This class experience was very informaive and helped me understand things about technology and online communication. Looking back at all the articles and videos we read and watched I learned a lot about communities and how people interact via internet. Learning about online communities, gender and race, technology, and civic engagement gave me a new outlook on communication online. I enjoyed the readings from Baym and how she gave her thoughts about the topics we discussed in each blog. Before this class I had never participated in a blog community so this was a new and fun experience for me. Technology will always improve and the authors of each article should continue to keep readers informed about what is new and why it is better than the last latest and greatest techno saavy device. How social media is constructed and profiling users profiles was intriguing because I never did so until I started to read about all the things you can guess about a persons life. My understanding of how the evolution of cell phones was much more clearer and how people sometimes live through their cell phones. Social media is now a communication tool for businesses and personal which can be good and bad depending on the situation. This class and blog really helped me to be careful about what I should or should not post online because everything is brough back up in the future. The objectives form the syllabus were staright forward and explained to me what I would learn after taking this course. Overall, I enjoyed the course as well as the professor in everything I participated in.

In the BBC interview with Danah and Aleks, they discuss how technology has changed so much and the methods we use to communicate. Aleks refers to back when kids used to communicate with friends from school and neighboring kids just by interacting publicly like going to the mall. The way teenagers choose to communicate now is mainly through text messaging and social media sites in which they know more than just friends locally but from other places as well. Baym discusses her views on how there is a difference in technology between people that did not grow up with certain features (2010). One thing that I liked about the BBC interview was how she described adults using social media sites for personal and it following them for the rest of their lives. It can show a trail of what a person did and gives an insight to who they are when potential careers and political runnings are at stake. But why should teachers and administrators have to live in a life secrecy when they are not in the classrooms? I feel that teachers have lives and are just as social as the next person and what they choose to do after school hours is pretty much their business. The social views of others should not matter if that person does their job and does not interrupt their careers with outside personal activities.

The readings for this weeks lesson described more about civic engagement and how people are becoming more and more involved in the technology standpoint. Interacting via internet gives us opportunities to become involvved with society as a whole and not just what goes on in our own communities. I really hate to bring up the topic about the bombing that happened in Boston, but think about how fast and viral the news went out to the public as soon as it happened. Becoming social on the internet helps us out a lot whether people realize the convenience of it or not. There are a lot of issues we face as well in internet communication such as cyber bullying and images or converstaions we would not want our children to see or participate in. As new technology always arises pretty much every year, we can see that there is going to be exponential growth in internet communication. All the things that we use on a daily basis such as cell phones, computers, and tablets are just the beginning. I really do believe there will be something new and amazing that hits us and social networking will probably be the only way people will communicate. Civic engagement helps us to understand and participate in group chats and learning about things we may have never known about. There will be a lot of opportunities that will come about for new and upcoming ways to socialize.

After reading the articles related to social capital and SNS, all of the authors of the article share a common interest with this certain topic. The general idea of SNS and social capital is to bring people together that share either a common ground or have the same ideas as their friends and/or followers. Norris stated that “Bridging social capital refers to social networks that bring people together of different sorts and bonding in social capital brings together people of a similar sort” (Norris, 2004). In my opinion this just lays out how Norris felt how people should interact online and what the goal of social networking is all about. When people use SNS it can affect how social capital is structured for individuals who enjoy SNS. Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe share the same ideas on SNS, but they are primarily focused on one SNS which is Facebook. How we interact online shows positive correlations of bringing people together and having a social bond. Social networking gives people more of an open field to explore new and existing friends, family, co-workers, and colleagues. It also helps us keep with information that goes on in the world and sometimes our own neighborhoods. My experience with SNS usually it to keep in contact with friends and family. and it keeps me in the loop about information I may have not heard about or gives me more of a clearer picture about something I knew nothing about. Social capital just helps us  create more of a fun environment to explore groups and have the same interests as yourself and others. When people create chat room groups or certain groups for people who have a certain interest, it brings about how social capital is used online.

The readings for this week gave a insight on what social networking really is and how a person can make themselves more available to them. Boyd and Ellison described three different ways to constuct a social networking site. (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 and those made by others within the system. He also goes on to state that we should not use the work “network” if we know who we are socializing with. It should be called initiating. We network with individuals every single day that we are a part of a social networking site. This gives us ability to network with people we may have lost contact with during the transitions in our lives. Networking is provided for us to get to know people we may have already known and it gives us more ways to make friends and associates. It also helps people get into certain career fields and it keeps in the loop about what may be going on in the world that we may have no clue about. I feel that social networking gives us the freedom to speak to those we may have been to shy to speak to in person. The two articles made me realize that social networking sites are a great way to be heard and seen without actually being physically heard or seen.

After reading Baym and watching the video online, I was convinced that a online community is just a group of people who share a common interests that like to engage with discussions online. If you have some sort of social media outage, then in my opinion you belong to an online communtiy whether it be for fun or business related. Baym’s definition of an online community included five qualities that he felt were important to be considered and online community. They consist of: space, practice, shared resources, shared identities, and interpersonal relations (2010). Having a social life online kind of makes a person more involved with what is going on in todays world because online communities always have some way to inform others of what is going on. I know that I am a part of an online community simply because I do like to get involved in discussion topics about television shows and other entertainment getaways. I also feel that the blogs that we post every week make each and every one that is enrolled in this course a part of an online community as well (LOL). Baym also wrote that if a person is a part of an online communtiy and uses the internet he/she is more sociable, engages in social activities, more educated, and will more than likel engage in politics off the record (2010). The two main ways that Baym describes being in an online communtiy fits into our social lives is by civic engagement and political enagegment (2010). Everything that we do on the internet that usually pertains to responding and engaging in conversations makes us a part of an online community. Online community communication is a great resource to use when we wnat to feel noticed and in order to voice our opinions.

After reading both Baym and Turkle, I realized that a lot of people really do not have an identity when using online communication. How do we really know who posts blogs and comments are really who they say they are? Some people post profile pictures, but even then it can always be a false picture. So what exactly are people doing to make sure identities within online communication is accurate? I’ve been watching this show called “Catfish,” on MTV and it is about a guy who helps people who are in online relationships find out the true identities of their secret lovers/admirers. I believe in that type of situation no one should have to step in and help another person determine the identity of another. There are hundreds of ways in todays technology to determine if the person you are chatting with is real or not. The blog that I am following is about helath care and politics which is created through a woman named Maggie Mahar. I do believe that her identity is exactly who she says she is and her background as well. Her thiughts and commnets about public health and the economy confirm that she is absolutely serious about these issues. Baym and Turkle are pretty much trying to come up with ways to seek true identity of online profilers and better ways for people to reveal themselves. It is all about whether or not a person is willing to be honest and approachable towrds people they associate with online.

The way the world is shaped today, it is not surprising to find out that people really have becomed wrapped up in so much technology. I admit that I text, email, facebook and other socializing via technology a lot. What I have learned is that most people (like myself) really cannot go a full day without some type of electronic communication. Personally, I have done it before and it was kind of bad because I felt like I had no source of communication. Most relationships with families, friends, etc. sometimes rely on text messages or email which is not a bad thing but it also pushes us away from little things like face to face conversations. The message that received from both of the studies is that regardless of who you are, you are someone in technology communication. Even the most annexed people who claim to not have any friends seem to chat online with people they know or have gotten to know via social networking. The readings with Baym and Raine & wellman helped me realize that yes our society has a major issue with old fashioned communication. I asked my sister what would she do without her cell phone or laptop for a week and she responded “Honestly, I would die.” This worried me because as a kid a lot of us did not have computers or cell phones, therefore we relied on regular home phones and face to face chats with friends and family. Being a networked individual I have become accustomed to keeping up with personal and business individuals on the internet, but it would not be a death warrant if I did not have technology for a few days. People really have to make some changes about consuming their lives with technology because sooner or later the generations to come are not going to know what a regular paper back book is due to computers and tablets taking their places. Internet technology is definitely not a bad thing, it’s how people take advantage of it and do not know how to have just a regular in person conversation.

This topic for this week was very interesting to me personally because I know so many people who try to use humor online to look cool and to fit in with the usual crowd. AIM was horribly slow when it first hit the communication circuit. I remember the first time I saw AIM and instatntly thought to myself this is an exciting way of communicating. As I read throughout the readings, I felt that Baron was against AIM and how people try to be funny during conversations. This is just my opinion. He did state that communication is a “Platform for self exprseeion.”and I do agree with him. Using humor in all types of communication is sometimes necessary because it either spices up the conversation or breaks down a barrier of akward silence.

Davison’s essay about internet memes and how it is incredibly high in speed as far as communicating with humor made me realize that regardless of the conversation, humor is seen acroos the board for the receiver and the encoder. Everyone in the world can go on facebook, twitter, instagram, etc. and see internet memes and analyze from their views on humor. I personally use humor a lot just to show that I am not always serious and that I can be a great person for business purposes and personal purposes. Emoticons and abbreviations are great tools of humor because that what mostly people use in order to display humor. Humor is now becoming a natural position for all types of communication.

In terms of Netspeak, I actually do believe that our society as a whole uses this type of language to replace what is in fact correct grammar and spelling in conversations and in social medias. The term LOL has been a hit phenomenon that we have to replace “oh how funny” and “hahahaha.” A lot of people now replace full length sentences with just acronyms and using emoticons to express emotions, I know in text messaging a lot of people use emoticons, acronyms and sometimes just one letter to end conversations and sometimes that is a bit confusing. With the most recent hypes of technology, simply just sending a thumbs up can mean a host of things. I do think that our culture does take it a bit to far with the LOL’s and IDK’s because it shows just how bad we have dumbed down our language. Our culture is starting to write how they text and talk in certain places like school, jobs and professional conversations and that is definitely not appropriate.

I do agree with Baron on stating that Netspeak is a hybrid because it is definitely pursuing us to e-mail and write formal papers inj the language we speak during text and IM. The only thing that I feel is making us write and think in netspeak is that we try to hurry the conversations which enables us to hurry in  our every day lives with school and work which is unacceptable. The language of text and IM is more like talking because any person who is definitely educated and knows the correct way to write things I would hope will never write how they text or IM. Texting and IM’ing are quick conversations so you have to think quick which makes us shorten words and come up with new acronyms to replace full sentences. Netspeak is definitely a huge influence on our culture as well as our professionalism.