Social Capital and Isolation

A lot of this week’s readings talked about social capital. Wikipedia defines social capital as “the expected collective or economic benefits derived from the preferential treatment and cooperation between individuals and groups”. The article by Ellison, “Connection Strategies: Social Capital Implications of Facebook-enabled Communication Practices”, talks about social capital related to Facebook. They did a survey of undergraduate students to determine how they use Facebook to meet new friends, maintain friendships, and learn more about friends they already have. It was found that Facebook users differentiate from all Facebook friends and those they are actually friends with off of Facebook, and although they might not all be actual friends, they are still useful for experiencing diverse perspectives.

In the Pew article, “Social Isolation and New Technology”, it was found that Internet use does not limit participation in local communities, as was previously thought. It also does not pull people away from public places. Internet use also is just as common for local contact as it is for contact across and long distance. These results were found after investigating the question of whether internet and mobile phone use causes isolation among core social networks.

Instagram

I’ve recently been debating whether or not to get Instagram. It seems like everyone has an Instagram and always posts pictures using it. I decided to google Instagram to see what people were saying about it. I ended up coming across an interesting article comparing Instagram to Twitter. Although Instagram is less than two years old, not nearly as old as Twitter, Instagram is quickly becoming very popular. Something I found surprising was that the daily number of Instagram users accessing the app on a mobile device has surpassed Twitter. Also, the amount of time spent on Instagram was longer than the amount of time users spent on Twitter on average. This made me wonder where the two will be a few months from now. Will Instragram become a lot more popular than Twitter, or will Twitter make a comeback? Or maybe neither of them will even be around anymore. So, I decided to get Instagram. So far I’ve only used it for one picture, but it seems cool. I can’t really see myself using it too much, but maybe that will change.

           

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2410290,00.asp

Solve the Issues

The purpose of this website is to bring people together to discuss important political issues such as education, political reform and healthcare. The website also asks for suggestions from the viewers about how to move forward with these issues.

The intended audience is anyone interested in working together to improve issues. I think the website reaches the intended audience but I think it could be more effective if it gave more of an overview of the particular issues instead of just asking for feedback, because this assumes that the audience is already educated about these subjects.

           

The site is not useful to me because it does not provide me with information about the topics or even links to access for more information. The website assumes I already know about these topics and that I just want to contribute information.

An interesting issue that I found that the site addresses is whether the UN and world powers should step in and remove the Syrian leadership that is massacring its people. However, there was only one comment about the question.

           

I would not encourage others to visit this site. I found that although at first the site looks like it will provide a lot of useful information about interesting and controversial topics, there is actually no background information about these issues. The website merely poses questions that it hopes to receive feedback about. Even so, there are very little comments to the questions posed; most questions have one comment, some don’t have any. I did not find this website to be worthwhile at all.

There are numerous ways this website could be improved. More information should be provided about the issues, which would possibly lead to more discussion. The “Support Solve” tab brings the viewer to an Amazon store that has nothing to do with the website. At the very top of the website, the title of the website looks like an advertisement. Although it is easy to navigate the website, the pictures look like they are able to be clicked on and even change color when the cursor is over them, but nothing happens if you click on the pictures. The red words on the blue background are hard to read and it is annoying that they are in all caps.

Internet Censorship

The article “The Evolving Landscape of Internet Control”, describes the censorship of Internet in countries such as China and Russia. Authoritarian countries like these usually censor the Internet, therefore severely limiting citizens’ freedom of speech, particularly regarding politics. The article looked at circumvention usage specifically. Overall, the use of circumvention tools to get to censored material is not very common. Upon further investigation, it was found that the reason these tools are not used is not due to lack of knowledge about how to get past the Internet filters, but lack of need to access the censored pages as well as the perceived risk associated with accessing censored websites. In severe cases, such as Libya and Egypt, the Internet has even been shut down completely for periods of time.

Such blatant control of the Internet by the government is used to help keep the citizens under government control. By keeping anti-government messages from surfacing on the Internet, it makes it easier for the government to stay in control. I can’t imagine not being able to access websites purely because the government didn’t like them. The United States is very different from these countries due to the fact that there is not Internet censorship.

Facebook riot

I recently read an article on CNN, “Facebook birthday invite leads to mayhem in Dutch town, authorities say”. Apparently, a girl in a town called Haren made a Facebook invitation to her birthday party, but didn’t set it to private, so more people ended up finding out about it than she thought. The birthday party turned into a riot when over 3,000 people found out and showed up for the party. Cars were torched and storefront windows were smashed. The riot ended with 34 people being arrested and even more than that getting injured. Before the day of the party, police had found out about the event and convinced the parents not to have the party. They tried convincing people not to attend, but had no success. I was surprised after reading this article. I find it hard to believe that something as simple as a Facebook invitation could end up turning into such a big riot, but it did. This is just another example of the ability of Facebook to convey information to many people.

Here is the link to the article:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/22/world/europe/netherlands-facebook-riot/index.html

The WELL Community

After reading “The Heart of the Well”, by Howard Rheingold, I feel like I have a much greater understanding and appreciation for the WELL. There were so many stories of people on the WELL supporting each other and even getting to know each other well enough that they met in person at picnics. I thought the story of Elly was particularly memorable. Elly ended up in a hospital in New Delhi suffering from liver failure. Within hours, concerned WELL users who had probably never met Elly had started a fund to raise money to help her. The WELL was such an efficient way of getting advice that Rheingold himself had been able to receive medical advice from the WELL even before receiving a call back from the doctor. The WELL was the first way to exchange such diverse information online. I can’t imagine not having the capability to do this. The WELL also brought users together in person. WELL users began to have gatherings, which turned into an annual summer picnic. The WELL allowed users to find people online with interests similar to their own, and then meet them outside of the Internet and actually form friendships.

Here is a link to Rheingold’s article:

http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/1.html

Debut of the iPhone 5

This week, there has been a lot of talk about the iPhone 5. It is interesting to me that so many people knew when it was coming out and were waiting excitedly to see what new features it would have, even if they weren’t planning on buying one. Since everyone was making such a big deal about it, I decided to look it up to see for myself what the iPhone 5 is all about. The new iPhone is thinner and lighter than the last model. It also has a metal back so it won’t break as easily. It will support 4G LTE networks. With a faster chip and improved battery life, the iPhone 5 will be a big improvement over the iPhone 4S. If it were any other phone, however, these changes would probably have gone unnoticed. The iPhone has really changed the way phones are used. It makes a wide variety of information accessible through all of the apps you can get, and it makes it very easy to connect with others. For more about the iPhone 5, check out this link:

http://www.cnet.com/iphone-5/

Online Groups

In our last class, we read an article and talked about Internet groups and whether they are beneficial. Internet groups are very helpful with keeping all of the members up to date with the group and well informed. They make it easier to plan events and for group members to connect with one another. A problem may arise if group members do not check the group website very often. The age groups that are most likely to participate in Internet groups seem to be high school, college and early adults. Groups also encourage participation from those that may not participate in person; a shy person can say their opinions without feeling judged.

I am part of several clubs at Bloomsburg that use groups on Facebook to keep in touch between meetings. This helps me remember when the next group meetings are as well as when events are going on with the club. It is also a great way for us to get any questions we have about anything, even something not related to the club, answered very quickly.  I really like the Facebook groups because I think they are very beneficial for members of the group as long as people use them.

Facebook News

This summer I realized how much I actually rely on Facebook. I rarely ever post anything on Facebook, but I often read other people’s posts. Most posts are about things that don’t matter, but other posts are about current events and news. Since I have never liked watching the news, I usually hear about things through Facebook first. Over the summer, I learned about the lunar eclipse, Higgs boson, and countless other things all through Facebook. That’s when I realized how much impact Facebook actually has on my life. I don’t think this is necessarily a good thing, since I’m sure I’m very behind on current events, but it made me wonder just how much of an impact Facebook has on spreading news. When I was looking this up, I came across an article that analyzed three surveys conducted by the Princeton Survey Research Associates International. The article suggests that although Facebook is becoming a resource for news, the population that uses it to get news is still relatively small. Will Facebook ever have a bigger impact on news than it does now?

Here is a link to the article:

 http://stateofthemedia.org/2012/mobile-devices-and-news-consumption-some-good-signs-for-journalism/what-facebook-and-twitter-mean-for-news/