I think the main hope for CMC is that it will continue to make people’s lives easier. In some ways it does save time and money. With email and the internet, companies can send you paperless billing statements which is better for the environment and also saves you money on a stamp. One of the main fears with CMC is the whole trust issue. How do you know which websites are legit and also who to trust? One of the main things I think that is important to remember about it is that you do not give your credit card numbers out to just anyone. The only way I will type in my credit card number is if I am purchasing something online. I have Page Plus Cellular which is a pre paid phone service. To renew my minutes each month, I have to purchase them off their web site because Page Plus is not one of the main carriers that you can buy the cards for at Wal Mart or other retailers. I think the hopes and fears with the internet are well founded. There are pros and cons to everything. When Herring says that CMC tends to “slouch towards the ordinary” I think she is meaning that CMC has become an ordinary part of our daily lives. Most people now a days have cell phones and computers. It is also ordinary for online students like ourselves that have to have the internet as a way to do our school work.

When it comes to crime in the Bluff City, my father has always said it best. “Memphis is just like any other city,” he used to tell me. “There are good parts, and bad parts. If you stay out of the bad parts, chances are that you’ll be okay.”

The “hopes and fears” of the connected masses as discussed by Baym harkens back to the all-too familiar technological commentary of Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death. In the opening pages of this thought provoking paper-back, Postman contrasts the forecasts of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, two prominent 20^th century philosophers. Orwell believed that censorship by “the man” would suppress the masses, while Huxley feared that the masses would suppress themselves with diversions. In Postman’s words, “…Orwell feared that what we hate would ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love would ruin us” (Postman). Postman’s work asserts that we were already witnessing the fulfillment of Huxley’s prophesy when he finished Amusing in 1985, and many tend to echo his sentiments. Today, these feelings are most often re-directed toward the internet. Many have begun to feel concerned that perhaps we have accumulated troves of information and content so vast that we cease to see its value or relevance.

However, in reading Baym and Herring, we begin to see that many express more visceral fears of what the internet is, or may become. These authors remind us of the reality that the internet is reflective of the human condition. As such, while the web offers opportunities to learn and explore, it is not without a dark side. The sexual exploitation of children on the internet, even beyond child pornography, is far more common than many of us would care to admit. So, it should not be surprising that, upon witnessing such instances of degradation in the media, some begin to fear the internet. Indeed, it is not unwise for one to have a healthy awareness for how some choose to employ the web for such purposes.

Nonetheless, it is also important to remember that the internet, just like a big city, has good parts and bad parts. We ought to continue to use the internet to learn and explore. Because, as long as we are wise and avoid the bad parts, we’ll probably be okay.

Postman, Niel. Amusing Ourselves to Death. London: Peguin Books, 1985. Google Books. Web. 29 Jan. 2013.

The hopes and fears of people around technology have shifted during time. Technology has evolved and developed so many ways of communicating more efficiently and in a rapid way. For example e-commerce takes advantage of the convenience of being in one place and being able to do business virtually anywhere. We have got accustomed to all our gadgets that it is hard to imagine what we would do without them. Also, all the new forms of communicating have become a very ordinary part of life. Checking our social media page has become a daily routine, texting as having a conversation with an individual has become a normal part of the day. Checking emails is an ordinary task at work. The fear is that many people see the evil side to technology. Many people see the concern with security, censorship, gender demographics, and online pornography (Herring 2004). It is a concern of what is real and what is not? People start to question the quality of mediated interactions, believing technology takes away from social cues that provide rich meaning. Do we use technology simply because it is there? We have text conversations that are meaningless, but we respond back just for the sake of responding. This habits that we do without thinking have become ordinary with technology.

In this weeks readings both authors discuss the emerging social ideas surrounding the new technologies, primarily CMC’s or computer mediated communication. Baym dicusses that the technology agents like the internet and CMC’s have certain “technological determinism”, meaning technologies have characteristics that can be transferred to a user and impatcs the social life. (Baym 26) Therefore Baym fears the potential of negative influence or moral decline of CMC users, as well as giving the users to much technological influence. He hopes to understand the features of the new technologies to better better link social consequences.

In Herring’s Article he somewhat tracks the growing trend of people becoming ordinary CMC users. Herring discusses that in the later years the demographic of CMC users has changed to” younger and less tech savvy” Herring (2004). This due to the rise of email, IM, ans SMS technologies which provides a way for young people to communicate online. Herring also points out the social fears that are being noticed. Some social fears are the loss of personal privacy, cyber bulling, and spaming. Herrings observations, even thought a few years old, seem to fit some of the social fears we have seen in the past 5 years. For example terrorist groups like recently formed  “anonymous” or the devastating stories of kids taking there lives or others after begin a victim of cyber bulling.

New technology generates in society the realization that new heights of accomplishments are achievable. However, with every new technological achievement there is a downside. The birth and development of computer mediated communication (CMC) systems is not the exception. CMC has undoubtedly captivated our society while at the same time creating new reasons for fear. Will it lose its appeal and fascination with time?

It is undeniable that the astounding growth in CMC use has resulted in great benefits to our society. It is difficult to imagine a successful research project without the expeditious speed and exhaustive resource that the Internet offers. Internet technology has become so important that its influence on the outcome of our last presidential election is undeniable. Today, it affects almost every aspect of society. Some dare to conclude that without the Internet, life as we currently know it would disappear to the disappointment of humanity.

It is undeniable, however, that with all the advantages the Internet offers us, it has brought along disadvantages that some find very concerning, and in some cases frustrating. Children are victims, identities are stolen, privacy is at risk, and targeted databases threaten to cripple large corporations and even governments. Yet, this is not CMC systems’ biggest threat.

I agree with Susan Herring that CMC’s biggest threat is the extensive familiarity of its users with the system. On page 33 of her article she writes: “CMC has become more of a practical necessity than an object of fascination and fetish”. This familiarity threatens to push this system into the land of great to remember antiques without a functional purpose. However, the continuous efforts of visionaries and technological designers continually simplifying the system and increasing its fascination with new technologies will guarantee many years of positive contribution to our society.

As someone who has grown up with the internet and views it as a foundational aspect of modern life, it can be hard for me to step back and consider other people’s views concerning it. However, both Baym and Herring had many points about people’s hopes and fears regarding new technologies and CMC.

Perhaps the most basic and underlying fear I read is people’s assumption that CMC shapes communication and social behavior (Herring 26). Baym writes about this as well, saying that technology actually changes the quality of interactions (30). However, this point does allow people to hope that this new change in social behavior will broaden our “pool of potential relational partners” (Baym 30), and also bring people closer together (Baym 36). While people are having a greater sense of openness and opportunity, they are also fearful about the amount of their information that is available to the public. Herring writes that an underlying concern is “loss of personal privacy,” and says that there is a “growing awareness that our online communication leaves traces” (32). On the other hand, another concern is that there is too MUCH privacy available online- and that people have no real idea of who they are talking to (resulting in child molestation and other horrendous acts) (Baym 35, 41-42).

Herring writes that the internet has become a “practical necessity” rather than an exciting tool, and that concepts like blogging have gone from exciting to as ordinary as passing notes in class (33). She says that CMC is “slouching toward the ordinary,” and that the internet is becoming a simpler, safer, and far less fascinating communication environment.

Based upon her thoughts, I have to admit that most hopes and fears about technology seem a bit dated. I understand the concerns about putting credit card numbers online, or being careful about what information we publish, but I think that most people have been warned so many times that they have gotten the point. I have seen a large array of articles bringing awareness about internet issues (including ones about how our Facebook profiles can be harmful for college admissions and job pools), and I think that people are becoming very good at dealing with these issues. While we obviously need to watch over those who don’t fully realize the risks (like when our 14-year-old cousins put up provocative Facebook profile pictures set to public access), most of society seems to have caught on quite nicely.

Chapter 2 and Herrin (2004) points out how people fear new technology use and harm that it will cause. People feel that it will diminish intelligence, cause problems in marriages and corrupt our kids.  As discussed in chapter 2 every new technology comes with its drawbacks. According to Baym, “when medias are new, most popular messages about them are deterministic” (page 24).  Some of the fear that develops is due to the reactions of other people. People tend to take the opinion of the majority in order to fit in instead of standing on or establishing their point of view. The major fear that people have is change and many people do not like change therefore technology cause resistance.

Baym points out many fears of technology and states that   “it will re-create political and cultural communities in cyberspace; it will bring pornographers, stalkers, and credit-card scammers into our homes, corrupting our kids and ransacking our privacy” (page 28).  She also states that technology would allow people to lie about their name, age and other things which would increase problems.

Technology has brought the fear of lack of privacy and the force of conformant. Herring says that CMC tends to “slouch toward the ordinary” which is so true because new things began as socially unacceptable and expensive but through time it become the norm and people cannot live without it.  It has been confirmed today that communication between one another is over and the use of advance technology has increase.  People hardly talk with one another face to face. Technology has taken over and now controls some people every move.

There are numerous new forms of technology in today’s world. While some people think those can help mankind move forward, others think they can potentially hurt the march of progress. Susan C. Herring stated her concerns on this matter in her article, which could potentially raise suspicion or concern as to where this increasing influence of modern technology could take mankind.

The individuals who state that the advancement in communication technology is a good thing have well-founded reasons to state why. These new forms of technology, including web chats and blogging, allow for us to communicate with people much further away. The benefits for this type of communication, while helpful, can potentially have its drawbacks.

There are numerous other people stating that technology could potentially replace face-to-face interaction between individuals and could eventually lead to social seclusion and isolation. Herring noted on page 7 how experience has taught many users to be more cautious of “what they say and do” while on-line. Some forms of technology, including internet pornography, have the potential to ruin relationships, even those as intimate as marriage. Personal Connections in the Digital Age, by Nancy K. Baym, gives examples of such occurrences. These include the rare but alarming potential of internet stalkers or rapists on dating websites.

Technology is so common place now that it is often taken for granted. On page 6 of Herring’s article, an interesting parallel is drawn between various “new” forms of technology and those that “came before”. As the latest generation noted in the same article, children tend to be the lost group to have drawn the same conclusion and, as such, have yet to grow tired of some of the newer technology. This is what I believe Herring meant in saying, “CMC tends to slouch towards the ordinary”.

Picture of IRC from Jumpin’ Jack Flash (1986)

The film referenced in my blog title is the only reason I knew what Baym (2010) was describing as Internet Chat Relay Chat in her review of early synchronous chat technology (p. 14). In the film a bank associate (Whoopi Goldberg) gets caught up with a British spy stuck in Russia. Using the IRC function they conspire to get him home and the required hijincs ensue. This film gave me a healthy dose of paranoia about the internet at an early age, similar to other films that Baym describes in chapter 1 like “The Net”. I guess I have my parents to thank for having HBO when I was little.

Baym’s discussion of the dystopian visions and rhetoric surrounding new technology seemed timely to me after our first reading. When reading over the blogs from week 1 and the comments that followed, it seemed that at least of few of us in the class were of the opinion that all of this technology is degrading society’s ability to interact meaningfully in person. Baym argues, “the language and forms of evidence may have changed, but the concern that communication technologies make us dumber is as old as writing” (p.26). I’ve certainly had those thoughts, but I’m glad that this week’s reading challenged us to be more moderate and to look back and see that other technologies that we have come to take for granted have been treated with similar negative rhetoric. While I do think that these fears need to be explored and studied by scholars, I find it equally important that we base our voiced opinions on the outcomes of this research, rather than voicing opinions only informed by our fears. Not to say that there aren’t some alarming facts coming out of the research. In particular for me, tribalism is both exciting and frightening. As a person using the internet, its a definite perk for me to be able to connect with people that share similar interests as myself. On the other side of that, it troubling that as a result , I would be insulated from being exposed to those of differing opinions that could give me a more well balanced view.

Herring (2004) describes CMC as “slouching towards the ordinary” as the convergence of two conflicting trends: “it overestimates the novelty of much CMC, and underestimates the effects of social forces such as mass popularization, according to which mundane uses of technologies tend to co-opt their destabilizing potentials over time ” (p.27). In Herring’s conclusion she predicts that 5 years into the future (which was 2009) that internet technology would become further integrated into our daily routine and therefore would lose some of its luster. While I do agree that it has become more intertwined with our daily lives, I’m not sure that 5 years is enough time for it to become  ordinary to us. I’m not certain that its become any safer either contrary to Herring’s prediction, but I’m no expert.

As for future research into this arena, I hope that scholars will look further into the etiquette that has developed around online interactions. I would like to know more about the “unwritten rules” of online and mediated exchanges. Apparently I’m supposed to text before I call to make sure its ok now? Also, is Herring correct, has the internet become safer? Maybe since those of us that spend more and more time online become savvier at spotting the spam. Perhaps its increased or reached a plateau as more and more people go online and those that take advantage follow?

Reading Chapter 2 and Herrin (2004) the hopes of new technologies were primarily  to make easier avenues for communication for people. In contrast the fears are much higher issues. People fear that the replication and storage of content online is permanent and can be reproduced at a rapid rate. A sense of privacy invasion or lack there of is also a concern on the table. As noted in chapter 2 of our text, there are strong anxieties that stem from the media being interactive, deceiving, and exploiting.

It is evident in the rapid growth and popularity of people adapting to the use of technology and high traffic on the internet the the hopes are evident that the use of computers, tablets, and cellphones will become the ordinary in our society. For most people, it has. The fears about technology are also lurking in the back ground, of these fears the highest are sexual exploitation primarily concerning children and privacy. A lot of debate about being trackable is out there on the internet and is a testimony to the the evolution outlined in Herring (2004) from the first types of messages being text only to the current formats that allow rapid response and even videos (skype, fact time, etc.)

The observations made by Herring “CMC tend to slouch towards the ordinary” is a confirmation that our communications among each other will be over the use of new and advanced technology tools and messaging.