Have you ever thought about the progression of SNS over the past 15 years? In my opinion this is the breakdown between the transition of 4 different social networking sites. It started with Myspace. Really, truly a SNS that became the breakthrough of so many, many others. Next, we can thank Mark Zuckerberg for the creation of Facebook. This SNS succeeded greatly, and is probably one of the top SNS out there today. Next, Twitter came into our lives and new ways to express yourself were announced to the world. With so many others in between, I have found through kids that are in my everyday life, their SNS of choice is YouTube. Yes, it has been around for so long and we all use it a lot, but they use it to post videos in which they can share with their friends. They follow certain pages, but is this really considered a SNS? This is where Beer would say no. Beer feels like this lack of definition between these SNS is a problem especially because they are very different applications.

Boyd and Ellison define social network sites as, “web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections.” This is where Beer believes this is not defined enough, that it is too broad of a definition. I cannot help, but to agree. There seem to be no limitations to Boyd and Ellison’s definition. Could an anonymous bulletin board to discuss ideas be a SNS? Maybe according to Boyd and Ellison.

SNS are more individual based, whereas, online communities are more group based. When I think of a SNS (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) you should only be “friends” or “follow” people who you have a direct relationship with. Someone that you have met before in an offline community. Yes, some people “slip through the cracks” and many people realize this and try to fix the problem, which is why so many profiles on any SNS are set to private and do not allow these loopholes. An online community, people join to discuss common issues, or find a place with people that they do not know on a personal basis.

What is an online community? Is it everyone who uses the internet? Or is it more defined to people belonging in specific online communities? I believe that an online community is a group of people that share a common interest and involve themselves, somehow in an online group that they enjoy. Therefore; a community is a group of people sharing a common interest. As Howard mentions, they are “real people who became part of my life.” This was his version of a close-knit community. A random group of people are placed together, for some reason, unknown. The complete opposite of a community would be a random group of people.

People become a part of online communities for many different reasons. Personally, I have never been a part of an online community but I have a sense of why people may join.

“But, there have been many instances in which there are, are people, for different reasons, they’re sick, or they’re, they’re in a scary part of town where they don’t want to leave they’re apartment at night.  Or maybe they’re older and they don’t get around that much.  Or like myself, and many others, I work at home, where am I going to get my relationships and I go, go to a bar or a coffee house or, or do I log online, so not everybody has that kind of old village, small town, everybody knows your name, physical community.”          -Howard Rheingold

Howard says it perfectly here. Some people may join online communities because they feel unsafe to leave their home at night, or they are older. They may join an online community to share similarities with other people they may not have found in the real world, or in the city that they live in. Online communities have slowly been becoming everyone’s separate identity. They do not, anymore, mesh very well with the rest of our social lives, unless it is to tell your friend about a Facebook or Twitter post you saw earlier. But at the end of the day, most people have their separate social lives, and separate online identity which lies in their online community.

In Huffaker and Calverts study, I found many points of focus between male and female identity online. They found that men would more openly use language that is aggressive or offensive to other online users or on blog sites. One interesting point is that women discuss more personal, intimate topics and usually include emoticons to express their mood or idea. Men, however use emoticons as well but usually to other females, not Maithili conversations to other men. I feel that these online gender based roles are ver appropriate ideas that correlate well to the real life presentation of a person.

One personal thought I had discussing gender and blogging in particular is that from following a few girlfriends blogs, and my blog analysis, is that women usually share as much positive information on their blog as possible. Making many followers see all of the “pretty” parts of their life. I get it, they don’t want to share their dirt or complain publicly on a blog site, but, c’mon your life isn’t that perfect, right?

As far as gender throughout this class or other online classes I have been a part of, I can definitely tell between a few of the race.  Just life Huffaker and Calvert mentioned, it’s the personal stories shared. Men seem to be a little more reserved with sharing these life details.

I am going to start by discussing my blogger. She is a very outgoing, loving, passionate runner, mother, friend, and wife. All of her blogs are very positive and uplifting. (Which they should be, right?) Well, that is the great thing about communicating online, especially on a blog, you can make yourself LOOK good. You do not have to include the bad; therefore, the happy-go-lucky self is exposed, constantly. Turkle comments by saying that cycling through all the different aspects of ones personality is not a common experience. My point also being, how can you show who you really are through an online identity? You truly, truly can’t.

Byam asks in this chapter, “when people’s bodies aren’t visible, will people lie about who they are? Can they be trusted? Can they be known?” This perception of people is in the hands of each one of us. Some people trust online identities too much and end up troubled, hurt, and full of doubt.

I think that both Byam and Turkle are trying to raise awareness of online identities and how easy one can alter their own identity, whether for good, bad, or just experimentation. It is a scary thought knowing that Byam provided many examples of people falling for false social identities and potentially placing a danger in their life. These articles reminded me of when I was probably in middle school, investigating and experimenting with chat rooms and completely fooling someone else with my true identity. Although, my memories were purely innocent, some are not.

I am pretty confident to say that my blogger is telling the truth (maybe not the WHOLE truth about the negative part of her life). She posts pictures A LOT and that would be a difficult thing to fake. :)

Webspeak/Netspeak has a great impact on our daily lives. Since the technology is so prominent in many peoples daily lives, most are dependent on their devices. With using these devices, abbreviations and linguistic shortcuts become normative to us even in daily speech. Personally, I think it is silly to use “LOL” or “OMG” during a face to face conversation, I have however, heard it PLENTY of times from friends and even coworkers. I am also a part of facebook “resale” groups where members can post pictures of items they are wishing to persuade someone to purchase. Essentially, a facebook craigslist. Well, when I first joined abbreviations such as, “EUC” (excellent used condition) and “PPU” (pending pick up) were completely foreign to me. My mother, who introduced me to the site will ask me if I saw that “blazer from Ann Taylor that was in EUC for PU in Germantown?” IN A NORMAL CONVERSATION? It takes me a moment to process the abbreviations and put together what she was saying. Tiring, really.

I agree with Baron, “The goal of an IM conversation is to get your message across..not produce an entry for an essay contest.” Exactly. IN AN IM/SMS MESSAGE. More and more people are talking in this “code” language in daily practice. Most accept this slanderous form of communication, but I however, do not support this system. In a daily conversation, you should present yourself well and when this Webspeak language is introduced to daily conversation, the presentation of the person using this communication form, does not seem presentable/professional to me.

Much life myself, Thurlow thinks texting is exaggerated and gaining much attention. I also do not understand and therefore have mixed feelings about the entire texting domain. I would much rather have a phone conversation, using normative language to get my point or message across. I hope that this “upcoming” language does not last for long, because we may have some really confused people who will need to adapt to learn this “new” language.

After taking the quiz, I found myself to be a Digital Collaborator. According to Horrigan, this makes up 8% of the adult population, consisting of mainly men, in their late 30’s who are well-educated and well-off (Horrigan 6). As most of these statistics do not portray my identity, the description of a “Digital Collaborator” seems to sum up my perspective on my own technological interests, in part. The other part of my technological interests, in my opinions, places me under the category of a “Roving Node.” Horrigan states to “picture a Roving Node as a woman in her late 30s who is rarely without her smart phone, often using it to chat, but also checking email or fielding a text message (Horrigan 10). I do not fit in the age description, but sometimes in other aspects of my life, I feel like that age would better fit my outlet on life.

Getting back to being a Digital Collaborator, I truly do use ICTs to help connect with friends, coworkers, and family in various ways. As a manager of a restaurant, I use the Internet to create and display schedules, messages, and regulations which are used throughout many many people within the restaurant. I also am “heavily engaged with digital content – consuming it, but also sharing it with others and using it as a means for expression (Horrigan 27). I use social networks such as Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest to do many of these sharing thoughts, creations, and ideas.

On the Roving Node side of my technological outlook, I use my cellular device for many of my electronic needs. I mainly text and email on my phone and would be lost without these two basic applications I use so often. Since I am so reliant on all of my ICTs for retrieving information, as well communicating, “it is no surprise that Roving Nodes would find it hard to do without them (Horrigan 53).

Being a combination of these two profiles, I feel like I overall have a good sense of technology. At the same time, I understand those who do not grasp these technological advances and am always patient with them, striving to boost their knowledge and show them that it is okay to be semi-dependent to your ICTs. If we all were on the same page with technology and all it can bring to us, we would live in a very technologically-based world. Sometimes it is okay to take a break from all of the devices and dependency we all seem to have within some degree.