I liked starting this semester with a short history lesson on the advent of the internet. Its strange how much I already knew about the internet from my class with Dr. Markman last semester, and yet I couldn’t have told you anything about its origins. One of the things I’ve spent a lot of time mulling over this semester is the fact that we (as internet users) drive the development of new technologies, and yet so many of us participate in the doomsday rhetoric associated with the degradation of communication and our own safety at the hands of technology. I hope our readings this semester, and especially our text book by Nancy Baym has provided a new perspective for others as it has for me. While I’m still concerned with privacy especially, I think about online interactions, and particularly the concept of space very differently. For example, a lot of people point to the fact that teenagers spend too much time indoors “nowadays” and that mobile phones and game consoles connected to the internet are partly to blame. However, if they are getting the same, and maybe even more, social interaction with their peers online outside of school, does it really matter where that interaction is happening?

I had not read much about online communities before this semester, and that topic will be one of my main take aways from this semester. I had read before about the advantage of having large weak tie networks to access diverse information, but it hadn’t occurred to be how much emotional benefit some individuals get from online communities. The IRL documentary in particular was eye opening for me, because we were hearing the story from the users. However, as the next generation grows up with technology (like the iPhone and iPad) literally at their fingertips from birth, what will the consequences be? Maybe there won’t be any, but I wonder how spending so much time in front of a screen will effect their ability to translate facial expression, problem solve, or change the way they think of private versus public information. If their mothers have put naked baby photos of them on the internet since birth, what will they think are the socially acceptable limits of self-disclosure?

Lastly, I appreciate how Baym talks about finding a balance. I don’t believe that we’re reached a “norm” with mobile as we have with other kinds of computer mediated communication like email. I hope we can all find a balance to use technology to enhance our lives and have the good sense to put it away at the dinner table.