How Would You CHANGE the World?

What if you could change the world in any way you wanted?   What would you change?  End hunger?  Put an  end to corrupt politicians like they did in the Philippines in 2001?  How about we just put an end to stupidity coming out of Arizona?  Yeah I went there.....

But how would you do it?  Well, in the case of the Philippines, they used.....dadadada...text messaging!   Yup! texting can save the world!  Texting of all things because email just doesn't cut it...The power of texting or any new media can be used for good and bad....and will be hated by those they are used against.  But this is the way now!  This instant communication is a way for us to truly make some changes happen faster and give us a louder voice than ever before. 

Me?  What would I change?  So many things....if I could, but Tolkien said that even a Hobbit can change the world.

What? What is this...in person thing you speak of?

What? Talk in person?

                I bet most people on social media knows the answer to this since thing like myspace.com (a site of the past) and Facebook (the current obsession) has become so normalized in our daily lives.  Today, our cellphones are stuck in our hands by some sort of invisible force.  In  Public Culture: The Social Internet by Zeynep near the end, he speaks of how kids are resentful of their parents attention being taken away by their phones.  While I admit that, yes, adults are on their phones a lot, if you look around…kids are never without it.  I will say that it is probably because, just like sites like facebook and twitter, it has become normalized to always have it.  At the dinner table, in class, talking to other people, the phone is always there and it’s the parents that are annoyed.

            When we think of interacting with other people in what sense do you think of?  Do you think of face to face interactions or do you think of going home and logging onto your favorite site?  Zeynep suggests that many people are intimidated by the face to face, instead of reaching out to friends online.  There will always be those shy types, and the socially needy types (The ones who feel the utter compulsion to overshare) and the drama lovers.....all sorts.

 

Perhaps we as a society, need to find a happy middle.  A way to find a new sort of balance in our lives.

The Internet Must Go!

THE INTERNET MUST GO!!!

That is a pretty bold statement.  My first thought was...where?  Where must the internet go?  Of course someone out there has the answer.  The answer is:  To those you pay the most.   Sounds like the answer of the Big Internet providers, which of course it was.
 

Basically, if you watch the Mocumentary:   http://www.theinternetmustgo.com , they say that the large companies want to change the way the internet is set up.  Instead of you being able to go about and go from site to site as you please, the companies want you to pay to visit sites they have in their packages.  Not only do you have to pay to go to these sites, you have to pay to get to them faster. 

Imagine being in the T.A.R.D.I.S and having all of space and time available for you to go and explore and be free.   Now suddenly the Cybermen,  Daleks and Weeping Angels surround you and say that you can't go and be free.  You have to pay them to let you now go where you wanted.   Mind you, you are not the Doctor, you do not have his brains or sonic....although you might have the Fez.

 I think this says something about America.    Every single time we have something where we go, 'Hey, this is good,' someone who usually someone with the letters 'CEO' attached to their name says, 'No, this is horrible, I'm not making money for this....we must stop them!!'  Like they are someone's arch villain or something. 

It really doesn't sound right.  It's along the lines of the Nestle CEO who wanted to privatize water.

The Lost Art of Writing

Everyone has heard of Facebook and Twitter.  They are worlds into themselves.  They have their own purpose…if you can call some of their activity that and their own.  But some people just can’t tell them apart. I know my mother can’t. My parents haven’t exactly grasped the use of the internet.  I think she believes that’s it’s  some version of spam.

What has happened to the use of language?  Has the internet really killed it?   One ‘lol’ too many has gone about out in cyberspace.  Who wants to go and read blogs full of acronyms and hashtag?  I find hashtags particularly annoying.  One of the hardest things for a writer is to remember the audience that they are writing for.  Many people, not just writers want to read blogs and posts that are written intelligently, blogs where they don’t have to call their children or grandchildren to come translate.  Good writing, in any genre, and any media form is something that never goes out of style, as long as it’s not Fifty Shades of Grey.  That’s not good writing….

Nothing I have said here seems to be new.  It’s been seen everywhere, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t need to be repeated every so often.

 

What's so 'New' about writing new media

It's an interesting question.  At one point or  another in the past there was always some 'new' media.  Like the new fangled magazine or newspaper that was going to destroy family life because dad wants to check the headlines at breakfast.

Now we have media forms on the internet like:  Myspace (Back in the internet day), Twitter (which I think has put us in ## hell) and Facebook, and blogs of all kinds and all sorts of electronic media.  The only thing that has changed might be the new formatting rules you'll have to learn.

My concern is that sadly after reading Is Google Making Us Stupid - Nicholas Carr - The Atlantic, I have sadly noticed that I can no longer sit and read like I use to.  I find this has a great impact on my school work.  As a cultural studies major we often have to read long boring essays and theories, and I cant sit there and read 25-30 pages in a sitting anymore.  I can't do that if it's the newest release of my favorite authors books.  If it takes more than 30 seconds to load I'm no longer interested. I miss reading a real book, but I can't blame it purely on the internet....being allowed to stream on my television has also helped in this corruption.  Nobody really has the attention span of a gnat nowadays. 

I know this is pretty simple and to the point but that doesn't make it less true does it?