Passive attempts

This week we talked a lot about having your voice heard online. The more I think about this concept the more it annoys me; it seems so passive and safe. Our country is known for taking a stand when groups felt oppressed whether it meant protesting in the streets or doing some sort of demonstration, there were people everywhere willing to put themselves on the line to make a change. Now our generation thinks it’s fine to share their thoughts solely online. I think because my generation grew up with social media we are a more passive group when it comes to taking a physical stand. There are protests here and there but people in this generation feel much more comfortable expressing their distaste for something behind the safety of their computer screen. I just don’t feel like tweeting about something has the same impact a march or protest does.

Actively Involved Online

The article “small change” basically discusses how people perceive social media sites to help rally with political injustices. Basically the conclusion of the article was that tweeting and liking things on facebook really isn’t a huge factor in moving people to protest, long before social media people got together and rallied against different issues. If people feel truly oppressed or against something they will (and should) protest against it. It seems that this article is saying that just posting things online isn’t really helping too much. I think that it stops motivating people for example someone could see the facebook page for PETA and like their ideas against animal cruelty so they hit “like” but that’s not really doing much of anything, they aren’t out volunteering or being actively involved, but they think by doing that they have helped out. The next site we looked at was a blog called the egyptianchronicles and it is written by a woman who has strong feelings about the way her country is run. She constantly updates the blogs with information on where the elections will be held and stories of people who have been grievously affected by the tainted justice system. I think that this blog is different than just expressing dislike for one thing; she is actively informing her readers on important issues that they may not know about otherwise.

Too Close for Comfort

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how committed and locked in we are to technology. I think it’s great that we are so innovative but the more I look around the more it seems that people are addicted to their computers, ipads, and smartphones. I can’t say I don’t benefit from these social based devices, I live 22 hours away so it’d be extremely hard to contact my family without cell phones or skype. I think that a lot of people don’t have preferences about how they communicate with their loved ones anymore, face to face or skype it’s all the same. The thing is even when I’m with my friends or family they are glued to their phones or laptops and I can’t have a coherent conversation with them because they are scrolling through facebook or re-pinning things via pinterest. It seems like I’d have a better chance of having a conversation if I facebook chatted them in the same room. This week I learned more about the iwatch and google glasses and feel that these devices are getting too close for comfort in a way because they are on your body. Now they are even more invasive in your-face than ever before. I don’t think I’ll be the type to want any wearables but who knows, maybe I’ll end up being a huge proponent of them.

Mark Zuckerburg as a character

I thought the movie “Social Network” was entertaining. It portrayed Mark Zuckerburg as one of those brilliant people who don’t have very good judgment with people. The movie’s plot was that facebook’s invention was driven by Zuckerburg’s break up with his girlfriend. In reality this wasn’t the case at all. Another important movie point was that the more successful facebook got the more problems and friends Zuckerburg lost. I’m wondering if maybe Zuckerburg lost friends because of his own social issues and bluntness rather than his success. While watching the “Social Network” I couldn’t help but compare Mark Zuckerburg to Steve Jobs. They seem to both be really crass and rude but Jobs seems to do this very deliberately whereas Zuckerberg isn’t as aware he offends people. All in all I didn’t see Zuckerburg as a completely unlikable character in the movie but I found myself feeling sorry for him a lot of the time.

Is Google a new god?

Information seems to be the epicenter of our society. The internet (especially google) allows anyone to obtain knowledge about every subject. Do you have a medical question? You can look up symptoms to form a base diagnosis, without ever having to go to a doctor, you can find tutorials to knit or carve. The internet has information that provide users to pick up skills and learn to facts extremely fast, before the internet people would have to go to the library or take a class. I think now we have become “information junkies” expecting immediate gratification in finding exactly what we want to know. We also want a lot of space to hold things like pictures, videos, and music. What’s interesting is that in most religions there is a god or deity this is either all-knowing or knows more than any mortal worshippers. Now it seems that people can easily get a hold of information and that instead of a “god” possessing all knowledge sites like google does. Before sites like google people could just assume they didn’t know everything or all the universe’s secrets but now anyone with internet access is able to find a plethora of things online.

The Night the Internet Went Out

In class we’ve been talking about google and the internet and how they relate to religions. In religions there are practicers that our very devote and being heavily involved in their church/temple/mosque etc. Lately, I’ve been noticing how devote people are to the internet. People spend hours on the computer everyday; updating facebook and twitter religiously and checking inboxes. I think people don’t understand how much of a hold the internet has on our lives. Last week the internet went out for hours at night at Lawrence and chaos ensued. No one knew what to do with it, my roommates and I just starred at each other, in fact, we ended all going to bed because we had no idea what to do. The next day I thought about what a weird concept that is because not so long ago there was no internet. People had to entertain themselves in other ways, they didn’t have the constant gratification of doing whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted on the internet. It made me think of the article “Is Google Making us Stupid” I don’t necessarily think google is making us stupid, I think it is making us extremely impatient.