Throughout the semester I had to write 14 blogs. Before this course I never wrote a blog, so it was a great experience to learn another form of online social interaction. Writing my own blogs and participating with the other students’ blogs by writing my comment give me the chance to express my thoughts and share my ideas. I also enhanced my understanding about blogs by doing the semester analysis on a blog for someone who is stranger to me and learn how blogs evolved from journals to an important tool to socialize online.

          In my first short paper I read four different researches about linguistic diversity online.  I learned the effects of dialect and gender on the representation of consonants in Jordanian chat; the internet language system that created by Chinese to communicate; how teens in the United Arab Emirates adapted a new internet language that is cool and funky to communicate; and the variation of linguistic in internet relay chat channels of in German-speaking Switzerland.

          The second short paper was my favorite. It was very interesting thing to analyze the self-presentation strategies of a stranger on the internet by examining her MySpace profile and learn how this person introduced herself publicly to show her unique identity and share her photos and posts with her friends.

          The last short paper was also a valuable experience where I had to analyze online community and see how people support each other financially and emotionally and exchange the information to cope with their daily stressors.  I found this online community have strong ties and bonding with each others. Also they are bridging the information between each others and using the online resources to improve and expand the voluntary work online and offline.

          The development of the internet and the other technologies such as the iPhones and iPods changed my life to the best.  For example, whenever I have long boring doctor appointment, instead of sitting in the waiting room doing nothing and feeling sicker I can use my iPhone to Google something to read. If I was waiting for an important email from a professor I can check it anytime instead of waiting my time in school looking for a lab to use the computer or carry my laptop with me everyday to school as I used to do before I start using iPhone.

          Some questions such as whether the excessive use of internet and other new technologies would affect the language and the face-to-face social interactions of our children and many other questions need to be re-examined. However over all the researchers are optimistic about the future of these new technologies.