The readings this week were quite interesting. Although I do not have experience dealing with non-English language personal on the internet however, I do have daily contact communicating with non-English speakers but interpreters come in handy.

In the Linguistic Diversity Reading the point about the National Censuses caught my attention. So many people that are fluent in different languages all use the internet. From interacting with people daily that are natives of different language I have noticed that many of them prefer to read documents in English instead of their native language. It was amazing that Gerrand used web presence to measure because all languages are not available on all computers and most people would use English for different reasons such as to ensure that the receive would understand, to try to become more fluent etc. So the researcher should have taken into consideration the reason for the web presence because it may have had an effect on the data.

Another interesting topic was in chapter 3 the flaming. “Walther et al.(1994) defined flaming as messages that include wearing, insults, name calling, negative affect, and typographic energy,” (Baym, 57). I have noticed that people result to name calling, insults etc. in order to obtain attention. I actually never heard of flaming before now. I believe people try to be nicer or just try to ignore flaming in order to try to make the person stop.

Other topics that caught my attention were the use of social cues, emoticons and linguistic language. Emotions are not easily express online and can be misunderstood. For example, typing in all capital letter could be taken as yelling. I was very amazed with Baym story of how people perceived CEO Jerry Yang’s memo. It is so common now to use LOL, haha and other language but I have never heard ROTFL.  How would the global research study results been different if each native language used different social cues and linguistic language to express themselves?

            One intriguing issue was how one site mentioned in the textbook contained a lot of user-generated content from people who knew different languages. It stated that the blogs, while still 84% English, had another 16% that consisted of other languages, including Spanish, Russian, and Japanese. The variety of these languages is astounding, yet it could prove beneficial in the long run. With people coming to theUnited Statesfrom other countries and more residents of theU.S.speaking languages other than English, it is a worthwhile notion for Americans to attempt to learn as many different languages as possible. This would help prevent confusion between citizens of a diversified population. While I personally do not have any experience with non-English languages on the internet, issues such as these should not be ignored.

            The influx of different languages should not be counted out as the only interesting fact in these two readings. Second is how nonverbal gestures can convey emotional meaning, even when not accompanied by verbal assistance. This could also prove useful, since some individuals fear increased use of the internet could result in diminishing personal conversations between people. However, this is not the worst possible side effect of increased internet use. The worst is the lowering morality in today’s culture because of an increasing lack of people skills.

            One final fact is that social norms like politeness and civility toward others are being replaced with the notion that people should be mean to one another in order to succeed. This thirst for payback toward people who do other individuals wrong could prove to be humanity’s downfall. Loss of compassion towards others could prove an easy way to make enemies. It is a sad philosophy in today’s society: sympathy toward others has seemingly become revenge against adversaries.

I thought this week’s readings were very interesting, and they caused me to think quite a bit about my own online communication habits. Baym’s notes about how women and men communicate differently were very eye-opening. She writes that people don’t use communication as a tool to liberate themselves from gender stereotypes- instead, they “perform” gender through their chosen words (66). Men are more about information, and women are more about relationships. At the end of the day, men are more likely to turn their phones off, possibly because they view the phone as a work tool rather than a way to keep in contact with loved ones. Overall, women seem to talk more online- their instant messaging goodbyes are three times as long as men’s, and they often write about the underlying messages in life situations, rather than sticking to what actually happened (67). I thought it was very interesting that women’s conversations seem to work against their fight to break stereotypes about talking too much and being too emotional.

I also read about how emoticons allow people to show emotions in their online communication. While emails can sometimes be misunderstood, with jokes coming across as serious or offensive matters, using a smiley face can help ensure the reader that messages are lighthearted. Baym writes that using creative and personal ways to communicate online “show others that we are real, available, and that we like them” (62). For people who are shy or socially uncomfortable, the internet gives them an opportunity to “reinvent” themselves and have a charismatic personality online.

In Gerrand’s article, I thought it was interesting how flawed the Global Reach study seemed. Although so many people are equally fluent in both their native language and English (because English truly is becoming the global language, so people are raising their children with it), Global Reach automatically assumes that people will use the internet in their native language. Since so many languages aren’t even supported by personal computers, and many foreign news sites, etc are published in English, this study doesn’t seem to “take a step back” and look at all the options. I have never personally dealt with other languages on the internet, so I can’t predict how important these types of issues are or will be in the future. However, as Western technology continues to spread over the globe, I can only imagine that English will become more and more dominant in all cultures.

In Chapter 3 Baym starts the chapter with introducing the research topic of Social Presence Theory. The theory is a psychological trend involving how people interact with one another, or the “Level of interpersonal contact and feelings of intimacy in communications”. Thrulow,Lengel and Tomic (2004:48) An issue I felt was interesting about the theory was how the lack of social cues, such as facial expression or body  language  shaped the interaction of relationship. The issue seemed important to Scott E. Fahlman. He created the first set of Emoticons to convey certain expression such as the smiley face. Its interesting that someone came up with the idea to type different  characters to create a social cue. We now have the ability to better understand a person’s intent for text in various CMC technology.

In the Linguistic Diversity Reading I found another interesting point about the National Censuses discussed by Gerrand. I did not know that nations conduct censuses on citizens of minority languages they consider important. They have concluded that best way to study the actual use of languages used on the internet is by web presence. An example of the rise in web presence is found in chapter 3 where Baym discusses the Miler and Slater’s ethnographic analysis. The analysis shows how Trinidadian identity sparked online interaction and the notion of linguistic diversity through web presence. The “Trinis” communicated in forms related to “being Trini” Baym(2010), as well as linking people to view Trinidadian national sites and more importantly personal websites.

I personally have not had any Involvement with languages outside of English. However i have started to notice people of diverse languages are commenting on public facebook pages that are in English, or leave comments on youtube videos that are in English as well. It makes me wonder if they watch or read their content in the their language or in English.

The first interesting thing I found in chapter 3 is the flaming. “Walther et al.(1994) defined flaming as messages that include wearing, insults, name calling, negative affect, and typographic energy,” (Baym, 57). I, too, think that most of people are more likely to be nice than flame, and that people usually overestimate the amount of flaming because bad things are always more memorable. It also depends in the group, if the group you are interacting with is aggressive and they all its members use flame, then you will be more likely to use the same language to please your friends since this is the norm in this group, and become  more acceptable and welcomed. On the other hand, if the group is nice and none of its members use flame, you will do the same because this is the norm in this particular group. In addition, if people use flame in his or her ordinary life they would use it online because it also depends in the people’s background, personality, and the level of education.

Another interesting topic is the use of nonverbal social cues. For example, I use the acronym “LOL” a lot, but I never seen or use “ROFL,” (rolling on the floor laughing), I like it and I am going to use it from now on. Another example is the deletions (leave out pronouns, vowels, punctuation). I think everybody does that today in texting or posting in Facebook or Twitter. In Twitter, for instance, we have certain amount of words to tweet, so we have to make it short. In Facebook, I have hundreds of friends, so I really don’t have time to write a lot and in full sentences or check the spelling, grammar, and punctuation. After all, as long as we write something that everybody can understand and be there to share our thoughts and ideas it really doesn’t matter and your presence would be appreciated.

The last interesting thing in Chapter 3 is the fact that web pages can be set to appear in 32 different languages. I think this is can help us to communicate and make more business with the other part of the world. Additionally, if someone has a second language beside English why not use it to socialize online with family members and friends who can not write English. I have a Mexican friend in my Facebook page who always post in Spanish . Even though I’m not Spanish but if  a post attracted me, I can use the translator to translate it into English to understand the post and be able to share. In addition, I can use my mother language to write something for my Mom who lives overseas and can not read English.

I don’t have much personal experience in dealing with non-English languages on the internet. I think a lot of this can be attributed to the fact that the internet originated in the United States and the majority of web pages today are in English. Nevertheless, Baym noted at the end of Chapter 3 that “the influence and spread of English online remains disproportionate to its speakers.”

I found it very interesting to see the great disparity in estimates of the presence of the English language on the internet. As the Gerrand pointed out, this is because the different methodologies “estimate different aspects of language use.” Yet, when the numbers are reported based on individual individual studies, they typically fail to acknowledge the discrepancy in methodologies.

It seems that user profiles, if literacy censuses were up to-date, would be an ideal reflection of the web presence of English and non-English languages. But as Gerrand addressed in his article, user profiles and web presence are two independent measures, and they clearly don’t parallel each other at this point in time, although they may be trending closer together. This closing of the gap seems to be essential because, as the Danet and Herring article explained, “In recent years, the Internet has become truly a global communication network.”

 Web presence has some controlling power over user activity. After all, if English is not your first language but the majority of content you see on the web is in English, you might be more inclined to use English in emails, discussion posts, blogs, etc. Gerrand said that user activity is the ideal measure of internet language usage, but that “it is simply not technically feasible to measure the aggregate Internet activity in any given language directly…”

The idea of flaming was another interesting topic from the Baym article. Although the concept of flaming evolved out of CMC, it’s not a unique to CMC. Baym cited a definition of flaming “as messages that include swearing, insults, name calling, negative affect, and typographic energy.” I don’t know about you all, but in my day (I like to think when I was younger and immature), I’ve sworn at people, thrown around a few insults, and name called in face-to-face interaction. Some acknowledge that flaming is not unique to CMC but argue that the medium is more conducive to increasing this type of behavior. Yet Baym pointed out studies that show we largely overestimate the amount of flaming behavior. This might be because flames get the most attention.

The foundation of fear for our relationship with the internet arises from our dependency on such integrated technologies and uncertainty of what this means for our future.

We don’t want to constrict the autonomous nature of the internet, yet we are faced with the challenge of maintaining a healthy, “more liveable” online environment (Herring, 32). It’s a different world out there. Our traditional understandings of social structure and known risks are being challenged. There are not many rules in the Wild West of the Internet. We have yet to put many limitations and regulations on the majority of the internet, but “users today are less tolerant of abuse and more willing to accept systems of control to restrict it” (Herring, 32). Similarly, Baym hypothesizes potential attempts at regulating concrete offensive acts of abuse such as “harassment” and “spamming.”  As with any new technology, people become anxious and concerned, and “new media often stirs up fear of moral decline” (Baym, 41). Our fears creep in and we begin to fault the system for undermining our traditional societal values. Unknowing children become the exemplification of what happens to all of us. The innocent are “corrupted, damaged, and permanently transformed by technology” (Baym, 43). However the system also has the potential to expand & connect, to increase access to information, knowledge, and even community.

Both authors touch on different aspects of how the different structures and systems have the power to affect our communication behavior in various ways. However uncertain, these new technologies are a necessary part of daily life we have come to “nervously accept.” The anxiety we faced over the development of our technologies in the early 2000s still resonate within us today.  The constant advancement “leave[s] us forever scrambling to catch up” (Herring, 29).

Despite this constant evolution, “users want a stable, simpler, useable” platform to adopt (Herring, 33). We want the technology to benefit our means.  “The sheen of novelty” has worn off as we use communication technology and it becomes a necessary part of our productive lifestyle (Herring, 29). These once-fascinating technologies have been “made mundane” as they are increasingly embedded in our daily lives (Baym, 5). There is still plenty of hope for a better online environment for the future. Though the technology is adopted and immediately assimilated into our lifestyle, it is also constantly evolving and there will always be something new to enrich our screens & minds.

Hello everyone I know I am late introducing myself but I am recovering from an injury, I tore a muscle in my calf. I am a Senior Health Services Administration major and I am currently interning at a local hospital. I am a lover of all things leopard and I have a thing for fashion.

These readings state that people are being manipulated by new technologies. It also suggested that new technologies will interfere with a person’s memory as well as attention span. There was a fear present in Baym text, the fear of losing control and people not leaving home. These fears were founded after reading the statement “many fear that actual human connection has been irretrievably lost.” CMC, Computer-Mediated Communication, is slouching towards ordinary because of chatrooms, web boards, text messages and other social media outlets and ultimately the mobility of all the ways of communicating online.
I do feel that technology has a lot to do with the depletion of attention span. People hold their phones for dear life without looking up. I visited NYC this past Summer and people were crossing the streets looking at their phone, nearly being hit by cabs. I do not agree that people will not want to leave their house. Due to mobility of communication people are leaving their homes, they’re just not paying attention when they do.

Many of the hopes and fears brought about in these readings revolve around the idea that the internet will effect how human beings communicate with one another. The negative effects range from a loss of personal identity to the absence of real human relationships. The hopes are largely the opposite of this, that CMC will help bring people together. I understand the fear that text messages and emails are somehow creating less meaningful relationships, but I disagree with that point. In our world, more and more families are finding themselves living in different parts of the country. Without access to text messaging, email or even video chatting services such as Skype or FaceTime, it would be almost impossible to maintain a close bond with family members. I feel like Skype and FaceTime are helping to keep the internet from “slouching towards the ordinary.” Whereas email is very much like traditional letter writing, a FaceTime call is completely different than anything we as a society were able to do a decade ago. In fact, in 2003 most Americans did not even have text messaging. Now, we can call a family member in another country and actually see their face while we talk to them. Its a truly amazing thing! We are finding ways to make communication on the internet a less ordinary experience than it was a decade or even five years ago.
It is important to realize, though, that there is truth to the fear that the internet can rob a person of their privacy. In fact, the internet is becoming the first place new employers look for information on prospective hires. If any trace of that potential employee is found doing something crazy, illegal or morally objective, its likely they will not be hired. And it applies to current employers as well. You have to be extremely careful about what you put out there. Overall, though, the user can be completely in control of what exists about them on the web. It is always a good idea to be aware of what you are sending out into cyberspace. The internet never forgets!