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Keen Reading Questions

1. Keen says democratized media undermines the truth and takes away from pure talent and experience. It trivializes expertise and makes claims it can not even begin to fill. Because of this, he finds it ironic that the term is even used. It creates less reliable news and has lead to a great deal of misinformation.


2. While Keen sees social media as a way of spreading falsities, Rushkoff sees it as a means to connect to world. Rushkoff believes such person to person sharing is an effective way of spreading news in the fastest way possible. I personally believe the media is capable of both these things. While we do get information at incredibly high speeds, the stories are not always being filtered or corrected. Even so, I would rather be given false facts that I can later research to determine their validity than to be cut off from the rest of the world. 

Comments

I commented on Mark Plage, Ali Read and Matt DiPillo's blogposts.

Wither the Individual?

As a freshman in college, it was a huge adjustment moving away from home and saying goodbye to my friends. We all worried about losing touch with one another and being unable to remain as close as we were during high school. Fortunately, I am still close with all of them. I feel this continued level of connection is greatly because of our use of social networking sites.

By using sites such as Facebook, it is very easy to remain in contact. Not only is it helpful for intrapersonal relationships, but it’s very beneficial in group communication as well. It allows for people to comment on activities between other people and send messages to multiple people at a time. The content put on the Internet becomes extensions of ourselves and allows us to expand our identities. Unfortunately, online profiles only allow us to express ourselves to a certain extent.

We are forced to conform to the specifications of the sites we use, which does not allow for complete displays of our individuality. Though we are given some freedoms such as a profile picture and a status, we are not given the ability to format our pages or add anything not approved by the site. This makes “our” websites less personal and clusters users together in a way that doesn’t allow for true individual expression.

That being said, it is still possible to get your point across through the use of notes and meaningful posts. Unfortunately, society does not always allow us to do so. Even if your profile is put on private, you are still not entirely protected. Others can and will see the content you post which discourages people from sharing personal and intimate thoughts. Without being able to share these deep and clandestine emotions, the full person is not being represented. Instead, a surface-level representation is all that is being seen. This is fine when the site is being used by casual acquaintances, but when friends and family members try to use it in the same way, they are unable to fully capture the essence of their loved one.

Though Facebook may not be the place for divulging personal information, there are sites on the Internet that allow a person’s true personality to be expressed. With the use of blogging websites such as Tumblr and Blogspot users can take advantage of the sites flexible yet simple design. They can add videos, photos and written text to express themselves. Though these pages are just as public, if not more public than profiles on Facebook, they are less connected to the users name, which allows for people to become more open. But, with the gain of personal expression, you lose the sense of connection with others.

Overall, there is not now (and possibly never will be) a way to fully express all facets of our humanity in an online media. Our individuality cannot be fully expressed and the elemental roots of our personalities cannot be seen as they truly are. 

Social Media and Web 2.0

1. Advertisements, like most other things in society, go in and out of phases through their development. Though the current trend is "homegrown" approaches, that does not mean it will be this way forever. First of all, as technology improves, I feel amateur quality filming and video editing will become a thing of the past as new products allow for anyone to get a hold of professional equipment and software. In addition to this, ads reflect the current trends of society, as the aforementioned products and innovations are released, the face of technology will change and so to will the face of advertising.

2. Without a doubt, the social media site I use the most is Facebook. As soon as I sit down at my computer, I click on the bookmark. Even if I'm not using the page, it is still opened in one of my tabs. In fact, right now I have it minimized to the bottom of my screen. I really have no reason to have it open, but regardless, it is. Though Facebook is such a big trend right now, it really is nothing more. Trends fade out with little warning and are quickly replaced with the next best thing. Just a few years ago, Myspace was the forerunning in social networking, and today, I cannot think of a single person with an active account.

3. Transparency is a very important concept in the social media world. People can write anything they want on their sites and basically become whoever they want to be. This can be dangerous because you never know if the person you are communicating online with is actually who they say they are. On the other hand, it is also bad when too much information is being put onto the internet. This allows strangers to learn intimate secrets about individuals that were not meant to be shared. The information can also be sold and exploited for advertising purposes. There is less of a concern with transparency in the offline world because it is harder for information to be spread at a fast rate when it is not being put on the internet.