtube comments “conversation” from videos I was watching but most of the comments contained inappropriate language for a class assignment, even though the videos were just regular videos- nothing of an inappropriate nature. That might be another interesting thing to study regarding the internet- people’s use of language, like on the youtube comments, shows the disinhibition they feel online as Wallace discussed and reasons/consequences of this disinhibition.

Assignment #1: Introduction :)

This is just a side note, but this is a tad strange to me. I keep another blog regularly, but this is something different. I don't have to introduce myself, for one, because I know the people who read my blog, and I am not at the scrutiny of 50 or so students who I don't know and are probably insanely smart. In any case, this is also the first class that requires me to keep a blog as assignments, so I am not complaining. :)

My name is Minji (pronounced MIN as in MINUTE and JI like the letter G) Song, and I am a junior at the ILR school. I was born in Korea, but I was raised for almost all of my life in Queens, New York City. I currently live in Bayside, Queens, but I attended schools in Jackson Heights, Astoria and Flushing. As of now I am close to being completely unaware of what I want to do with my major, but I recently unraveled a passion for youth, so I would like to do something in youth development or education. I am an avid volleyball player and enjoy playing sports, particularly football and catch (Yes, I know this is not a sport, but I enjoy only the catching of baseball. I couldn't hit a ball if my life depended on it). I also enjoy singing very much. Music has played a big role in my growth as a person, so I hope to never go deaf so I can listen to music until I die. I also play the bass guitar.

One internet phenomenon that still continues to intrigue me is the effects of anonymity on people's behavior on the web. I remember when I was in middle school and going into chatrooms and "meeting" new people was the IN thing. I would chat with middle school kids who were my age, so we wouldn't talk about anything too substantial, but I didn't know people could be so crass and rude! I remember one time when I didn't respond to a "whisper" and the dude started cursing at me! I am not the confrontational type, but I responded very strongly to his IMs, pointing out his immaturity and lack of respect. I wouldn't have said ANYTHING this took place in person. I mean, what if he was some big dude who could beat me to a pulp? But more recently, I started "talking" to a guy I met in some random 20s chatroom during the summer. I had never connected with anyone I'd randomly met online, but it was SO different this time because the conversation was just flowing and he made me laugh and all that good stuff. It felt terribly weird at first, because it felt like it wasn't real, but more and more I realized that the anonymity of the internet allowed us to connect in a somewhat substantial way. I found out that he is actually an introvert and it takes him quite a while for him to open up to people, but the anonymity of our encounters allowed him to open up without much trouble. In his words, "we skipped 2 years of hanging out by talking online." So in this sense, anonymity allowed something meaningful and substantial to occur.

This would fit in the synchronous chat environment of the internet as described by Wallace.

This seems abrupt, but that is all I have for now. 'Til next time. :)

Introduction

Hello Blogosphere, I am an Senior in Cornell's Information Science, Systems and Technology program. My interest is in how computing technologies facilitate different forms of communication and on the other hand, which forms of communication are helped by computing technologies and which are best performed in real life. I have contributed to two other blogs, one for the information science course Info 204 – Networks and the other was a blog I kept for my friends and family chronicling a recent road trip.
I am interested the online phenomenon of message signatures. Message signatures are sentences, often quotes, added at the end of a message. It usually has nothing to do with the message and people often keep the same signature over a long period of time. Many of the ones that I've seen are witty, but some are offensive. There is no real life equivalent of these signatures. People have favorite quotes in real life, but do not finish every point by repeating that quote. My intuition is that signatures help other readers of your post to remember you comment, and if you post several times in the same thread, this helps your readers correlate your comments. Since a quote is often easier to remember than a name, signatures could aid in online identity formation. Even though the Internet affords a degree of anonymity, some users choose to establish persistent online identities. Wallace mentions that many IRC users do not often change their nicknames even though it is technologically easy to do so.
The online space that this phenomenon takes place in is “asynchronous discussion forums” or, as they are more commonly known today, forums. This online space is old, in Internet terms, forums have their roots in pre-Internet bulletin board systems, commonly known as BBSs. Signatures often show up in e-mail messages as well. However, they do not often show up in chat rooms or in instant message conversations. Sometimes chatters will have a signature that is automatically displayed when they leave, but this is not the same as having the signature displayed at the end of every message. The main difference between e-mail and forums versus chats and instant messages is the delay between messages. Conversations through e-mail and via forum posts take much longer than conversations in a chat room or through instant messages. Also, e-mails and forum posts do not necessarily require replies, my intuition is that they are more often terminal than messages in the synchronous space of chats and instant messaging.
Time delay is probably the most significant factor in phenomenon of message signatures. Because e-mail messages and forum posts have a longer “round trip time” in terms of replies, each message is longer and therefore requires more effort to create and signatures may be a users way of owning their intellectual work.

The Forum is Burning!

Hey everyone, my name is Chris Barnes. I am a junior Information Science major in the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell. This is actually not my first foray into the blogosphere; I have kept a personal blog for some time, and I also blog in my official capacity as the Web Editor for our campus newspaper, The Cornell Daily Sun. In this same vein of thought, I have a new column in The Sun appearing bi-weekly in Eclipse, our new weekend edition. My column centers on technology and society, so a lot of the thoughts that I blog about here might find their way into my column at one point or another.

The Internet is such an incredibly unique place with respect to interesting phenomena that picking just one to write about is supremely difficult. However, for this first entry, let’s look at one of my favorites as an editor, the online flame war. The first two chapters of Wallace touch on it, but in case you are not familiar, a “flame war” is an online discussion that degenerates into insult-hurling and personal attacks, hijacking whatever the original purpose of the thread was. By definition, flame wars are confined to the “asynchronous” online space that Wallace discusses; namely, on newsgroups, mailing lists and Internet bulletin boards or discussion forums.

Flame wars are particularly gruesome spectacles, especially if you’ve ever been involved in one. As Wallace explains, the Internet’s cloak of anonymity “disinhibits” online posters, who might otherwise temper their messages. This effect is compounded by the cold, blunt nature of text-based communication, which causes the recipient of a message to assume the worst in the personality of the sender. Each progressive post becomes more angry and unreasoned by these processes, until eventually the whole thread devolves into pointlessness. The results of these unfortunate discussions are usually a lock or deletion by community moderators, and punishments for the belligerent parties.

A fun result of these truly tragic thread-killers is Godwin’s Law. If you’ve never heard it before, here is the formulation taken from the ultimate compendium of knowledge, Wikipedia, without a reference to which no blog post can be considered complete:

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

In other words, the law states that eventually, given sufficient time, all threads will devolve into flame wars. (The popular corollary to the law is that once such a reference appears, the thread is over and the one who made the reference loses.) I prefer to give humanity a bit more credit than that, but in my time online I’ve seen my fair share of online relationships destroyed by flame wars, so Godwin’s Law definitely has some merit to it.

Well, that’s all for now. Later!

Assignment #1

Hey everyone. I'm Elliot Pinkus, and I'm a senior Info Sci major in Arts & Sciences. I grew up in a suburb of Chicago (Deerfield) and, in case you were wondering, the Chicago Cubs WILL win the World Series this year. I am (or at least try to be) a pretty active musician, playing bass guitar and clarinet. My iTunes library is one of my pride and joys, and of course all the mp3s are completely legal *cough cough*. Academically my interests are pretty split between Human-Computer Interaction and entertainment media (so far mostly Game Design, but I'm interested in branching out into television and literature). The last two summers were spent at MIT working on educational computer games and websites. I like using parentheses. I hate using semicolons.

I'm pretty fascinated by the communities that develop within Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. While I've tried out a few MMORPGs (currently playing Lord of the Rings Online for about an hour every other week) I find them more interesting than enjoyable. In particular "Guilds", large organizations of players, are surprisingly social given their use towards the goals of MMORPGs. A large part of MMORPGs (and one of the "features" that turns me off to them) is the emphasis on number-crunching. The most respected players don't just play, but know exactly how to arrange and time actions to maximize the underlying numbers that determine damage, health, and the such. Players are encouraged to fulfill a certain role within a large group (e.g. healer, tank, etc). Social interaction is fairly irrelevant within the confines of the game rules, yet strong bonds do form and communication extends far beyond just the "numbers".

After meetings of one of my project groups last semester, 5 or 6 people would often stay for up to an hour just discussing World of Warcraft. But what struck me was how their discussion was usually not about the game itself, but about members of the guild they were all in. Through web-based messageboards and in-game voice chat, the guild developed into a tightly knit social community. Many serious guild members I have spoken to in-game take the game seriously and are very polite and helpful to other players. That's a huge contrast to what always seems to be the majority of players, who are obnoxious and seem to almost purposefully refuse to learn how to play well.

This phenomenon is centered around the metaworlds of MMORPGs, but relies heavily on other environments such as message boards, the world wide web, asynchronous and synchronous messaging, and recently voice chat. Without the use of these other environments, I'd be curious to see how social communities would form within goal-oriented metaworlds (MMORPGs and other games, as opposed to social-focused metaworlds like Second Life).

Assignment 1

Sup y'all. My name is Rich Rothman. I'm a junior ECE (electrical and computer engineering) from Long Island. I enjoy hard rock/death metal music, bowling, Stephen King books, and some other junk.

I wonder how long most of my fellow bloggers took to make their post? It's our first foray into this environment, and our first interaction with the majority of the class. I wonder if anyone out there took painstaking efforts to choose every word perfectly to portray themselves in the coolest/most intelligent light? Perhaps other online spaces such as facebook warrant this kind of attention? Anyway, onto the metaspaces.

I've taken part in many different metaspaces and had various experiences. One topic that I've been interested in for many years now is how AIM and similar chat programs have changed the communication preferences and abilities of the newer generations.

These synchronous chats have had many profound effects. It is much easier to stay in contact with people who you don't regularly interact with, such as camp/summer friends or relatives. The difference in effort and commitment between phoning a friend or double clicking on their screen name is very notable. It is also easier to have very regular, probably daily, conversations with close friends. Having a two hour conversation with one of your friends everyday for a month sounds very daunting, but it becomes much less stressful when you can read your email, talk to other friends, or just casually check the conversation every few minutes. Having a two hour phone conversation with a friend everyday for a month sounds a little unreasonable.

But what negative effects are there? I believe that newer generations are relying too much on communication which is not in person, or completely synchronous. Talking to someone face to face, or at least on the phone, forces one to focus on the conversation fully. AIM users commonly talk to several people at once, or just wander away from the computer, and nobody thinks anything of it. This also suggests the question, is talking on AIM truly synchronous, when the conversationalists constantly switch between multiple messages and multitask, shifting their focus away?

It is also much easier to say uncomfortable or embarassing things through your fingers and a screen, than to someone's face. One doesn't have to see the other person's expressions or reactions. To the same effect, the person in this situation who is hearing the uncomfortable statement does not have to hide his reaction or put up a false front, but simply type a statement that will fool the other.

Without being able to see facial cues or hear verbal reactions, much of the communication process that has been developed by our evolution as humans and linguists is being bypassed.

Joe Strandberg - First Week Posting

Hi, I'm Joe Strandberg, an AEM major (and probably Comm minor) who is interested in the intersection of media, business, and technology. I am also interested in producing, directing, editing, and acting in digital movies. I also have over 40,000 views for my digital video shorts on YouTube and other user-generated content web sites.

I am especially interested in the changing landscape of "mass" or "new" media and why people post amateur videos at a rate of 60,000-plus per day on YouTube. One question I have explored is how YouTube is changing the face of media interaction. Through the "long tail" of videos on YouTube, one may argue that the "long tail" of an almost unlimited selection of YouTube videos has allowed many niche cultures to flourish while at the same time catering to mass media (usually in the form of parody/mixing existing mass media symbols with self-generated content). Since users are mixing copyrighted content with self-created content, the line between entertainment and promotion is blurring. Many networks are now allowing and even encouraging parodies, since they realize that these parodies serve as free promotion for their content. Another element of user-generated content is sharing. YouTube enables almost instant publication of one's creative works for the world to see. This sharing culture has fed YouTube's community and has created a network effect, where more members are enticed to contribute as they interact with other users through text comments and video responses.

Another interesting production-side feature of YouTube content is how the content is altered as the producers keep their audience in mind. Users must essentially "act" differently in these videos than they would normally act in real life to maintain the audience's shrinking attention spans.

I would classify this pattern of discussion as asynchronous, since the Video Posting/Response system on YouTube is not too formalized, as opposed to synchronous communication through live chat rooms. However, YouTube is now moving into the synchronous communication space, allowing users watching any given video to chat with others who are currently watching the same video. YouTube cannot be classified into any one category of the Internet, since it is so well-integrated with many aspects of the Internet.

Assignment One

Well, here goes my first blog post ever. My name is not Alon Sharbani, but those of you who do know my real name will certainly figure it out. I’m from a town in Rockland County called New City - yes…that’s New York City without the York…also the default name for a city in SimCity…what can I say it’s a pretty sad name. I am an architecture major, and this past summer I worked in a firm in NYC, which was awesome of course, but it’s good to be back at the ‘nell…

An internet phenomenon I’m interested in is the exponential escalation of metaworlds like Second Life. I recently read an article about such a virtual environment in which one can shop, dine, have sex, work, marry, buy and sell property, and almost anything else you can do in real life. Another article discussed a law firm which established a virtual headquarters in Second Life, and is rolling in a considerable amount of cash. How can such a virtual economy, with virtual assets and real estate mesh with the economy of the real world? Could it precede the real world some day? After all, pixels are cheap.

From an architect’s standpoint, this phenomenon is very interesting as well. These environments inherently cancel the real-world real estate developer out of the equation. In fact, the players of the game ARE all developers. Their online presence creates a material world. Might we end up as automatons sitting in front of computer screens for every part of the day, even meals? I do, however, notice that a crucial limiting factor of the virtual world is that only two of the five senses are represented partially (sight and hearing). Then again, films are limited in the same way and, for many people, can capture a more convincing reality than life itself. Could it be possible to invent a language of expression for a 3D world which can psychologically affect all five senses?

Though I have never used Second Life, I am thinking of joining it soon to see what its like from a first person point of view. (I like real life too much to become even remotely absorbed).

This online space would be classified as a metaworld. In my opinion Wallace does a good job of classifying this space, however, what is not emphasized is that a metaworld has the potential to encompass ALL of the other spaces (It already has to some extent). The 2D internet was born when isolated networks became linked on a regional and global level. I feel that the same transformation will happen to 3D internet once certain standards are imposed. As of now there are many different metaworlds run by different companies, (much like the previously isolated networks of the 2D internet). If and when these networks link up, one’s avatar would be able to travel seamlessly across the virtual landscape! Scary stuff, no?

First Post!

Howdy everyone! I'm Chris Bostick, a junior general biology major in the college of agriculture and life sciences. I do recall back in my angsty teenage days using blogs to communicate feelings to friends, but it all seems so riddiculous now haha. My interest include games, playing guitar, watching movies, and anything else fun i guess. I'm from Central Jersey about 4 hours south of Ithaca.

A phenomenon that really interest me is peoples behavior on the web, with my specific experience in online games. I've played some online shooters which Wallace would describe as metaworld with highly detailed characters and worlds. It is interesting because you can play on the same team with someone far across the world, but i've found that a lot of people use that fact to say very aggressive and hurtful things. The knowledge that almost no matter what you say you will face no serious reprucussions tempts many people to push the limits of political correctness. I'm curious to the boundaries of which the internet acts as an un-goverened mass of people who are free to do what they want.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Assignment #1: Introducing Myself & Interests

Hey everybody! My name is Rachel Ullman, and I’m a Communications major with every intention of double majoring in AEM (I’m applying at the end of the semester). I was born in New York. I lived in Brooklyn until I was two, and then my family moved to Great Neck on Long Island. You may have heard of Great Neck if you’ve read The Great Gatsby.

While there are many online social phenomena that are utterly baffling to me, the appeal of internet dating is definitely at the top of my list. I understand that it can be difficult for women and men alike to meet new people that they actually have chemistry with, but why use the internet to alleviate this stress? Whatever happened to traditional dating? The internet is famed for the degree of anonymity a person can take while using it. People can so easily falsify their identity. How does the internet creates such a zone of comfort for people to share so much personal information with complete strangers? Why then, do sites like E-Harmony and Match.com have such a following? How can strangers all come together in an attempt to find “the one” when obviously, many of them are lying about their true identities? How can people fall in love with possible pseudo-identities just by conversing through chat rooms, email, and instant messaging? For arguments sake, lets say that two people are being completely truthful when they converse online; the fact remains that these two people have never met before. How can people base a whole relationship online without ever meeting each other? Anyway, I’m ranting, but the point is, I don’t get how people can “date” online.

Internet dating would best fit into the online environment of the asynchronous discussion forum. People will post their profiles jam-packed with information (possibly) about themselves, with pictures and facts. Their profiles are left up, and people can choose to respond to it or not. While certain online dating sites have restrictions (membership, for instance), people that have access to an account can communicate with whoever posted the profile, but often not in real time.

Assignment #1

Hey! My name is Caslynn and I am senior in mechanical engineering from Long Island. When I am home you can usually find me at the beach, in the city, or at the local bagel shop that became our hangout back when we were in high school. I love Disney World (been there seven times in the past five years) and theme parks in general which is what motivated me to be a mechanical engineer. I am excited to take this class because I’ve been addicted to the internet, computers, and games, for as long as I can remember.

The internet phenomenon that I find interesting is how people behave on anonymous internet forums. I love reading Craiglist’s rant and rave section in particular. I find it interesting that the typical manners and formalities of meeting someone in person are neglected on these forums. In “real life” it seems like people go out of their way to be polite, make a good impression, and be well liked, whereas on the internet everyone seems to be more antagonistic, blunt, and disregard what others may think of them. Is it possible that people reveal more of their true thoughts and feelings, being who they genuinely are, on these forums due to the anonymity? Or is it more likely that people deliberately assume a different identity online and say things they don’t actually believe, just to stir the pot?

When I read the forums I also wonder about what drove the person to post in the first place, and what they take away from it. Sometimes it is obvious that people go out of their way to say something to cause controversy and get a rise out of people, and I would like to find out why. Also when it is apparent that someone is being a “troll,” why do people justify it with responses?

According to Wallace, the online space that this form of internet phenomenon occurs in is in asynchronous discussion forums. Forum posts can occur whenever someone comes across the thread, and users can reply whenever it is convenient, the “conversation” does not necessarily follow a linear order.

Blog #1

Hello, I’m Margarethe Van Der Tuin and the first thing I'd like to say is that I'm a little nervous. This is my first experience reading and writing on a blog page and I'm unsure what to expect or what is to be expected of me. So with that in mind I hope this not completely off the blogging brick road and maybe you too have some of the same curiosities as I.

Well, to begin with here is a little about myself. I am from New Jersey. I love the beautiful state but after coming to college and hearing so many people respond to my hometown with something like "so you’re a jersey girl" or "how’s dirty jersey", I became more than frustrated because this is not how I see myself at all or the place I live in. I think NJ is a beautiful place and I don't think I speak with an accent or any of the other negative stereotypes that are associated with NJ. But enough of that. In thinking what’s important to know about me upon introduction I would normally bring up my two passions in life. I am a collegiate athlete and a student. I was recruited to row out of high school and I am now entering my second year of college rowing and don't regret one day of pain or dedication to the sport. As a student, I felt a little lost my freshman year being undecided but as of now my latest idea is to be a communications major and that had given me great comfort.

When thinking about the internet and everything from facebook to AIM to online dating to shopping the area that I question most is Wikipedia. I will admit even when my professor says DO NOT USE (in the most threatening of tones) Wikipedia because it is not a scholarly source I am always tempted when I hit a mind block to look up anything and everything. So for all of you who have the same guilty pleasure to quick search a historical fact or a musician’s latest album up on Wikipedia, this is for you. I remember back in high school the first time I found out that anyone can write anything on Wikipedia and it’s basically as good as published to someone like me. I was so shocked! I found out that one of my friends would write blurbs up about music he liked despite having no professional background in music or real training in developing his opinion on this because the point was that he had an opinion and Wikipedia was his way of expressing it.

So, I guess I’d like to better understand how this website seems so legitimized by society yet so openly shunned for being unreliable. Why is it that every time I need to look something up I will always drop a peak on Wikipedia. I love it and I don’t know why because I could be getting false information on anything and everything. Would I ever go to a class where the professor did not have any studies or evidence to support what he or she was teaching? No, I would think it was a bogus waste of time yet Wikipedia to me is somehow different…

Hi! My name is Emily and I’m a junior psychology major. I’m pretty interested in psycholinguistic stuff, but for all I know, I’ll be writing jingles for snack cracker companies in ten years. Lack of finely-tuned ambition and a history of setting perfectly good combinations of guitar chords to inane lyrics make this a plausible possibility. I really enjoy listening to music, fiddling around on a guitar once every few half moons, watching movies, and indulging a debilitating (in the best sense of the word) addiction to “The Office.” I should also probably mention I’m from Long Island, but who isn’t?

I’ve been fascinated by Facebook since I joined the summer before freshman year. Before that, I’d routinely thwarted invitations from peers to join social networks like Myspace, which I wrote off as an adolescent vehicle for self-aggrandizement. Facebook, however, seemed like a more benign way to keep in touch with friends from high school and plant new friendships in the fertile soil that is mutual access to each other’s favorite TV shows.

Since then, I’ve used Facebook fairly often as a means of combating boredom and conveniently conveying short notes to friends, via their “walls.” Though I usually use the wall application without a second thought to its implications, I’ve occasionally wondered what motivates me and others to post messages, which are supposedly directed toward a single person, in a place accessible to all of the recipient’s friends. The private message option is equally convenient (one extra click doesn’t constitute a burden), yet most Facebook users trade privacy for publicity. Wall posts differ from private messages in that they are written for a large audience and their content reflects this difference.

I think some wall posts serve as marks of territory. Posting an inside joke says something like, “Hey, look, we hang out all the time,” even if that subtext wasn’t consciously intended by the sender. Other wall posts may stem from altruistic motives to decorate the recipient’s profile with a nice comment. Finally, I think some people use their wall as a place for brief messages with a distinct, task-oriented purpose, reserving private messages for more personal communication.

The Facebook wall is an asynchronous space, since recipients often take a few days to respond to messages. It differs from email in that the person being addressed is not the only one with access to the message (comments directed to one person aren’t usually sent to an entire listserve). It differs from discussion boards in that a post becomes part of a single person’s profile. Though discussions between two people other than the wall’s owner can occur on a wall, these exchanges seem to be rare. Posts from users on their own walls are perhaps even sparser, making this space comparable to an online guestbook. While the Facebook wall might have as much to do with utility as vanity, I think the preference for public messages warrants exploration.

First Assignment

Hello everyone. My name is Matt Rawding and I’m a senior in ISST. I’m from Reading, MA which is just north of Boston. I’ve spent my past three summers programming at different internships, but I’ve since decided I don’t really like programming all the much. I’m hoping to get a job more along the lines of consulting. I’m a huge Red Sox fan and I try to watch them as much as possible but unfortunately we don’t get Red Sox games out here. I also enjoy playing ultimate Frisbee, but only casually. When I’m at my apartment I’m usually either doing work or playing Super Smash Bros for N64. Me and my apartment-mates are obsessed with smash and we often get into very heated battles. During the summer I like to fish, hike, and cook.

One area of the internet I’m interested in is relationships in forums. I have used the site slickdeals.net for the past few years to find good deals on lots of great things. After using it for a while I discovered a forum on the site called “The Lounge” that is basically open to discussion about anything. I lurked in the shadows for a bit before joining in conversations but I was able to observe friendly conversations as well as heated debates. I quickly learned traits about many of the regular posters. Some people used this forum as a place to vent about their personal life, some used it as a way of just chatting, and others, like myself, just used it as a way to pass time. However, the most interesting thing to me is the level of animosity achieved through the internet and how people use this barrier to talk about very personal issues. There were a lot of messages about marriage problems, work problems, and even some embarrassing personal stories that are good for a laugh.

I believe this is part of the asynchronous chat online space because forum members can post messages to be read by others at any point in the future. It seems a little counterintuitive to post something that you hope to get a reply to very quickly in an environment where responses can take a while. Although another interesting aspect of the forum was how occasionally there were times when people were replying so quickly it almost turned into a chat room.

Assignment 1- Virtual Worlds

Hi All,

My name is Linda Chu. I’m a junior in the Hotel School with a concentration in IS. Over the summer, I helped with research on online social movements and relationships and worked with data from wikipedia, wallop, flikr, and amazon. Where I grew up, social networking sites such as blogs and forums were extremely popular in middle and high school. Everyone knew each other, or at least their online personality, without even meeting because of their posts and comments. This sparked my academic interest in this field because much of my social network had been a product of social computing.

When Time announced that the 2007 Time person of the year was all of us, I realized the huge impact of the information age and web 2.0. I admit my daily routine relies heavily on the internet: I check my email, check the weather, check facebook, read news, listen to music, google stuff, watch movies, check foruma, read postsecret, webcam, check my bank account, talk on AIM, etc. Seeing how so much of my life is online, I can understand why virtual worlds such as Second Life are a huge phenomenon. I suspect that the popularity of virtual life is also perpetuated by the similar world of video games and our generation’s addiction to instant messaging and social networking sites. All of these involve much time commitment and online interaction, but virtual worlds have evolved into something much more.

You, as your avatar, are able to meet friends, attend concerts, travel, shop, date, have sex, eat, buy real estate, own and operate a business, and everything else you do in real life. But why do people choose to spend more time doing these things virtually when they can do them in reality? Are we all that busy or just too reliant on the internet? Are our lives so boring that we find more excitement to live vicariously through a digital version of ourselves? Will we eventually become zombies stuck in front of computers, living through mouse clicks and keyboard strokes? Before I’m able to answer these questions, the world has moved on without me to embrace second lives. A guest speaker in my strategic information systems class recently convinced his travel company to invest $13 million in Second Life. What did $13 million buy? A small piece of virtual land on which they will build a virtual airport/travel center (Virtual architect to be hired and paid separately). This center is where avatars can come get advice and book tickets to travel to virtual locations, owned by other companies.

Virtual worlds would fit into the synchronous chat category because avatars can chat in real time. MUD also applies because of the online community although virtual worlds communicate with actions and microphones as well as text.

Assignment #1: Introducing myself and interests

Hi everyone, my name is Erika Kim, and I’m a junior in the ILR school. I’m proud to say that I’m from Northern Virginia, which is just outside of D.C. When I first tell people where I’m from, most people think that Virginia is quite rural, but it is actually pretty industrialized, and a very exciting place to be. I used to love watching “Gilmore Girls”, but sadly enough, the show is no longer running. Some of my favorite activities include dining out and shopping. I also enjoy going to the gym when I’m stressed. I hope to go to Switzerland next semester for an internship opportunity, but mostly because I’ve never been to Europe before.

Facebook is an internet phenomenon that interests me the most. I guess I can say that I am pretty obsessed with Facebook, like everyone else. I was pretty resistant in getting Facebook at first, because it seemed to me that it wasted so much of people’s time. But now, I can’t seem to stop checking my wallposts, messages, and photo comments throughout the day. Also, what I really like about Facebook is that it is an awesome way to get connected and find people that you’ve lost in touch with. For instance, I lived overseas for most of my life (for 13 years), and I always get super excited when some of my old friends find me to “friend” me on Facebook.

This universal site is growing faster than people could probably ever imagine. I would say that some of the Facebook utilities such as posting up wall messages and joining various interest groups would be included in the category of “asynchronous discussion forum” described by Wallace in The Psychology of the Internet. It is flexible in allowing people to sign in whenever it’s convenient for them to post comments and add their opinions in discussion boards formed by groups. However, other features that include notifications of recent changes in people’s profiles, or utilities that allow posting up pictures, Youtube videos, music, and personal advertisements should probably be included in a new, separate internet space category. Wallace probably never anticipated this type of networking site that encompasses so many different features, but it would definitely be worthwhile to create a separate category just for Facebook due to its popularity and growing number of members.

Assignment One

Hello! My name is Danielle Rosenthal. I am a junior in the School of Industrial Labor Relations. I am originally from outside Washington D.C., however, my father, my sister, and I recently moved to Long Beach, New York, which is about a one hour train ride outside of New York City. This past summer I spent in D.C. where I interned with the United States’ Attorney’s Office. I have a twin sister, Jamie, who is a Biology and Society major in the Agriculture and Life Science School at Cornell. In my spare time I enjoy reading, sleeping, watching television, and going to the movies and out to eat with friends.

One Internet related phenomenon that I find particularly intriguing is why people are compelled to share personal information on the Internet, which they might be generally private about in their everyday lives. An example of this is the personal homepage, which includes Facebook and MySpace profiles. It is interesting that people are willing to share personal information with potentially millions of people, very few of which they actually know. Furthermore, very frequently on these websites people post private, even intimate, photographs of themselves in a very public space. Outside of the internet, people often want to get to know somebody on a personal level and develop some level of trust before sharing their interests, religion, political inclination, photographs, course information, etc.

Another facet of this phenomenon is that I find that people, including myself, are more willing to share their true feelings over email as opposed to in a face-to-face situation, even when not remaining anonymous. Personally, I am not only more inclined to share negative feelings over Internet rather than face-to-face, but positive ones as well. I assume that part of the reason lies in not having to witness someone’s immediate reaction to a comment, but certainly the comprehensive explanation is likely much more complex.

Homepages and profile pages fall under the category of the World Wide Web. Although there are asynchronous components to websites such as Facebook, the personal profile aspect of them really is not an interaction between two or more people. Of course the second phenomenon I am in interested in involves electronic mail, which now has become one of the most vital communication channels in our society.

Assignment #1

Hey guys, my name is Mike Andromalos, and I'm a Junior in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Before coming to Ithaca I spent my entire life growing up in Pittsburgh. My parent's raised me a hard-core Steelers fan, and I'm willing to bet that my mom knows more about football than most jocks. I also like to ski, which makes Ithaca a little more tolerable during the winter. As you might expect, since the word computer is in the name of my major, I basically live off of my laptop. Now that I know how the computer works (well, sort of), I'm really interested in how it has affected people.

The Internet-related phenomenon that interests me most is how technology has replaced face to face or voice contact in our daily lives. Today you can do everything from research, to shopping, to watching TV and movies online. Often, this is much less personal than the “old” way of doing things. From observing the people around me, I've noticed that many people would prefer this less personal approach to daily interactions. After calling an 800 number, a friend of mine commented on how surprised and flustered he became when a real person immediately answered the phone. He had expected a touch tone menu to guide him to the proper operator. On the opposite end of the spectrum are those that are annoyed at how difficult it is to reach a real person when you call those same 800 numbers. Facebook has also proved to be a strong influence in the way that we interact in real life. Before meeting someone in real life, you might try to look up their profile to see if you have any shared interests or friends. It makes it a lot easier to strike up a conversation if you know, for instance, you both share a passion for the same obscure indie band.

The space that my interest falls in is in real life, because our behavior in real life seems to be affected by our online behaviors. The online spaces that are replacing face to face or voice contact include asynchronous discussion forums, synchronous chats, and electronic mail.

Assignment 1

Hello everyone! My name is Meghan Mitchell and I just transferred to Cornell as a junior. I’m originally from Hayward, California which is about 30 minutes from San Francisco. I’m really looking forward to experiencing a New York winter. I was previously a Business major but switched to become a Communications major/AEM minor. I love meeting new people and having a good time.

An Internet phenomenon that I find interesting is no other than blogging. Blogging….why do people blog? Blogging is an expression of oneself via the Internet. People have various reasons and motives for blogging. In general though, I believe blogging is a growing phenomenon in today’s society that allows numerous opportunities for people to freely express their thoughts and opinions without the worry of consequences. People feel safe and comfortable giving the world access to view and comment on their postings. Blogging may begin as a pastime but it soon evolves into a habitual action, as it’s both fun and rewarding. For some, blogging is a means for people to help change the world one blog posting at a time. Blogs challenge who we are and ultimately challenge how we view life. Blogging is also a way for many of us to escape reality and dive into a place where we feel content and liberated. It’s a way to stay connected to people in other countries, states, or cities and it’s a means of entertainment. As opposed to commenting on a magazine or a newspaper article, blogging is a fairly easy task. All in all, blogging is a great way to be heard and gain new perspectives at the same time.

Blogging fits into the online environment of asynchronous discussion forum. Blogging is a place where there’s no set format or topic guideline and people are free to comment on other postings. Blogging takes place anytime of the day and is readily available for convenient use. It’s a place to share ideas on topics that interest you and others for however long you desire.

Assignment #1

I am a student, a brother, a sometime poet (as we are all poets sometime in our lives), a trash-talking gamer whose volume of words are inversely proportional to his level of skill, an eager reader, an (over)thinker but not an intellectual, a non practicing atheist. I am an aficionado of cold weather and warm blankets, a terrible serve but a good rally with a tennis ball, a thumb for a two month kitten to lick, an enveloping hug in a small bed, and a set of silent words on a yellow blog.

And so, to continue said words, I offer my observations and experience as an online gamer.

Five years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to Counterstrike, an old but well known first-person shooter, and competitive gaming, which differs to casual gaming as much as an Ithacan winter differs to a snow flurry. Despite the stereotypes of lazy gamers and anti-social computer users, competitive online players are the sports players of the web: they are driven, dedicated, proud of their community, and absolutely, positively passionate about their game.

Like any established sport, there are rising stars, established powerhouse teams, endless hours spent practicing, and an adoring fanbase. (For anyone who knows anything about the strategy game Starcraft, it’s no surprise to see crowds of girls in Korea screaming over well executed “micro”). Thousands of fans watched these matches between experienced players, who wield their mice and keyboard with practiced ease and unerring skill. The times I wasn’t practicing with my teammates, I spent observing demos, full videos of professional players in professional matches, trying to understand how they worked together to retake a bomb site or defend against a sniper.

As a whole, e-sports has become a growing phenomenon. In Korea, Starcraft and a few other games are already commonly seen on TV. This summer in China, I had the fortune of seeing a Quake (also an old, but loved first person shooter) match on TV. This big push from the gamers and the community will legitimize e-sports, just like snowboarding was legitimize in the World Cup of 1985 a little over a decade past its conception.

This was perhaps completely unexpected by Wallace, who described the asynchronous discussion forums and the synchronous chats like IRC that the gaming community uses, but those are merely tools that many organizations, communities, and companies use nowadays. The closest online space would be a cross between a metaworld and interactive video and voice, where players could interact with each other in the game, and in the case of team games, talk and coordinate with each other. I offer the term game space.

So wait, are you a guy or a girl ?! The Crazy World that is Lauren and Online Gaming

Hey there! My name is Lauren McLemore and I’m a sophomore majoring in Information Science and hoping to double major in Communications. My hometown is Fairfax, Virginia (right outside of D.C.), but I’ve also lived in Harrogate, England.

There are many ways to describe myself: student, athlete, gamer, sister, one voted most likely to conquer an island, and the list could go on... But on the whole I’m a technology maniac. My whole life I’ve been surrounded by both video and computer games (introduced at such a young tender age thanks to my Dad) and needless to say it was love at first sight. Between my dad, two brothers, and myself we own every video game console ever produced with except for Dreamcast. We have a whole room in our house dedicated to computer gaming stations and two televisions only for oh-so-much fun multiplayer action on systems like the Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii.

While I enjoy console gaming I’m more passionate about PC gaming. Playing games like Counter-Strike, Lord of the Rings Online, World of Warcraft, Dota, and Warhammer Online. I’ve beta tested for more games than I can remember.

While it seems that I may be rambling on and on about this gamer thing there is a reason for it. Because for all my experience and knowledge of gaming I still don’t understand why people play characters whose gender is the opposite of their own. In online games where you can customize your character’s gender, height, weight, hair, and features, people don’t always make characters of their own gender. These online games I’m referring to are considered by Wallace in her book Psychology of the Internet to be an online environment known as metaworlds.

From my experience in gaming you’re as likely to meet a female playing a female character as you are to meet a male playing a female character. Although females also gender switch to me it seems that most gender switching is preformed by males. Since I’ve always played as a female character when given the option I am interested in why some gamers choose to play as the opposite gender.

Men have given reasons like they’d rather watch a female character on the screen for the hours on end that they play than a man or that playing as female will often result in being specially treated through extra help from other players or free items. Yet females say that they play male characters so that they are not harassed, taken lightly, or targeted by males who play the game.

But if everyone can find advantages in playing as the other gender why doesn’t everyone just play as their own?

First Post

Hey, my name is Joshua Sirkin and I am a Junior in Electrical and Computer Engineering. I am from Bethesda, Maryland, about 15 minutes from Washington, D.C. Being an engineer I tend to spend a large amount of time online and I feel that the way that I live my life has been greatly affected by computers.

An internet related phenomenon that interests me is online poker. Back home a large number of my friends play all the time including a couple friends that play as their sole source of income. It gives a completely new twist to the game when you can’t see the other person’s face. A good online poker player has to learn to read people in other ways by seeing how they play, how fast they bet, how much they bet, and how tight they are with their money. Although most people might think of someone sitting at home playing online poker as being antisocial, I know some people that have made new friends online that will give them advice and even in some cases lend them some money online. I even know one person that went and rented a house for a summer with a friend he made online.

The most similar online space from Wallace that I would say online poker takes place in would be in a metaworld environment. While the graphics are fairly limited to the table and the deck, players can pick their own avatars and there is a text based chat between players. They are playing a game with a screen name that other players learn to associate with a certain personality and style of play. And although the poker players are playing for money, many would still argue that they are playing a game that requires skill, patience, practice, time, and most importantly interaction with other players.

Assignment #1

Hi, my name is Dana Klion and I am new to the Comm major. I started off my college education as a nutrition major, planning on being a dietician. I am very interested and concerned with my own health and fitness (if I’m not in my room or class I’m at the gym), however I soon discovered I didn’t have much interest in helping others with their diet. So I enrolled in the AEM program to receive a general business degree. After a year, I realized that I wanted to major in marketing and so now I am a junior in the communication department. As I stated earlier I strive to live a healthy lifestyle, which is good because I am obsessed with food. Some local favorites include The Carriage House's Brie-stuffed French toast, coffee-flavored Purity milkshakes, and pizza from the Nines…oh and the chocolate milk from Appel.

An internet phenomenon that interests me is the teaming up of CNN and YouTube to allow voters to ask questions to the candidates over the internet. YouTube started out, at least in my eyes, as a place where amateur videos featuring dumb stunts or home-made music videos were posted. I then discovered that you can watch live concerts and clips from TV shows on the website. The most current development is that YouTube is now used as an avenue for the public to voice their opinions and ask questions to the democratic presidential candidates.

YouTube is an example of live internet-based interactive video and voice. The website is comprised of videos people post online, and comments made by viewers. Those who post videos on YouTube are very audacious because there is no anonymity. The voters who posted their questions on YouTube during the presidential debate in July were well aware that their identity was not going to be censored. They asked the candidates very bold questions in hopes of getting some serious feedback. Questions ranged from a minister asking if he could use religion to deny gay marriage, to someone asking if there would be reparations to African-Americans for slavery. YouTube is a very interesting phenomenon, as it went from a place where high school students could display immature videos to a forum where the public could converse with political figures.

First Post

Hi my name is Eric Canals. I'm a sophomore in cals. I was originally going to major in bio pre-med but after last year i realized that was a really bad idea. My major is currently an interdisciplinary major in cals so i can take whatever classes i feel like. Im from Long Island so when im home i normally just sit around with my friends and chill out; its pretty boring at home so im glad to be back at school. I like working on cars and computers. I play most sports and i've wrestled since 4th grade. As far as the internet goes i play a lot computer games so i think this class will have a lot of relevance to my daily life.

The internet phenomenon that most interests me is MMO games and how people are able to simulate the real world in an online space. MMO stands for massively multiplayer online for example, a game like World of Warcraft has close to 10 million subscribers. Some of these games can lean towards the simple side while others have a lot of depth to them. Most offer a wide range of options in creating an online persona, and many games have their own thriving economies. That means real people trading fake stuff within a game. I'm fascinated by how people can get so caught up in a game to the point where they start valuing their online time and possessions more than their real life counterparts. Its surprisingly not very hard for a person to become addicted to online gaming to the extent where they start neglecting real life responsibilities.

The online spaces classified by Wallace are somewhat outdated when considering todays online multiplyer games. The tag MMOG (massively multiplayer online game) is commonly used by the gaming industry. MMOG's encompass the online spaces of Wallace's asynchronous chat, synchronous chat, video and voice, and the text based MUD games. Current games have come so far as to combine text chat, voice chat, and a persistent 3D world in which players can interact, thus creating a unique new online space.

Assignment One

Hello fellow yellows! My name is Brian Isett and I'm a Junior in the Ag school majoring in Biology. I am a big fan of electronica and enjoy making my own synth jams on the daily. I like to snowboard and pop n' lock (dance like a robot), especially with buds from my home town of Doylestown, PA. I'm concentrating in Animal Behavior, and there are probably some interesting overlaps here... In fact, I'm sure there are plenty of opportunities to use game theory in describing online social behaviors.

I have a few favorite haunts on the ol' line, but the novelty of talking to people that I don't know in person wore off back in the middle school (when I was 10 I had an online girlfriend and the whole 9 yards (it was super chic)). Since then, I've found the net most useful as a means to communicate with people that I already know very well in person. I find myself sending private messages through forums to friends from high school and keeping up with people through Facebook, which has ultimately replaced AOL Instant Messenger in this regard.

I am particularly interested in the progression of online communities like Second Life where individuals become so consumed that they are willing to buy virtual real estate for thousands of real dollars- turning some virtual real estate agents into millionaires. I'm also interested in why people in these immersive virtual environments are attracted to this meta-living experience. It's not like a video game experience in which you can do things that are impossible to do in real life... real estate agents online could probably find very similar success doing REAL real estate work! I find the self-serving nature of Second Life commerce to be an extremely informative system for examining how the internet affects self-representation. I have never used Second Life, but perhaps I'll have to jump in to really understand the appeal!

In a distanced way, the Second Life experience would certainly derive from the online space Wallace loosely describes as the metaworld. Even though SL has evolved far beyond the basic environment that Wallace writes about, I feel that she had a lot of foresight to identify this burgeoning space. Since they have incorporated the many freedoms that were previously only available in MUDs, they now offer people an apparently irresistible combination of opportunity and self-recreation. SL isn't going away any time soon, so I believe that rigorous observation of the trends in this space offer a very unique commentary on our behavior.

Assignment #1

Whats up. My names Brendan and just to throw the usual information out there I’m going into my senior year as a double major in Communications and AEM. I’ve just recently decided to double major in Communications and AEM so I have a nice amount of Comm classes to make up before I graduate - fun. Much like a large majority of Cornell students I come from the vastly overpopulated section New York known as Long Island. As far as random stuff about me goes, I’m really into anything ocean related (surfing, swimming etc), traveling (I went abroad to London the fall of my junior year and it was the best experience ever, to all underclassman I highly recommend a period of time abroad), and finally weather that isn’t cold (i.e. I hate Cornell’s weather with a dying passion and I cant wait move to like, LA or Miami). I took a class last year called Comm 450: Language and Technology. I found the class surprisingly entertaining and I would like to learn more about CMC and the psychology behind the communication.

An internet related phenomenon that interests me is the use of emoticons within CMC. For Comm 450, my group did an experiment relating the use of emoticons to politeness and I found the entire subject intriguing. I would like to learn more about how users utilize emoticons for various means. In particular, I’m interested in how one can use emoticons in order to alter the messages they send. Emoticons add a vital personal cue to messages based on text and are thus a very important area of CMC. Emoticons are a growing realm of instant messaging due to the lack of emotional cues that exist within the environment. I feel that in the future, emoticons such as basic smiley faces will likely evolve into much more complicated structures.

This interest of mine is located in the synchronous chat area. Emoticons are principally used in instant messaging or in chat rooms which have both been around for a considerable period of time. Instant messaging and chat are synchronous because both offer responses in real time. There really is no other area that emoticons are used in, perhaps email but its usage is less common.

Introduction Assignment

Hello fellow yellow bloggers! My name is Lindsay Bass. I am a sophomore communication/AEM major and I am concentrating in Spanish. I live in Rockland County which is about four hours southeast of Ithaca. When I’m not in class, I can be found at the gym or at the business office for the Cornell Daily Sun.

I would guess that most of you use AIM on a regular basis, which is in the synchronous chat environment. I would also guess that we all share the same habit of frequently checking our friends’ away messages. If I were to scroll down my buddy list right now, I would find several different types of away messages, ranging from phone numbers to Dave Matthews Band quotes. I’m interested in the different purposes of away messages and why people are hooked to posting information that can be very personal.

When away messages were first introduced, the default ones such as “I am away from my computer right now” and “I am away” were very popular. While these are still used, more people now choose to display personal details about themselves for extended periods of time. Many Cornell students update their away messages multiple times during the day, since it has become a common practice to stay logged on AIM continuously. As the opportunity arose to share more intimate details about life, more people became hooked to staying online even when they were not by their computers.

A common reason for away messages is to let friends know how to contact you. Many people post their phone numbers, their current location, or even a break down of where they will be at specific times throughout the day. Sharing this information makes it easy for anyone to contact you, including people that are not necessarily friends but have your screen name on their buddy list. I would assume that friends would already have your phone number, so I am curious to know why people are so comfortable giving out this information.

Quotes are also often posted on away messages, sometimes because the person is a fan of their music, but other times to allow a person to broadcast his/her feelings to their entire buddy list. When someone is sad, it is often obvious because of a quote on their away message. Is it because they are looking for sympathy in the form of instant message to cheer them up? Is it because they have a personal problem with a fellow AIM user but are too scared to confront them? Is it because they want to be perceived as someone who has a rough life? And why do we spend the time sifting through the layers of meaning contained in our friends’ away messages when we can easily talk to them directly?

Assignment #1: Myself and my Interests

Hello fellow yellow bloggers! I am a junior AEM major and IS minor from Queens, New York- home of the US Open. Too bad I do not follow tennis. On another note, I love to garden. This past summer, my mom and I started growing mint leaves, lettuce, tomatoes, parsley and grapes in the backyard. I’m still not used to going into the backyard and picking my own fruits and veggies before making a meal. Mom says that we should start to make our front yard a veggie breeding ground; I prefer the rose bush and tulips more so. Other that that, I did some random things over the summer- Broadway shows, speed boating and jury duty. I will have you know that during the 7 hours I waited prior to being called in for a case, the police officer at the Jamaica civil court put Spiderman 2 and Grease on TV. So the experience was not that bad after all.

The internet craze is what baffles me. We all work on 1000 different tasks at once. We have mastered the alt-tab keys of our keyboard switching from the Excel sheet, to the Facebook profiles we constantly stalk, to our Cornell webmail, to our youtube videos. I guess this is still normal- we have learned to multi-task. But when we come across such an article: “Is this man cheating on his wife”- (go ahead: check it out!) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118670164592393622.html?mod=mostpop we stop and think, where are we headed? Are we getting so engrossed in this internet addiction, that we are supplanting our relationships and familial ties to this fake made-up world? Is this online world better than real life? I mean, people in the “Second Life” as they call it, don’t get fat, sagging or gray. Your spouse can’t compete with that, right?

This “Second Life” internet phenomenon is part of the metaworld environment. We have a 60 year old man engrossed in an imaginative world that contains the most vivid and absorbing graphics for 10 straight hours. The computer screen comes alive with little avatars, and this man’s new wife is this hot, sexy, women of 28 who does not age one day. Quite a bargain, right? Wrong…the 60 year olds wife has just been widowed. Makes you wonder where we are headed.

This assignment was all sorts of win.

Hello world. (I remember having to write code to produce those two words in my very first computer science assignment in high school…all I have to say is thank God I don’t have to take CompSci again…)

Anyway, my name is Kristie Lee and I’m currently a sophomore Comm. major/AEM minor from northern Virginia! I was undecided in Arts last year, but finally managed to find a home in the Ag school this semester, so I’m definitely excited to see what’s in store for the next few years. I enjoy editing videos (short movies, music videos etc.) and I’ve just recently started getting into artistic photography. Most of my friends would probably consider me a fairly normal person in real life: relatively fashionable, somewhat athletic, able to relate to people, and not too awkward (I hope anyway). But my online persona is totally different and, to be honest, I’m one of the biggest nerds I know. I’m a Threadless loving, forum lurking, anime watching, bizarre music listening nerd. :)

I find this assignment rather interesting as far as my own hobbies are concerned. For over four years now I’ve been a member in a relatively large online community with a forum and continuously running IRC that would leave any regular reader or visitor amused. The community website/forum/IRC gets hits from members all over the world. But what I find particularly fascinating about this community is how people develop such close friendships and “cliquey” behavior through what seems to be very limited interaction. It is strange that cliques are so easily formed, even in an online environment where forum members lack the capacity to express one of the most basic forms of communication: nonverbal. One group of the most active members in the forum (containing both males and females) originally met in this online community a few years ago and they are currently sharing an apartment (two of them are even dating!). What also strikes me is the development of online jargon only familiar to community members. Though many of the phrases can be considered general web lingo, I’m sure comments such as :up:, “that was all sorts of win”, yayCen, EADFAG (not a derogatory term, just an acronym), and boochsack would make absolutely no sense to outsiders. How do terms like this develop? Is this generally a result of any community of people whether online or IRL (in real life)? It is interesting to see just how an isolated online community can thrive so well as to develop its own social norms and language.

In The Psychology of the Internet, Wallace describes two environments that are vital to the development of this particular online community (as well as others, I’m sure). Both the synchronous chats (via IRC) and asynchronous discussions (via forums) provide havens for members to come together at all hours of the day, regardless of geographic location and time, to build online relationships and form connections with others that share the same interest. Wallace was quite right in identifying these two environments of the Internet, as they are still quite effective even after 7-8 years.


Assignment #1

Hey! My name is Emily Cohn and I am a sophomore Communication major. I am from New York City, where I have lived my entire life. However, I absolutely love Ithaca for I find that it was a truly unique spirit that could never be found in a big city. One of my past professors tried to describe the spirit of Ithaca in a humorous story. He told us that the United States in the 1960’s was analogous to a giant game of musical chairs. When the music stopped and most of the products of the so-called “hippie” generation settled, however, a small chunk of them found themselves stranded in Ithaca, never quite emerging from the decade of tie-dye, liberalism, and folk music. Aside from my fascination with Ithaca, I love to read and write. I am a staff writer for the Cornell Daily Sun, which I enjoy because it allows me to see the University from a different perspective and exposes me to things I would otherwise not see.

One internet-related phenomenon I am interested in is Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia in which users can actively retrieve and edit its content. Many people criticize Wikipedia for its open nature because it fosters the generation of falsified or biased information. However, the website’s overwhelming success suggests that most people are not deterred by the site’s potential inaccuracies. For example, the English Wikipedia contains entries for over 609 million words, which is about 15 times more than those found in the Encyclopedia Britannica. It is Wikipedia’s overwhelming success as a reliable reference source that fascinates me.

I think Wikipedia falls into two of Wallace’s environments of the internet. Firstly, Wikipedia certainly falls into the category of the World Wide Web as a self-published library. Wikipedia can be considered to be a catalog of references, which Wallace describes as a quality of the Web. Additionally, however, Wikipedia can be seen as an asynchronous discussion forum because each encyclopedia entry is an interminable conference between users, who all have to equal opportunity to contribute their knowledge.

Assignment #1 - Introducing Myself And Interests

Hey yellow bloggers. My name is Caryn Ganeles and I am a sophomore communication major from Boca Raton, Florida. So no, I don’t like the cold, no, I wasn’t insane when I chose to leave Florida, and no, I do not know your grandparents in the Boca/Delray/Boynton Beach area. My favorite Ithaca season is fall and my favorite food is anything with melted cheese. I haven’t gotten as involved as I would like to be at Cornell, but I’m hoping to turn that around this semester, maybe through joining an a capella group or running for a position in my sorority. I love 1 hit wonders from the 90s, bad reality TV on VH1, and perfectly clear blue skies. I’m not sure where I want the communication major to take me, but I’ve been enjoying it thus far.

I spend an absurd amount of time on the internet checking my email, the weather, and most importantly my Facebook account. So my question is: What aspects of the internet make it so addictive? Why do I choose to sit at my computer at times instead of socialize in the hallway? As a relatively new form of media, I wonder if the internet will replace all other print and electronic media as it continues to evolve. I can now watch episodes of TV, download movies, read the news, and talk to my friends via my internet connection. Also, what psychological factors within us are affected by internet use? Other less interactive forms of media typically affect 1 or 2 sensory systems at a time, like vision or hearing. Could the internet be damaging to our brains because of a sensory overload? Overall, I am curious about why and how the internet directly affects people at a basic level.

According to Chapter 1 in Wallace’s The Psychology of the Internet, the internet is made of the World Wide Web, email, asynchronous discussion forums, synchronous chats, MUDs, metaworlds, and interactive video and voice. Because my question refers to the online world as a whole, it includes all of these different environments. We instant message people in synchronous chats, we read the news in the World Wide Web, and we play games in MUDs. I want to know if each environment has a different affect on people or if they all work the same way in our minds. This may explain why certain people are drawn towards the different environments.

Assingment #1: Introducing Myself and Interests

My name is Ashley Downs. I am a junior majoring in Development Sociology and minoring in Communication. I am fascinated with society and interested in ways to make it truly better. I think self-expression is the key to making things better. Communication is a powerful thing. I find an outlet with writing and an escape with reading that I haven't found with anything else. I hope to one day enter the print media field. I think it would be incredibly exciting to write for the Boston Globe. I consider myself a free spirit, constantly moving from one place to the next, with new ideas formulating at each place. I like to explore all of the possibilities out there. I am an avid listener of Bob Dylan because he seems to sing the tunes of my soul.

The internet phenomenon that most intrigues me is the increasingly evident addiction to AOL Instant Messenger. I have countless friends who remain online for days, even weeks, at a time. Checking away messages has become a favorite pastime. I understand the convenience of speaking to multiple friends at the same time. I understand the desire to speak to someone online rather than on the phone. I understand the need to take a little break from paper-writing to complain to a fellow student. I don't understand, however, why the use of AIM has become as routine in the daily schedule as brushing teeth and eating dinner.

I can't recall if AIM was around in 1999 when this book was published. Similar to a chatroom, I believe the environment of this phenomenon is a sychronous one: Individuals are speaking to each other at the same time. The only difference between a chatroom and an AIM conversation is that the communication taking place in a chatroom is between many more individuals. Jody can speak to Lauren but Suzy can see the message. On AIM it is different. Jody can "whisper" to Lauren and Suzy cannot see the message.

Assignment #1: Introducing Myself and Interests

Hi guys my name is Lauren Burrick and I am a junior in the school of Industrial and Labor Relations. When I’m not watching Friends or Greys Anatomy re-runs, you can find me at the gym, talking about camp, or exploring the wonderful city of Ithaca. I really love Wegmans and the Ithaca Farmer’s Market, as eating is another one of my favorite activities. While Lost Dog, Boatyard, and Jon Thomas are on the top of my Ithaca dining list, Collegetown Bagels and its Dewitt Melt will always rest at the very top. I am also an avid reader, knitter, and arts & crafts guru, as I tend to turn everything and anything in to an arts & crafts project. This past summer I worked at a law firm in New York City and got to learn some pretty interesting things. While I truly did love my summer there, I’m not exactly sure what I want to do when I enter “reality.”

After returning from my cousins wedding a few weeks ago, a wedding where my cousin, the groom, and his beautiful bride met in an internet Mets Baseball chat room, I must say that the internet phenomenon that most puzzles me is this demonstrated concept of forming relationships in chat rooms on the internet. While I am my no means opposed to it, I simply do not understand how people can form such a deep connection that sometimes grows in to a lifetime friendship, relationship, and in my cousin’s case, marriage by meeting someone through this type of online forum. It amazes me that people can pick each other out, either from a short biography, description of themselves, or a small conversation, and develop such an incredible connection, one that is as strong, if not stronger as those developed by people who first met face to face.

This phenomenon of forming relationships in chat rooms on the Internet is part of the synchronous chats space. Like my cousin as his now bride, both entered in to this type of space, a Mets Baseball chat room, to engage in real-time conversations with people of similar interests.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Assignment #1: Introducing Myself and Interests

Hey everybody, this is Christina Reda from Queens, New York. I’m a junior majoring in Applied Economics & Management and Communications, after having transferred from Arts and the pursuit of Chemistry and Economics (needless to say, my interests are varied.) Nevertheless, I will attempt to run through some of the stronger ones here: I have an art background, and love to sketch, paint, draw editorial cartoons and so on. I like to swim competitively, although I am not quite on top of that during the cold Ithaca months as I used to be. I’m a movie/tv buff, and while I know all the words to every Disney song, I can’t take most rated R horror movies (I’m a kid at heart).

The internet phenomenon that interests me is online dating sites. I suppose I find it interesting because I don’t understand the mindset nor expectations of the site users. Do users register once they’ve given up on “real-life” dating? Do they expect to find “the one” online? Doesn’t the fact that someone resorts to online dating lead to questions of self-worth or the worthiness of a potential mate? There are also issues of safety, what aspects users present of themselves, and if such information is true-to-life. I mean, people aren’t going to broadcast negative behaviors like “bites nails” on their profile when they’re trying to attract a date, even if they are bothersome enough to affect a relationship.

I believe (but don’t know for sure) that online dating sites have aspects of asynchronous chats since users can contribute to the site at any time, and it may be an extended period of time before anything comes of it. Users presumably can send messages to each other regarding their profiles and interests. Some profiles may generate high traffic whereas others can be lost in the dust, and discussion among people from various geographic areas can generate. Online dating sites were in existence when Wallace wrote this book, however usage has increased in recent years as the practice has become more socially accepted, probably thanks to movies like “You’ve Got Mail” touting its results, giving users hope that they’ll meet the next Tom Hanks or Meg Ryan.

Assignment #1: Introducing Myself and Interests

Hey all, my name is Benjamin Stephen Finkle but most call me Ben. I was born and raised outside of Albany, New York. I grew up thinking that upstate was anywhere north of Albany, but was quickly informed by my friend from Staten Island that anything north of Westchester County is indeed upstate. I’m currently a sophomore AEM major, and plan on minoring in communications. While I have no problems with school, I’d much rather be spending my time watching and playing sports. I played golf and lacrosse in high school, and look forward to any time I can get out on the golf course these days. I love how sports can bring out the best in people, bringing them to places they didn’t think they could ever get to. I’m a huge soccer fan, and hopefully next year I’ll be able to study abroad in England and see a few games in person.

The Internet-related phenomenon I’m most intrigued by is videoconferencing. This topic fascinates me most probably because I am currently involved in a long distance relationship. Personally it seems that videoconferencing helps to eliminate the distance by being able to see the face of the person you’re talking to. However, as fast as instant messaging caught on, I believe that videoconferencing has taken a much longer time to gain traction in the mainstream. I’m curious as to why this has occurred, and what social implications there would be if videoconferencing were to reach a critical mass and become as popular as instant messenger or Facebook.

This phenomenon takes place in the “interactive video and voice” arena, which has qualities of “synchronous chats” as well. Videoconferencing is similar to a synchronous chat in that it allows people to engage in real-time conversation with others, yet differs in that it adds a video and voice aspect to the chat. While videoconferencing was just at its beginnings in 1999 when Patricia Wallace published her book “The Psychology of the Internet”, her descriptions fit the mold of the technology available today. I can’t wait for advances in bandwidth and camera quality so that hopefully soon videoconferencing will be as easily available as instant messaging.