Class Reflection

I really enjoyed this class. I was not sure what to expect when I first came, but after the first couple of classes it became the most enjoyable class of this semester for me. This is because I learned some interesting things that I didn’t know about something that I use on a very regular basis, CMC. And also, we got to discuss the different aspects of CMC, things we learned in our readings, and our personal experiences or habits using these communicating technologies. Not to mention watching all those funny, or touching YouTube movies, and You’ve Got Mail.

I learned that I rely on and use CMC way more than I probably have too. I check my mail, and facebook way more than necessary. Now that it is soon summer, my obsessive habits will diminish, mostly because I won’t need CMC as a distraction from my homework and I won’t be around a computer all the time. But to be honest, besides cutting back an extreme amount over the summer with my CMC use, when I come back to school in the fall, I will probably use this modern technology just as much as before. I don’t think I changed much as far as how I communicate using CMC, besides becoming more aware of it. I was constantly aware and listening to conversations and stuff about CMC habits, so I could find something to blog about and also just because this stuff became very interesting to me.

The ‘Oh wow’ moments this course had for me was the statistic in the reading that over half the worlds population has never made a phone call so therefore, well over half have never engaged in CMC. This shocked me, because here I am with so many ways of communicating, and they have never even used a telephone, which was invented so long ago. This is a way that has caused me to look differently at CMC, in terms of the digital divide. Because here with so many luxuries such as different forms of communicating via CMC, it seems hard to believe that there are others without these machines. We really do take advantage of what we have.
Another ‘oh wow’ moment for me were the statistics on online porn and things like that. One of these disturbing facts is that 55% of people in hotels order pornographic material. I guess it shouldn’t be that surprising, but it really is.

I believe that CMC will definitely be a big part of my future personal and career life. Especially since I am a communications major and this form of communication is a very popular way of communicating. Also, CMC seems to be changing everyday, so who knows what new machines and tools will be available in a couple of years.

I learned so much in this class that I don’t even know where to start, from online dating to the digital divide. It made me aware of many issues as far as CMC goes that I didn’t know before. I wasn’t sure what to expect coming into this class at the beginning of the semester, but I’m glad it was what it was. I could relate or at least be able to discuss the issues and it was very informative.

You've Got Mail

One thing that we talked about in class and learned about in our readings that could be related to "You've Got Mail" is the idea of 'anonymity'. Kathleen and Joe didn't know who the other one was until of course, Joe found out who Kathleen was, even thought she was still clueless. Through their e-mailing, they never even told each other their names.
This had a positive influence on their online relationship, because, had kathleen known it was Joe she was e-mailing everyday, at least near the beginning, she probably never would have e-mailed him again. Also, Joe showed through his e-mails that he wasn't as big of a jerk that he let on to be. This also may have helped Kathleen fall in love with him at the end of the movie when she found out who the man she was talking to through e-mails really was.
Another aspect of the movie that we touched on in class was bringing someone along with you when you meet someone for the first time who you've been talking to online. Joe brought his friend along when he was going to meet kathleen at the coffee shop. This was before he knew it was her, so he had his friend look in the window to see if he could see her and how she looked.
I really enjoyed watched "You've Got mail". I love Chick flicks and I had never seen this one before. I'm glad I finally got to, especially in class.

Article

I don't know what to think about the article that we read this week. I am still a little confused...Sue was an older woman with a disability and “Rob” was younger and newly married.
When Sue first started e-mailing “Rob” maybe she thought it was just innocent letter writing making a new friend. Near the beginning when Rob told her that he is married, and he hopes that she does not take the news badly, she says “why should I?” Rob told her that he was having trouble in his marriage and she tried to help him. In fact, throughout the chapters of Rob and Sue’s internet “relationship”, which turned out to not just be friendship e-mails, she still continued to try and help him and his wife to work things out. I did not understand this because what she was doing was not helping him at all.
Sue says in her article “there is certain honesty indicated when you do not know the other party, have nothing to lose, in fact everything to gain by being able to talk freely, in other words free counselling.” Anonymity goes along with this, in that you don’t really know the person, so you feel freer to say whatever you want to say.
Also, I understand that Sue has a disability, but couldn’t she form other relationships not just through the internet. She says in the article: “Overall I think I am fortunate in being able to write as a means of communication, I was allowed to acquire those skills before my disability interrupted and I am receptive to relationships.” That sort of says to me that writing is the only way in which she is able to communicate and form relationships. But it didn’t say anywhere in the article that she couldn’t talk. I don’t know anything about her disability so I guess I can’t really say much, but it seems like she is taking it to extreme measures.
Either way this article was very different and a little disturbing and shows how interactions on the internet can be another thing that can harm marriages and relationships. Not to mention a FtF social life.

Article

So Women and the internet...

I have never felt unequal because of being a woman while on the internet. I’ve never thought that the internet seemed more aimed toward men or that there wasn’t enough sites for women. In fact, I never even thought about gender inequality on the internet until I read this chapter.

As far as isolation goes, there is the occasional message on MySpace but nothing really big. I know online harassment happens, but luckily, it has never happened to me. I guess maybe I just don’t see this isolation because I have not experienced it first hand.

I feel like the number of sites available and things to do on the internet are pretty equal between men and women. Maybe I am just naïve to the fact of this inequality. Even so, I don’t really know what could be done to make everything between genders seem equal on the internet. There will always be sort of inequality…no matter how small.

I'm Back

YESSSSS!!! My blog works! Except I'm in the library, so I guess this is where I'm going to have to go whenever it's time to blog. Even though I sort of feel like telling the kid beside me that I'm actually blogging for class. At least I'm not playing around with Avatars.
It was pretty annoying not being able to blog the past couple of weeks because it made me feel like I was very behind in everything, not just a few blogs. I should have tried the library sooner, I don't know what I was thinking.
I've been very annoyed with the internet in my room the past couple of days, it won't even allow me to download Firefox even though I've tried five times. But I guess you'll have that. I don't know why it won't let me download it though, everyone else seems to have firefox. oh well.
You'd think that after not blogging for awhile, I would have a lot to talk about. But I really can't think of much else to say. I guess everything that I thought maybe I'd blog about I already forgot.

Here is my post from two weeks ago. It better work.

I was not the biggest fan of taking the test on the computer. First of all, the problems we had in the beginning...well we all know they were not very fun. The constant clicking of typing and the construction noises were a little distracting. Also, whenever I clicked down to another line it would change the numbers up and I would have to backspace in order to fix that, which was a small but still annoying problem.
I think I wrote this before but I do not really enjoy reading things off of a computer screen. Come to think of it, I never had any trouble with my eyees or had to wear glasses or contacts until I was about 14, and in front of the computer screen a lot. hmmm...Anyway that's beside the point.
I don't know why, but I always have a little more trouble comprehending writing on a computer screen than I do when it is written down on paper. Actually I kind of prefer writing over typing, as weird as it may seem.
I don't think taking the test on a computer had a huge affect on my overall grade, but I'll probably wish I could blame it on that. We'll see.

On another note, I just heard a girl in the hall say that her away message says: "Dear Wednesday will you please get here a little faster?" I think it's funny how come of us express our hopes, emotions, and such on our away messages. And then if we write something especially witty or clever, we tell people about it. You know, in case they aren't obsessive away message checkers or havn't read it yet.

That's all.

No internet? Unthinkable.

On Thursday I spent all day working on a paper. For some reason I saved this paper onto the “N” drive instead of into My Documents. Anyway, Thursday was the day most of campus lost electricity. I, living in Hillside, didn’t lose electricity but we did lose our internet connection.. and most importantly.. the N drive (which I still don’t have on my room computer by the way, good thing it works in the library). I was very flustered for awhile and was wondering how I was going to finish the paper, which I had already gotten an extension for in the first place. So instead of doing some other homework, that I didn’t necessarily really need the internet for, I just complained a lot.

Then yesterday I was talking to my friends about how it’s annoying that some things like YouTube and the Itunes Store, don’t work well with Titan net, and how I can’t even begin to access them when I’m at home because of having Dial Up. Then we started talking about Dial Up and how awful it would be if this college had it. I’m pretty sure that would not work well. This brought us to, what if we didn’t have the internet at all? What would we do?

This is just another thing that showed me how much we rely on this modern technology. I really cannot imagine not having it, especially at college. It’s pretty much unthinkable.

CMC- not everywhere

The statistic in the reading that over half the worlds population has never made a phone call so therefore, well over half have never engaged in CMC, shocked me. I guess, most of the time and for some aspects of life, especially modern technology, we are just so into our own worlds that we just don’t think about others lives, especially when they are across the world. The world is so big. It is hard for me to imagine people lives in my own city, much less the state, much less our country, much less the continent, and the whole world…well I think you know what I mean.
Here we are, discussing how much we rely on CMC, and how hard it is when we don’t have it, when more than half of the people in the world have never even come close to experiencing any form of CMC. I just think it’s crazy.
I wonder if these people in other countries know what they’re missing, this “privilege” we have in CMC. But then CMC isn’t always the best thing. It has caused many problems, whether it is an online predator, online bullying, people getting fired for the things found out about them through blogging or personal websites, or just the lack of FtF communication because of always using some form of CMC.
I have never known a life without CMC, so I don’t really know how these people are feeling or how they experience life. Most of them might not even know what they are missing out on. They are probably just trying to live life to the best of their ability, just like we are, but obviously in different ways. There is life without CMC. It’s hard for me to imagine.
This blog is very rambling, so sorry for that. It’s just that I never actually really thought about many of these topics that we have been discussing until I started taking this class, and now CMC, and how much we rely on it has become so much more evident.

Online Class.

Although I enjoyed having a little more nap time by not having to go to class at 10:30, I'm pretty sure I enjoy a typical classroom setting more than online class. Although it was nice being able to work at my own pace, I still left everything until the last minute. Also I have trouble reading and understanding things when I read them on a computer screen...as ridiculous as that may sound.
Also when having a discussion about these sorts of topics, I prefer FtF communication over a message board, because obviously it is a much faster form of communication. There is no need to open a ton of different boxes with peoples opinions and then reply to them. Also I find it easier to discuss CMC topics in a class FtF setting. I had troubles writing responses to peoples responses.
However, I can see how online classes can be beneficial to those who are too busy to go to class everyday. They still learn new things and are able to advance their career. Also, all of the information you need to learn and have learned is right at your fingertips, on the computer screen.

Txts taking over the world

The other day I was watching "The Breakup" with Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn. There was a part in the movie when Jennifer Anistons character decided she needed to quit her job and travel. She was telling her boss about her plans and her boss (who was very "modern") said something along the lines of keep in touch. But the thing that stood out to me was when she said "text me."

This made me think, is this going to be the new thing to say? Are people going to go around saying "text me" instead of "call me?" Then I also thought about how many times I've said "Just IM me" or "I'll e-mail you." Texting is a new thing to add to this list although I'm pretty sure I have yet to say it. But I'm wondering, is texting going to take over phone calls, e-mails, and even IM? Has this already started?

Is texting soon going to be the main form of CMC?

With the snow and current weather, I was just thinking how convenient e-mail is to let students know what is going on with their classes. The first thing I did when I woke up on Wednesday morning was check my e-mail to see if I had class or not, and sure enough, all three of my classes were canceled. Actually almost every morning before my classes I check my e-mail...just in case.

I didn't really think about this until, when I told my parents that all of my classes on Wednesday had been cancelled, my dad asked me how the professors let me know this. Through e-mail of course, I mean how else. I thought that was a weird question with a pretty obvious answer, but it made me wonder, if e-mail wasn't around how would teachers have let the students know that there was no class? Would they call each student or would they just have someone put a note on the door of the classroom letting them know the class was canceled?

A phone call would be fine, but just sending a short e-mail is so much easier than calling 20 some students. And a note on the door would make me mad, especially if I could have slept in but instead walked the whole way down to campus for no reason.

Actually, e-mail makes learning about almost everything that is going on on campus more convenient. If one chooses to read all of the e-mails that the college sends out, I'm sure they know a lot more about the activities, happenings, and clubs around campus. Sure flyers, word of mouth, and posters spread the word but with one click of a button, a ton of people can learn information.

Too many passwords and no cellphone

So the reason I am writing my blog entry so late is because my password for my blog completely slipped my mind. I tried all afternoon to figure out what it was and finally realized about 5 minutes ago that I wasn't even using the right user name. So after I came to this conclusion, I was able to reset my password and now, here I am. Thank goodness. This whole mix-up is because of the insane amount of usernames and passwords that I have for every other online service. I find the need to change my password for everything I need a password for, although I'm not really sure why. This causes a lot of confusion, as I have just demonstrated. However, even though this has to do with computers, it doesn't really pertain to communication, besides the fact that I didn't think I'd be able to communicate via blogging tonight because of not knowing my username or password. So moving along...

This class has opened my eyes to how much I really do rely on modern forms of communication in everyday life. Actually it has shown me how much the world relies on these forms of communication. It's hard to think that people actually lived without it. I wonder how much different their lives were.

It was funny, (not really), because towards the beginning of when this class started, my cell phone snapped in half so I did not have a cell phone for 2 1/2 weeks. I got a little taste of what it was like to live without that one form of modern communication. Thankfully I am now, as of last Tuesday, using a friends old one until it is time to renew my plan. Those 2 1/2 weeks showed me how much I relied on this modern technology and how much I relied even more on e-mail, instant messenger, and facebook messaging as my main forms of communication due to the lack of a cell phone. Instead of calling my friends on campus about what time we were going to go to dinner or hang out, we had to make plans the day before or if I saw them earlier in the day, Instant message them or just show up at their room in hopes that they were there.
Also, my boyfriend and I broke up the same day that my phone broke (My phone did not break as a result of me throwing it at him, just wanted to clarify), so I wasn't able to call my mom, or my best friends from home as often as I would have liked. Although I was able to call a few times using other peoples cellphones, I relied on e-mails and instant messenger mostly to complain and receive comfort from them. I think I also became closer in a way to my friends here because, instead of hanging on the phone with my friends from home, I went into college friends rooms, ate their food, and talked to them. It is so much easier to talk about what is going on then to type it all down, at least for me. But obviously, as we have read, some people think differently and would much prefer typing than talking.

And that is the end of my first real post. 11 minutes over. Oh no...Hopefully This will teach me to remember my usernames and passwords.

First Post

This is my first post. I know it's pretty amazing.