Well, this week's workshop was certainly... interesting.
Our task was to form a debate for and against the internet, in regards to the "Is Google Making Us Stupid" article we read last week. The side I was on was the "for" team.
The "against" team went first, making points about the internet ruining journalism and threatening musical artists. Amanda and I were to cross-examine these points. My argument against these points was that the internet has provided a medium for citizen journalism - that mobile phones and digital technology has allowed for participatory culture - where the audience participates in and shapes the media themselves. For example, when a US Airways plane carrying 155 people crashed into the Hudson River in New York earlier this year someone posted a picture of passengers huddled on the wing of the plane on TwitPic (an extension of Twitter) and it was picked up by various media outlets around the world, including BBC News.
As for it threatening musical artists, my argument against this was that the internet also provides unsigned musical artists with a place to broadcast their own music. MySpace and YouTube are prime examples of artists using the internet to display their talents. This is the way popular artists, such as Lily Allen, were discovered. Even bloggers, such as Perez Hilton, are responsible for artists like Mika and Lady Gaga hitting the big time. These are artists whose music would have probably never seen the light of day had it not been for the internet.
Next up was Kate's turn to make some points. She joked that she probably speaks more to her brother on Facebook than she does in real life. In response to this, a girl on the opposing side commented "don't you find that quite sad? I think it's really sad when families are like that." Colour me crazy but I found this to be quite a rude, personal remark. I find it absolutely pathetic when a person attacks the person making the debate, rather than their argument, because they have nothing better to contribute. In my opinion, all it does is highlight their ignorance and stupidity. The girl had no idea what Kate's home life is like and was in no position to judge her, or rather humiliate her in front of the whole class. Honestly, some people need to get off their high horse. It reminded me of that Question Time episode on the BBC the other week, with Nick Griffin of the BNP making a comment about how his father had been a spitfire pilot in WWII whilst Jack Straw's father was imprisoned for being a conscientious objector, in that it had no purpose in the argument and was a comment made simply to insult and humiliate the opposition.
Amanda shared the opinion that this was a bit of a low-blow and rather out of order, proceeding to stand up and tell the girl straight out that she was being quite personal and what she said was just not on.
Like a trooper, Kate carried on and made an analogy - how would farmers cope if you removed their JCB tools and tractors and told them to go back to the old horse and cart method of ploughing fields? One of the opposing side piped up, "I don't see what JCB tools have to do with the internet" - now I'd be amazed if anyone didn't understand what Kate meant by her argument. In fact, I'd be so bold as to call anyone that didn't a plain moron. No, this was a comment made simply for argument's sake, which a proper debate is not about. Kate was simply asking how would people cope if you removed the internet.
Finally, she put forward a challenge to the opposition (as a couple of them plainly were quite against the internet - not just playing the role of being against it for educational purposes) - if they're so against the internet then why not go without it for a month? At this point a girl, a friend of the girl I mentioned earlier, stated "I went without the internet for a month when I first moved here, thank you very much" then made an awkward motion with her hands, a kind up messed up z-motion in an attempt to look big and hardcore that failed miserably - especially when she made a complete 180-degree turn away from Kate to avoid eye contact. She obviously was not confident in making her point or sticking up for her friend. Regardless, and I verbally stated this to the girl myself, her going without the internet when she first got here was not by choice, which is what Kate's challenge was asking. If we didn't have the internet I'm sure most of us would make do until we got it back, but I sincerely doubt if you asked anyone to give up the internet for a month without the promise of money or other favours they would actually go ahead and do it, no questions asked. Again, it was another argument made for argument's sake.
When all's said and done though we clearly won the debate. Maybe the numerous personal digs and catty comments were simply jealousy on their part, or an attempt at bullying gone wrong. Who knows, who cares? I certainly don't.
It just goes to show what a risky business debating is when not done professionally and absolutely highlighted the ignorance of some of my fellow students. This week was the first instance of me actually being irritated in a lesson/lecture which is why I feel it relevant to write it down in a blog post. Uni is a great place to learn and to make friends and have fun, but with every yin there's a yang and uni also provides an environment where it is quite possible to make enemies, as well as friends. All I can say is it is a damned good job I wasn't the recipient of one of their childish remarks or insults, because bullying disgusts me - especially in a place of learning for people over 18. This is not secondary school anymore; it's time to act like adults - I just wish some people would cotton on to that fact and sit the hell down.
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Week 7
I'm late writing this again, not because I got distracted, but because I didn't really know what to write about. Tuesday's workshop was basically just going over the "Google" article and discussing various points within it. As you've seen, I already have discussed it, albeit it to myself, in the previous blog post.
We've also arranged to do a debate about the internet for the next workshop. We're meant to be researching points for it on the internet (irony?) but I haven't gotten around to doing that yet. I don't know what exactly I'm meant to be researching so may just blag it. We did do a debate about the licence fee in Wednesday's media lesson and did no research beforehand, and that still went okay. I might risk the same thing with this one. Fingers crossed.
We've also arranged to do a debate about the internet for the next workshop. We're meant to be researching points for it on the internet (irony?) but I haven't gotten around to doing that yet. I don't know what exactly I'm meant to be researching so may just blag it. We did do a debate about the licence fee in Wednesday's media lesson and did no research beforehand, and that still went okay. I might risk the same thing with this one. Fingers crossed.
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
Is this blog making you stupid?
So, in preparation for our workshop later we've been told to read an article titled "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" by Guy Billout.
Personally, articles like this one bore me. I always imagine them being written by some balding old man as he sits in the corner of a room, petrified of a computer. He argues that "what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation" - i.e, that it is becoming more difficult for people (or in other words, he and his friends) to concentrate on long articles, as the accessibility and immediacy of internet searches has made long periods of reading redundant, and this is somehow making us stupid.
I disagree - it may be making us lazy, but not stupid.
I have no problem with reading a long article; after all, I've just read through his - but if the internet makes it easier for me to find the information I need why should I have to trawl through all the unnecessary bits?
I, myself, have been brought up in the age of computers, aka the digital age, and in no way consider myself to be stupid - quite the opposite, actually. I've spent my life reading books and immersing myself in them. I read the daily newspapers, I occasionally like to peruse the odd web article and have spent hours "learning" from the internet about things I would have never been able to before computers existed. Google is essentially a 'Tardis' for books and learning; from a small computer screen I can access thousands - millions - of articles, blogs, art, film, etc. and find out anything to do with anything I've ever been curious about.
What does engage me is the style of an article. I have no problem with "big words" but I do like an article to be accessible. Sometimes writers need to be aware that "big words" can become simply jargon after a few paragraphs and a lot of writers tend to overcomplicate their points with unnecessary language.
I did agree on one thing, however; we are constantly distracted, i.e, by email, etc. As I read that article I received about 5 different emails and 7 text messages and had to keep adjusting my concentration. In saying this, though, when it comes down to the really important stuff, like writing an assignment for uni, I put my phone on silent and turn off all email alerts, telling people I will be busy for the rest of the day. It really isn't that difficult and true friends will obviously understand.
The author of this article is every bit the "worrywart" he suggests he might be. Not all of us are suffering from reduced concentration. I, for one, spent hours reading this weekend in preparation for English class and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Too many people sit and worry about the negative effects of this and the negative effects of that and rarely ever consider the positive effects of having a gigantic medium for learning right in our very homes.
Personally, articles like this one bore me. I always imagine them being written by some balding old man as he sits in the corner of a room, petrified of a computer. He argues that "what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation" - i.e, that it is becoming more difficult for people (or in other words, he and his friends) to concentrate on long articles, as the accessibility and immediacy of internet searches has made long periods of reading redundant, and this is somehow making us stupid.
I disagree - it may be making us lazy, but not stupid.
I have no problem with reading a long article; after all, I've just read through his - but if the internet makes it easier for me to find the information I need why should I have to trawl through all the unnecessary bits?
I, myself, have been brought up in the age of computers, aka the digital age, and in no way consider myself to be stupid - quite the opposite, actually. I've spent my life reading books and immersing myself in them. I read the daily newspapers, I occasionally like to peruse the odd web article and have spent hours "learning" from the internet about things I would have never been able to before computers existed. Google is essentially a 'Tardis' for books and learning; from a small computer screen I can access thousands - millions - of articles, blogs, art, film, etc. and find out anything to do with anything I've ever been curious about.
What does engage me is the style of an article. I have no problem with "big words" but I do like an article to be accessible. Sometimes writers need to be aware that "big words" can become simply jargon after a few paragraphs and a lot of writers tend to overcomplicate their points with unnecessary language.
I did agree on one thing, however; we are constantly distracted, i.e, by email, etc. As I read that article I received about 5 different emails and 7 text messages and had to keep adjusting my concentration. In saying this, though, when it comes down to the really important stuff, like writing an assignment for uni, I put my phone on silent and turn off all email alerts, telling people I will be busy for the rest of the day. It really isn't that difficult and true friends will obviously understand.
The author of this article is every bit the "worrywart" he suggests he might be. Not all of us are suffering from reduced concentration. I, for one, spent hours reading this weekend in preparation for English class and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Too many people sit and worry about the negative effects of this and the negative effects of that and rarely ever consider the positive effects of having a gigantic medium for learning right in our very homes.
Friday, 13 November 2009
A commentary on distraction..
So, after writing my last blog entry I got thinking - "why am I always late to write my weekly blog entry?" I mean, every Tuesday I sit and tell myself that I will write up what I have gotten up to or have learned in the workshop on this blog and I never do. Why is that, you may (or probably won't) ask? Well, it's simple - Facebook.
My usual routine after getting home is to turn on the PC and log into Facebook. What I tell myself will be a quick five-minute glance eventually ends up being hours of wasted time discovering what flavour of Ben & Jerry's ice cream my friends are currently eating, or what they think of Cheryl Cole's latest outfit on The X Factor. Maybe it's not that entertaining, but it's certainly addictive.
There is always that anticipation when logging on "are there any new comments?" or "do I have a friend request?" - even though, a lot of the time, such requests are from people I probably don't even know. So why is everyone on it?
Years ago, in my parents' generation, they had no way of keeping in touch with everyone they met, unless they wanted to sit for countless hours on their landlines, working up massive phone bills just so they could ask so-and-so what they thought of Coronation Street tonight.
When school was over it was literally OVER. Most of the people my parents went to school with probably never saw a lot of their fellow pupils again until Friends Reunited came along. Speaking of which, what ever happened to that site? Surely it can't still exist? Who needs it anymore?
As for me, I have just about every person I've ever been friends with from nursery through to university on my "friends list". Just this year a girl I hadn't seen since junior school, at which I was best friends with back in the 90s, added me on Facebook after discovering me in the "Humberstone Junior School" group and immediately suggested we meet up some time (it never happened). It was nice to see what she'd gotten up to, and like a lot of people I went to school with, she'd popped a baby out and is now living on benefits. Bless.
Back in the day (aka 2005-2006) another social networking site was all the rage - MySpace. If you didn't have MySpace you may as well have not existed. There was a period where my friends would be on there all the time, posting bulletins, editing HTML to make their profiles look snazzy and relevant, and filling out their "about me" sections to prove they weren't just some friendless nerd from maths class, but rather a rebellious teen with a whole "life" outside of school. But what happened? At around late 2007 people were beginning to abandon MySpace for the more popular Facebook. Bulletins became less and less frequent, the backgrounds in people's profiles became little more than little red x's in the top left corner as they were no longer using their photobuckets and imageshack accounts to host the images they wanted displayed.
As you can see, the last comment I got from an actual friend on MySpace was well over a year ago, and even that person was only communicating via the site because they didn't want to conform to this new Facebook generation. She did, though, eventually.
A lot of people didn't make the Facebook switch because they preferred the site, it was more because all their friends had moved over there and there was no longer anyone to communicate with on MySpace. What's the point in continuing use with a social network site that people no longer use? It's like sitting in an empty room listening to a party going on next door, wondering why no one is around and why no one's talking to you. Eventually you have to get up and make the trip to the neighbour's and join in with the antics.
This screenshot, from my own Facebook, is a sharp contrast to a screenshot I might make from my MySpace welcome page. There are several notifications here from various people I know. If I were to log into MySpace it would be the virtual equivalent to wandering into a desert - dead and lifeless. There's no longer any anticipation when logging onto that website.
So what was the initial attraction? Facebook didn't allow its users to create elaborate, HTML-heavy profiles or paste YouTube codes onto your main page. But maybe this was a good thing? I for one soon grew tired of spending hours messing around with codes on MySpace just to make my profile look good. On Facebook you didn't need to do this.
In short, Facebook was just a far simpler site to use. Its features were more relevant than MySpace's and it even had other boredom-busting benefits, such as "applications". A user could sit on Facebook and play old-skool SNES games, or create virtual environments on 'Farmville'. Not only that but you could keep in regular contact with friends without having to do anything, simply by updating your status or reading theirs.
Poor old MySpace eventually cottoned on to this and tried its very best to replicate Facebook as best it could - introducing its own status and applications features, but alas, it was too late - the shift had already been made by the majority of people and now anyone that uses MySpace just looks like a saddo that refuses to move on.
This does beg the question though, what will become of Facebook? Will it wither and die a slow, painful death like its inferior cousin? Will, one day, people decide that a new website is even better and make another shift? Or will it continue to add new features to keep up with the demand of its users? Only time will tell.
Already there seems to be a new rival for Facebook...
Yes, Twitter. So what new and exciting features does Twitter have for its users? Well, this is the most surprising thing - it actually has LESS features than both Facebook AND MySpace. In general it's like having a Facebook profile that is limited to just statuses. The term "micro-blogging" was coined for this new means of communication. So is less more? Who knows. What is different is that with Twitter you can instantly connect to anyone you like. There is no need to send a friend request, as Twitter is all about "following" someone. There's no wait to be accepted, you simply click follow and that's it; instant, real-time updates from whomever you should choose to follow. The more interesting aspect of Twitter is that you can actually follow your favourite celebrities. As you can see from my screenshot I'm following the popular comedian, Jimmy Carr and two "YouTube celebrities". Sometimes I may get the benefit of seeing what Stephen Fry is having for dinner, or what the latest sexual innuendos are between Alan Carr and Gok Wan. Exciting? Maybe not, but that's not what I'm getting at - for on Twitter you may be lucky enough to get a reply back from your favourite celebrities. I was mighty proud of the fact I have been Tweeted twice by the Ministry of Sound's "Cut Up Boys" - the guys responsible for the annual 'Mash Up Mix' cds. Celebrities they may not be, but they are famous to those of us who appreciate dance and house music and purchase their cds year by year. What was more exciting was when they decided I'd be one of the few people they decided to follow themselves. How thrilling it was to know that The Cut Up Boys knew of my existence and what was going on in my life. It really did make my day. I felt like one of their inner circle and can only imagine what people who get Tweets from the likes of Rihanna, Russell Brand, Stephen Fry and Demi Moore must feel.
I know that if I just keep Tweeting Russell Brand enough eventually, one day, he might reply and then my life will well and truly be complete. In the meantime, though, I'm being followed by Danyl Johnson from the X-Factor, and was 'DM'd' by Caprice Crane which also made my day.
My usual routine after getting home is to turn on the PC and log into Facebook. What I tell myself will be a quick five-minute glance eventually ends up being hours of wasted time discovering what flavour of Ben & Jerry's ice cream my friends are currently eating, or what they think of Cheryl Cole's latest outfit on The X Factor. Maybe it's not that entertaining, but it's certainly addictive.
There is always that anticipation when logging on "are there any new comments?" or "do I have a friend request?" - even though, a lot of the time, such requests are from people I probably don't even know. So why is everyone on it?
Years ago, in my parents' generation, they had no way of keeping in touch with everyone they met, unless they wanted to sit for countless hours on their landlines, working up massive phone bills just so they could ask so-and-so what they thought of Coronation Street tonight.
When school was over it was literally OVER. Most of the people my parents went to school with probably never saw a lot of their fellow pupils again until Friends Reunited came along. Speaking of which, what ever happened to that site? Surely it can't still exist? Who needs it anymore?
As for me, I have just about every person I've ever been friends with from nursery through to university on my "friends list". Just this year a girl I hadn't seen since junior school, at which I was best friends with back in the 90s, added me on Facebook after discovering me in the "Humberstone Junior School" group and immediately suggested we meet up some time (it never happened). It was nice to see what she'd gotten up to, and like a lot of people I went to school with, she'd popped a baby out and is now living on benefits. Bless.
Back in the day (aka 2005-2006) another social networking site was all the rage - MySpace. If you didn't have MySpace you may as well have not existed. There was a period where my friends would be on there all the time, posting bulletins, editing HTML to make their profiles look snazzy and relevant, and filling out their "about me" sections to prove they weren't just some friendless nerd from maths class, but rather a rebellious teen with a whole "life" outside of school. But what happened? At around late 2007 people were beginning to abandon MySpace for the more popular Facebook. Bulletins became less and less frequent, the backgrounds in people's profiles became little more than little red x's in the top left corner as they were no longer using their photobuckets and imageshack accounts to host the images they wanted displayed.
As you can see, the last comment I got from an actual friend on MySpace was well over a year ago, and even that person was only communicating via the site because they didn't want to conform to this new Facebook generation. She did, though, eventually.A lot of people didn't make the Facebook switch because they preferred the site, it was more because all their friends had moved over there and there was no longer anyone to communicate with on MySpace. What's the point in continuing use with a social network site that people no longer use? It's like sitting in an empty room listening to a party going on next door, wondering why no one is around and why no one's talking to you. Eventually you have to get up and make the trip to the neighbour's and join in with the antics.
This screenshot, from my own Facebook, is a sharp contrast to a screenshot I might make from my MySpace welcome page. There are several notifications here from various people I know. If I were to log into MySpace it would be the virtual equivalent to wandering into a desert - dead and lifeless. There's no longer any anticipation when logging onto that website.So what was the initial attraction? Facebook didn't allow its users to create elaborate, HTML-heavy profiles or paste YouTube codes onto your main page. But maybe this was a good thing? I for one soon grew tired of spending hours messing around with codes on MySpace just to make my profile look good. On Facebook you didn't need to do this.
In short, Facebook was just a far simpler site to use. Its features were more relevant than MySpace's and it even had other boredom-busting benefits, such as "applications". A user could sit on Facebook and play old-skool SNES games, or create virtual environments on 'Farmville'. Not only that but you could keep in regular contact with friends without having to do anything, simply by updating your status or reading theirs.
Poor old MySpace eventually cottoned on to this and tried its very best to replicate Facebook as best it could - introducing its own status and applications features, but alas, it was too late - the shift had already been made by the majority of people and now anyone that uses MySpace just looks like a saddo that refuses to move on.
This does beg the question though, what will become of Facebook? Will it wither and die a slow, painful death like its inferior cousin? Will, one day, people decide that a new website is even better and make another shift? Or will it continue to add new features to keep up with the demand of its users? Only time will tell.
Already there seems to be a new rival for Facebook...
Yes, Twitter. So what new and exciting features does Twitter have for its users? Well, this is the most surprising thing - it actually has LESS features than both Facebook AND MySpace. In general it's like having a Facebook profile that is limited to just statuses. The term "micro-blogging" was coined for this new means of communication. So is less more? Who knows. What is different is that with Twitter you can instantly connect to anyone you like. There is no need to send a friend request, as Twitter is all about "following" someone. There's no wait to be accepted, you simply click follow and that's it; instant, real-time updates from whomever you should choose to follow. The more interesting aspect of Twitter is that you can actually follow your favourite celebrities. As you can see from my screenshot I'm following the popular comedian, Jimmy Carr and two "YouTube celebrities". Sometimes I may get the benefit of seeing what Stephen Fry is having for dinner, or what the latest sexual innuendos are between Alan Carr and Gok Wan. Exciting? Maybe not, but that's not what I'm getting at - for on Twitter you may be lucky enough to get a reply back from your favourite celebrities. I was mighty proud of the fact I have been Tweeted twice by the Ministry of Sound's "Cut Up Boys" - the guys responsible for the annual 'Mash Up Mix' cds. Celebrities they may not be, but they are famous to those of us who appreciate dance and house music and purchase their cds year by year. What was more exciting was when they decided I'd be one of the few people they decided to follow themselves. How thrilling it was to know that The Cut Up Boys knew of my existence and what was going on in my life. It really did make my day. I felt like one of their inner circle and can only imagine what people who get Tweets from the likes of Rihanna, Russell Brand, Stephen Fry and Demi Moore must feel.I know that if I just keep Tweeting Russell Brand enough eventually, one day, he might reply and then my life will well and truly be complete. In the meantime, though, I'm being followed by Danyl Johnson from the X-Factor, and was 'DM'd' by Caprice Crane which also made my day.
Week Six
As usual I'm a bit late typing this up! Not that anyone reads it anyway.
So, Tuesday's workshop was all about showing our presentations to the class. I think we were third to stand up there and do it.
Unfortunately Kate started the slideshow without us realising, which resulted in some rushed reading for the first few slides in order to keep it at the right pace. This was picked up on by Simon, who said we went a little too fast. Oh dear. Still, I think we did rather a good job considering we were doing ours on an area not yet covered in lectures. One girl found it "hard to understand" apparently... But that's okay, at least she could HEAR ours... I struggled to follow their whispery presentation, but applauded it out of politeness... perhaps next time I should be more critical.
We did work hard on getting it done though, to be fair - we met in the library and worked on all our slides - editing it, cutting it, etc to try and make it as easy to follow as possible. One guy in our class, I forget his name, said he found it quite good. So, if we managed to teach one person something about Network Effects then that's a worthwhile accomplishment, in my opinion.
So, Tuesday's workshop was all about showing our presentations to the class. I think we were third to stand up there and do it.
Unfortunately Kate started the slideshow without us realising, which resulted in some rushed reading for the first few slides in order to keep it at the right pace. This was picked up on by Simon, who said we went a little too fast. Oh dear. Still, I think we did rather a good job considering we were doing ours on an area not yet covered in lectures. One girl found it "hard to understand" apparently... But that's okay, at least she could HEAR ours... I struggled to follow their whispery presentation, but applauded it out of politeness... perhaps next time I should be more critical.
We did work hard on getting it done though, to be fair - we met in the library and worked on all our slides - editing it, cutting it, etc to try and make it as easy to follow as possible. One guy in our class, I forget his name, said he found it quite good. So, if we managed to teach one person something about Network Effects then that's a worthwhile accomplishment, in my opinion.
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
Week Five
Riiiiiight! Well this week we were put into groups of four and given the task of creating a slide show PowerPoint presentation on a specific subject. We were allowed to choose which ones we wanted to do. The slides have to be 20 seconds long and we're to make 15 of them overall. Most of them we made in the actual workshop yesterday, but we're going to polish it off tomorrow in the library as far as I know.
Our area of choice was Network Effects. We researched it using the internet, as most people do these days, and found various examples of it on different sites. As far as I know we're incorporating examples such as Google, iPods, Microsoft Windows and social networking sites in our presentation.
We shall be presenting it to the class next Tuesday, as far as I'm aware. I'm so excited I can barely contain my bladder...
Our area of choice was Network Effects. We researched it using the internet, as most people do these days, and found various examples of it on different sites. As far as I know we're incorporating examples such as Google, iPods, Microsoft Windows and social networking sites in our presentation.
We shall be presenting it to the class next Tuesday, as far as I'm aware. I'm so excited I can barely contain my bladder...
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