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Bill Wolff

The Benefits of Facebook "Friends:" Social Capital and College Students' Use of Online ... - 0 views

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    This study examines the relationship between use of Facebook, a popular online social network site, and the formation and maintenance of social capital. In addition to assessing bonding and bridging social capital, we explore a dimension of social capital that assesses one's ability to stay connected with members of a previously inhabited community, which we call maintained social capital. Regression analyses conducted on results from a survey of undergraduate students (N = 286) suggest a strong association between use of Facebook and the three types of social capital, with the strongest relationship being to bridging social capital. In addition, Facebook usage was found to interact with measures of psychological well-being, suggesting that it might provide greater benefits for users experiencing low self-esteem and low life satisfaction.
Danielle Rabello

Wired 14.12: YouTube vs. Boob Tube - 0 views

  • YouTube will survive
    • dracmere
       
      I believe that one day Youtube might take over the TV. I personally have heard my mom saying she wishes she could just watch Youtube on TV. This would also allow companies to put commercials inbetween videos.
  • Wait. You haven't seen it? Ohhhhmygosh! I'll email you the link."
    • goulds28 gould
       
      I have experienced this exact scenario, and felt pressured to spend more time browsing videos on youtube rather than flipping through channels on television. It is simply more entertaining. And if you are not up to date on the latest videos you are often lost in conversation with peers.
    • vanamb16
       
      youtube is great b/c it does have the short clips which you can send to people....they can watch it then or save the link for another time....it is simply more convenient
    • anonymous
       
      This was how I learned about YouTube. The video was "The Landlord" with Will Ferrell.
    • jc ice
       
      I have to admit, I am right there with everyone watching these and if someone sends me a link, I will watch and pass it on everytime. But what are we saying about quality and art with all of this? Has the world so changed that we can only find ourselves within the little eye on the top of our computers?
  • 1 YouTube will survive
    • patunya
       
      I definetly agree with the fact that You Tube will survive, so many people watch You Tube, it's unbelievable. My boyfriend for one gets on my computer and watches a few You Tube videos everytime he comes over. I've even seen my brother and friends put You Tube videos on their My Space and another is I've put You Tube on my blog site.
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • YouTube is basically going under the assumption that there's this community in place to blindly create content on YouTube's behalf without much in the way of compensation."
    • mccrar25
       
      This is what worries me about all of this "free say" and "free expression" online. These websites are making it very easy for others to copy or steal ideas, sometimes without the true creator's knowledge. Currently, there really aren't any copyright laws about this, because no one really knows what to do about these problems.
  • What Uncle Miltie and the Super Bowl and Survivor have always offered is something to talk about at the water cooler, at the nail salon, or on IM.
    • mccrar25
       
      This is quite true. We love to talk about what's going on in Hollywood, on reality shows, and the Internet. It gives us something to talk about, something to relate to with each other. With the Internet, we are able to actually show others what we are talking about.
  • For instance, if you are, say, Meow Mix, and you bought ads adjacent to cat-related videos, how surprised and disappointed you might be to learn you have sponsored a YouTube video uploaded by someone named mrwheatley and titled "exploding cat." Or the one from qu1rk89 titled "exploding cat." Or this one: "ma907h eats dead cat," which shows a guy … oh, never mind.
    • mccrar25
       
      This is interesting to think about. These "themed" and tagged sites do offer problems for advertising companies. Because thousands of new videos are being posted on You Tube, it is often hard to control and monitor what is posted.
  • Will advertisers risk associating themselves with violence, pornography, hate speech, or God knows what lurks out there one click away?
    • butler09
       
      True. Entertainment on the web is vastly different than what is found on television, especially when specific channels can boast specific content. Advertisers might not be aware of what it is they are working with when using YouTube. They like to syncronize ads with content of similarity; if you don't know the content, you don't know if the ad is appropriate for the respective viewer.
  • #2 Will advertisers risk associating themselves with violence, pornography, hate speech, or God knows what lurks out there one click away?
    • richar19
       
      I do not think that if i was an advertiser i would associate myself with these things. They are uselly things that turn people away.
    • haines64
       
      As much I would hope that advertisers would not associate with these types of things, I am not so sure they would shy away. Look at what airs now on reality TV shows. Eventually, if the general public doesn't act in an uproar over something, I think the advertisers will latch on.
    • Jessica Bloom
       
      I know there is a lot of risk when advertisers associate themselves with violence, porn, etc... but the truth is, is that is what sells and gets the most attention. People don't wanna hear boring, everyday issues. They want drama, and lots of it. So, if that means incorporating violence, hate, or God, then I bet they will.
  • that so many people are already on YouTube
    • richar19
       
      This is true people will stick with what they know and are comfotable with.
  • Everyone else wants to see what everyone else is seeing and enjoying."
    • richar19
       
      This is very true when something gets really popular everone wants to see it even if they do not injoy it.
    • haines64
       
      While this is true, I also think a lot of people want others to see them. The notion of people wanting to have their 15 minutes of fame should probably not be overlooked when talking about why YouTube is here to stay.
    • jc ice
       
      I think this is really true. But I also think that in some ways it is beginning to delute certain genres. Everyone thinks they can make a movie now and the fact that you can make a digital movie doesn't mean it was worth making. Director's like Scorsese spend years honing their crafts and this instantaneous everyone is a star atttitude dimishes artists like this. And i must admit, i will watch the stuff on Youtube for hours at a time, but i never see these clips as anywhere near the quality of a seasoned film maker.
  • Advertisers and brands are enormously risk averse,
    • Jen Fitzgerald
       
      These videos could produce very specialized advertising. Those that would pose these types of videos can be targeted by morally ambigious advertisers for very specific products or services. That is scary.
    • Jessica Bloom
       
      I know there is a lot of risk when advertisers associate themselves with violence, porn, etc... but the truth is, is that is what sells and gets the most attention. People don't wanna hear boring, everyday issues. They want drama, and lots of it. So, if that means incorporating violence, hate, or God, then I bet they will.
  • Supan insists that YouTubers have done an excellent job of policing their own space
    • haines64
       
      Is this really true though? A few paragraphs before, the article talks about the futile attempts to remove copyrighted material from YouTube. If the users are okay with posting videos that result in copyright infringement, are we really to be believe that there is not a good number of people trying (and probably succeeding, at least on some level) to post violent, pornographic, obscene, etc videos on the site. If I were an advertiser, I'd be very hesitant to post my product where the users are "policing their own space".
  • Will advertisers risk associating themselves with violence, pornography, hate speech, or God knows what lurks out there one click away?
  • Will advertisers risk associating themselves with violence, pornography, hate speech, or God knows what lurks out there one click away? " Advertisers and brands are enormously risk averse, "
    • mccrar25
       
      I'm not sure what advertisers will do about this. However, I do believe that someone will be able to find a way to reasolve this issue. There is no way that a cat food company would let their product be associated with animal cruelty.
  • And with a $177 billion total domestic ad budget at stake, nobody wants to be monkeying around.
    • Jessica Bloom
       
      Everything has to be about money. No wonder it will take them so long to figure something out, even if it is really important, because one mess up could cost them billions. I hate that our world revolves around money!!
  • And prosper, despite everything, for one overriding reason: 100 million streams a day.
    • Danielle Rabello
       
      Youtube isn't going anywhere, it really has only JUST begun. It will advnce just as technology keeps advancing and could someday replace television altogether. Or maybe something better than Youtube could come along?
  • "What it has going for it is its sheer size. In a fragmented world, there is a need for community and a need for massness."
    • Melissa Foster
       
      Again, I feel that this comes back to the concept of community. True, we sit at computers by ourselves, and it is a lonely or individual act. However, the need to feel a part of something while we're engaging in this personal act shows how much people enjoy being a part of something.
  • "There's still a desire to have a shared cultural context. We hunger for things we can discuss."
    • Danielle Rabello
       
      Which is why Youtube is so convenient; we DO long to discuss things and engage. Youtube is just another way to do that and it makes discussion it easier.
  • waiting for a technological solution
    • anonymous
       
      Which seems like a logical and smart action.
  • that ask members to rate each video against various quality and suitability criteria.
    • Gail Ramsey
       
      I like it when there are member ratings on items. I do not see any harm in it. It would help other viewers and it would help the advertisers. It would be the viewer's choice to participate.
  • but also to make much of it available to amateur video makers in exchange for a split of ad revenue.
    • Gail Ramsey
       
      This sounds like an interesting compromise. It still allows for creativity and no legal toes are stepped on. The only thing I would worry about is the details on the "split of ad revenue".
  • What Uncle Miltie and the Super Bowl and Survivor have always offered is something to talk about at the water cooler, at the nail salon, or on IM.
    • anita sipala
       
      It is what all mass media banks on. Our human nature and our desire to laugh at someone or to question or speculate about something, like who is going to be the next on "Survivor" to win a million dollars.
    • jc ice
       
      I think until customrs object, advertisers will associate themselves with whatever is going to sales. We have seen over and over in other media such as TV and radio that an advertiser will pull something when there is a public outcry. Where is there barometer before that? I think it''s in their pockets and their bank accounts.
    • Bianca Pieloch
       
      Humans love ANYTHING that gives us something to talk about. Youtube sparks conversations. What is cool about it is if someone hasn't seen a certain video, it is so easy to look up. The viewer can go back and view it whenever.
haines64

International Reading Association - 0 views

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    The IRA is a professional organization for teachers. Members have access to numerous sources about reading and education, including peer-reviewed journals and publications, conferences, research, and networking. One of the best things about IRA is that you can select the publications of your membership based on the age level you teach (there are publications geared specifically to young learners, elementary, and secondary).
anonymous

Last.fm - The Social Music Revolution - 0 views

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    This website is made for all audio listeners around the world. This does require you to become a member.
Jennifer Dougherty

NEA: National Education Association - 0 views

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    National Education Association website. Teacher's union. The latest in education news and laws
Danielle Rabello

Wired 14.12: The Secret World of Lonelygirl - 0 views

  • $500 a week to play Bree full time
    • dracmere
       
      I wish I got paid that much. Thats pretty cool for her to get paid to be on Youtube. Just more evidence that Youtube is taking over.
    • Gail Ramsey
       
      I wonder if that was tax-free money. I don't think $500 would be enough for me to run around hiding from everyone. This girl seems to be so trusting and naive.
  • But the fans – raised on the unreality of reality TV and with the role-playing ethos of the Web – seemed to take the revelation in stride.
    • dracmere
       
      Seems like viewers treated like a regular show. I know if I was a viewer I wouldn't of cared. If something entertains you then just because it isn't real doesn't mean it will stop entertaining you.
    • jc ice
       
      True the whole point of entertainment is to captivate you, but it still has to be something tht you can identify with and that speaks to you. She obviously spoke to a lot of people so the fact of whether it was real or not didn't matter in the message.
  • several people noted that everything in Bree's room seemed to come from Target
    • sunflower123
       
      That is amazing that people really looked that deeply into the veidos.
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  • It hadn't taken them long to figure out, by trial and error, what worked in this new genre. Viewers wanted family and relationship drama mixed with a rich, mysterious backstory that could be explored and debated.
    • sunflower123
       
      The more I read the more interesting it sound, it is to bad they could not have just admitted from the beginning that they are just trying to get a web tv type show. People would still watch if it was interesting enough.
    • kimmerzx0 C
       
      People want something they can relate to and many teenagers have family problems.
    • jc ice
       
      By not telling the audience whether this character was real or not, everyone automatically assumed that she was real. Maybe it was just realistic casting. This is like an online mockumentary but instead of being viewed by a small group of followers gained an enormous following almost instaneously.
  • In return, she had to stay home as much as possible and wear sunglasses and a hat when she went out. For Rose, it was a dream come true – she was a working actress. She just couldn't tell anyone.
    • sunflower123
       
      Yes making 500 dollars a week is okay for a 27 year old, but I would personally hate the fact that I'd have to keep my identity hidden all the time, and couldn't tell anyone what was really going on, that has to get stressful.
    • jc ice
       
      This is so old hollywood. During the filming of Gone With The Wind, the studio forced Vivien Leigh to live separate from her husband to continue the illusion of her being a single eligible southern belle. Also, many of the studios knew then and still use the practice now of setting up known gay actors with romances to throw the public off. I think the studios care more about this than the public does now, but the practice still goes on to this day.
  • The YouTube community was sucked into the plot and speculated endlessly about Bree's faith. Some thought she was Mormon; others insisted she was a Satanist. Another group tried to figure out where she lived: The leading guess was somewhere in the Midwest. Viewers spent hours Googling the possibilities and posting their results on YouTube.
    • maureen
       
      Brillant! Getting the community sucked into the plot is big, but getting the community to start speculating about the plot is even bigger. When people start speculating, a dialogue occurs and from that dialogue the speculation spreads like a virus, which in turn promotes more interest in Bree and more viewers to follow the story.
  • Fair enough," the fan wrote back, and then went on to tell Bree the latest news in his life. To many, it didn't seem to matter whether she was real or not. A number of posts appeared on YouTube denouncing the series, but many more responded with variations of this simple statement: If you don't like it, don't watch.
    • maureen
       
      Who cares whether she was real or not. The purpose of watching the videos is for entertainment and to get in on the new wave of storytelling.
    • vanamb16
       
      it is interesting that people would get to the point that they would correspond with her. I can understand why if they thought she was real, but after that, I'd think to continue would be strange
    • jc ice
       
      I think when people find a connection with someone, real or imagined, it gets in touch with something inside of them that reaches out. This maybe is the whole point of cyberspace, to reach outside of who we are and try to connect on a difference level
  • ithin 48 hours, the video had half a million views.
  • That couldn't have happened on television. A conventional TV episode airs once at a certain time; even if it's great, it can only serve to attract viewers to future episodes. On YouTube, a video can be streamed at any time.
    • hughes27
       
      This is a good point. I never thought about how youtube videos are basically in the hands of its viewers
    • coffma46
       
      Yes many of the YouTube videos show what work and what doesnt work according to how good the video is.
  • The good ones are watched again and again, sending a clear message about what works and what doesn't. When "My Parents Suck …" broke 500,000 views, Beckett and Flinders realized this wasn't just an experiment or a setup for a film.
    • Melissa Foster
       
      It's amazing how addicting things like this are. Even though people have already viewed the "episode," they return to it. Maybe they're hoping to find out more about her? Perhaps it became part of the investigation into who she is. To me, it's a little reminiscent of releasing DVD versions of television shows.
  • Meanwhile, the online celebrity started spilling over into the real world. Rose was browsing for a book in Santa Monica after "My Parents Suck …" was posted and noticed two girls watching her closely. That night, Amanda received an email from a fan: "Hi Bree. My friend and I thought we saw you at the Barnes & Noble in Santa Monica, but it couldn't be you, right?"
    • Elizabeth Somer
       
      This attention as I mentioned before can be both positive and negative. It raises concerns
  • If you want to talk to Jessica Rose, you can go to her MySpace page. If you want to keep talking to Bree, use this email."
    • Elizabeth Somer
       
      The character and the actress need to separate. It's dangerous when the two become fused.
  • The editing was too sophisticated and the music too well integrated,
    • kimmerzx0 C
       
      This was the only aspect that threw me off from thinking it was real.
  • IN EARLY SEPTEMBER, MATTHEW FOREMSKI, the 18-year-old son of a Silicon Valley tech reporter, dug up an old version of Rose's MySpace page. She'd deleted it when she became Bree, but Google cached a copy, and Foremski posted the link to his father's blog. Within 48 hours, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and a slew of TV stations ran the story. The jig was up.
    • haines64
       
      This just goes to show how the idea of privacy has changed in a technology-oriented society. As Vaidhyanathan talks about in his article, we can always be tracked somehow given the technologies we use daily.
    • jc ice
       
      This idea of always being tracked just makes me nervous. I am such a private person when it comes to certain things. I will tell you 90% of my life story, but that last 10% is mine. I think about that about that alot in relation to all of the sites that I belong to and subscribe too. They probably have more information on me than my own mother knows and there really is no way to exist without it.
    • vanamb16
       
      people like the idea that they are watching reality, hence the fascination with dating shows and reality tv. they feel closer to the characters and the experience. we feel a need for shared experiences.
  • hadn't taken them long to figure out, by trial and error, what worked in this new genre. Viewers wanted family and relationship drama mixed with a rich, mysterious backstory that could be explored and debated. > The YouTube community was sucked into the plot and speculated endlessly about > Bree's faith. Some thought she was Mormon; others insisted she was a Satanist. > Another group tried to figure out where she lived: The leading guess was > somewhere in the Midwest. Viewers spent hours Googling the possibilities and > posting their results on YouTube. >
    • vanamb16
       
      people like the idea that they are experiencing reality. we liked the shared experiences with others...it makes us feel more human to witness them occurring in someone else's life.
  • explored
  • (One viewer annotated each item with its SKU number.) Could it be, one fan wondered, that the whole thing was an elaborate ad
    • vanamb16
       
      it is amazing that people get so involved and look so far into this. when i go on youtube, i am looking up a music video, i don't latch onto a series.....are there more like this on youtube?
    • zimmer67
       
      Who actually has the time to watch something that intently and notice the SKU number on background items in a video? that borders on obsession
    • haines64
       
      Reading up until this point, I kept thinking how creepy the creators were. Now I'm thinking they played into their target audience very well. They were able to create online videos that attracted such a faithful audience (possibly crazy with too much time on their hands as well, but nonetheless) willing to go over every detail.
    • jc ice
       
      Just goes to show you what you can accomplish with a well dressed set. Iam still so fascinated by the public's love for stuff like this. I guess it brings out the voyeurism in all of us in what many consider a safe outlet.
  • lucrative career as a surgeon before he started making little videos and posting them online.
    • vanamb16
       
      it seems crazy that he would give up a career, any career let alone being a surgeon, to start an unpaid youtube series. what was in it for him?
  • Miles, it's time you quit being a doctor," he said. "We just passed 200,000 views."
    • mccrar25
       
      Although, I am not really for what these men did, I do give them credit. They took a risk, and it proved to be revolutionary for both the Internet and You Tube. It changed the way that many people view, You Tube. They created a story which captured the lives of many audience members. This must have been a great feeling when they realized that their story was changing the world.
    • jc ice
       
      This is so war of the worlds. People assuming that what they are seeing and hearing is real because they are seeing is depicted as real. If this was on ast teeno'clock on a Thursday night we would not assume the same thing.
  • When viewers suggested that he had a crush on Bree, they changed the story line to include a romance.
    • mccrar25
       
      This is interesting, because the Internet does allow the audience to interact with the content presented. In the Lonelygirl's story, viewers were able to present all types of ideas and feelings. This, in turn, allowed them to feel connected emotionally, much more than if they watched a reality television show. This is what they believed to be a "real" person who cared about their imput and feedback.
  • #4 The YouTube community was sucked into the plot and speculated endlessly about Bree's faith. Some thought she was Mormon; others insisted she was a Satanist. Another group tried to figure out where she lived: The leading guess was somewhere in the Midwest. Viewers spent hours Googling the possibilities and posting their results on YouTube.
    • richar19
       
      This is a great way to keep people comming back alway make them wonder what is going to happen next.
  • "I don't want you to ever set foot in another TGI Fridays," he said, explaining that he'd pay her #14 $500 a week to play Bree full time . #13 In return, she had to stay home as much as possible and wear sunglasses and a hat when she went out. For Rose, it was a dream come true – she was a working actress. She just couldn't tell anyone.
    • richar19
       
      This is something that I would have a problem with I could not stay home that much. Plus i would want to tell everyone.
    • alieraisu1
       
      Now this is ridiculous. Did she not see she is losing her life to this? Come on, she's a young adult and if she plays this character on a Youtube video she has to stay home in the dark and not have a life? This is totally ridiculous! Where are her parents in all of this? Her friends? What's going on here?
  • so his father, a marketing executive at an IT company, agreed to invest in the newly formed Lonelygirl15 production company. Beckett immediately called Rose
    • richar19
       
      It is a good thing that his father gave him the money because if not she would have started to work at Fridays and they could not have used her in the series.
  • but Google cached a copy
    • richar19
       
      This shows that you can never really escape from things there is always a trail.
  • #17 "I don't want you to ever set foot in another TGI Fridays," he said, explaining that he'd pay her #16 $500 a week to play Bree full time . #15 In return, she had to stay home as much as possible and wear sunglasses and a hat when she went out. For Rose, it was a dream come true – she was a working actress. She just couldn't tell anyone.
    • butler09
       
      That's about the most unusual proposition available for an actress, isn't it? It's kind of hard to believe she even agreed to it at first, especially since she wasn't even paid! And even once she was, she couldn't tell? Her career changed her lifestyle, though not in the way it usually tends to for celebrities.
  • It was a medium in its own right.
    • Danielle Rabello
       
      Again, demonstrating how convenient Youtube it. As Americans, we want instant gratification.
  • It hadn't taken them long to figure out, by trial and error, what worked in this new genre. Viewers wanted family and relationship drama mixed with a rich, mysterious backstory that could be explored and debated.
    • anita sipala
       
      Sure it worked, it plays out like a soap opera. Look how many years Erica Kane from "All My Children" survived on TV. People love the suspense and drama that unfolds in the world of others
  • IN EARLY SEPTEMBER, MATTHEW FOREMSKI, the 18-year-old son of a Silicon Valley tech reporter, dug up an old version of Rose's MySpace page. She'd deleted it when she became Bree, but Google cached a copy , and Foremski posted the link to his father's blog. Within 48 hours, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and a slew of TV stations ran the story. The jig was up.
    • anita sipala
       
      This should make the Internet users more cognicient that nothing is ever ireally private. You need to be aware, if it is out there, anyone can gain acess to your infomation.
Laura DePamphilis

4.01: Who Am We? - 0 views

  • What has she found? That the Internet links millions of people in new spaces that are changing the way we think and the way we form our communities. That we are moving from "a modernist culture of calculation toward a postmodernist culture of simulation." That life on the screen permits us to "project ourselves into our own dramas, dramas in which we are producer, director, and star.... Computer screens are the new location for our fantasies, both erotic and intellectual. We are using life on computer screens to become comfortable with new ways of thinking about evolution, relationships, sexuality, politics, and identity." Turkle's own metaphor of windows serves well to introduce the following samplings from her new book. Those boxed-off areas on the screen, Turkle writes, allow us to cycle through cyberspace and real life, over and over. Windows allow us to be in several contexts at the same time - in a MUD, in a word-processing program, in a chat room, in e-mail. "Windows have become a powerful metaphor for thinking about the self as a multiple, distributed system," Turkle writes. "The self is no longer simply playing different roles in different settings at different times. The life practice of windows is that of a decentered self that exists in many worlds, that plays many roles at the same time." Now real life itself may be, as one of Turkle's subjects says, "just one more window."
    • Bill Wolff
       
      I really like how Turkle is setting up her discussion here. The windows metaphor is a wonderful move into the discussion of how different spaces encourage/result in multiple representations of identity. Though published in 1996, we can see this today in Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn spaces, as well as how and where we blog.
  • ender-swapping on MUDs is not a small part of the game action. By some estimates, Habitat, a Japanese MUD, has 1.5 million users. Habitat is a MUD operated for profit. Among the registered members of Habitat, there is a ratio of four real-life men to each real-life woman. But inside the MUD the ratio is only three male characters to one female character. In other words, a significant number of players, many tens of thousands of them, are virtually cross-dressing.
    • dracmere
       
      People do this on current online games such as Everquest and World of Warcraft
  • G ender >
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  • In the games in the Sim series (SimCity, SimLife, SimAnt, SimHealth), you try to build a community, an ecosystem, or a public policy. The goal is to make a successful whole from complex, interrelated parts. Tim is 13, and among his friends, the Sim games are the subject of long conversations about what he calls Sim secrets. "Every kid knows," he confides, "that hitting Shift-F1 will get you a couple of thousand dollars in SimCity." But Tim knows that the Sim secrets have their limits. They are little tricks, but they are not what the game is about. The game is about making choices and getting feedback. Tim talks easily about the trade-offs in SimCity - between zoning restrictions and economic development, pollution controls and housing starts.
    • sunflower123
       
      Not only are these games fun and help you to escape from your daily stressful activities of life to a fun world where you can create whatever you feel makes you happy for that day. But it also teachs you about being apart of your community, how to spend money and being apart of the ecosystem, setting goals for yourself and making smart choices while recieving positive feedback. And what can be better then learning while having fun doing it?
  • Relationships during adolescence are usually bounded by a mutual understanding that they involve limited commitment. Virtual space is well suited to such relationships; its natural limitations keep things within bounds. As in Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, which takes place in the isolation of a sanatorium, relationships become intense very quickly because the participants feel isolated in a remote and unfamiliar world with its own rules. MUDs, like other electronic meeting places, can breed a kind of easy intimacy. In a first phase, MUD players feel the excitement of a rapidly deepening relationship and the sense that time itself is speeding up. "The MUD quickens things. It quickens things so much," says one player. "You know, you don't think about it when you're doing it, but you meet somebody on the MUD, and within a week you feel like you've been friends forever."
    • coffma46
       
      This is true that during adolescence, relationships do come rapidly without notice. The virtual space for adolescence does become intense and scary at times that the person may not realize what has been going on.
    • Aaron D
       
      I scary to think how on point this really is. I myself figure to be a less technology influenced person. But when I sit back I am sharper, I rely, and inovate self-efficiantcy due to these "windows."
  • People accept the idea that certain machines have a claim to intelligence and thus to their respectful attention. They are ready to engage with computers in a variety of domains. Yet when people consider what if anything might ultimately differentiate computers from humans, they dwell long and lovingly on those aspects of people that are tied to the sensuality and physical embodiment of life. It is as if they are seeking to underscore that although today's machines may be psychological in the cognitive sense, they are not psychological in a way that comprises our relationships with our bodies and with other people. Some computers might be considered intelligent and might even become conscious, but they are not born of mothers, raised in families, they do not know the pain of loss, or live with the certainty that they will die.
    • anonymous
       
      This comment is extremely interesting because I always thought that machines like computers are psychological in the sense that they comprises our relationships. Computers are the very things that can destroy and built relationship based on the idea that computers allow us to be intrapersonal and interpersonal
  • What is virtual gender-swapping all about? Some of those who do it claim that it is not particularly significant. "When I play a woman I don't really take it too seriously," said 20-year-old Andrei. "I do it to improve the ratio of women to men. It's just a game." On one level, virtual gender-swapping is easier than doing it in real life. For a man to present himself as female in a chat room, on an IRC channel, or in a MUD, only requires writing a description. For a man to play a woman on the streets of an American city, he would have to shave various parts of his body; wear makeup, perhaps a wig, a dress, and high heels; perhaps change his voice, walk, and mannerisms. He would have some anxiety about passing, and there might be even more anxiety about not passing, which would pose a risk of violence and possibly arrest. So more men are willing to give virtual cross-dressing a try. But once they are online as female, they soon find that maintaining this fiction is difficult. To pass as a woman for any length of time requires understanding how gender inflects speech, manner, the interpretation of experience. Women attempting to pass as men face the same kind of challenge.
    • Kelly Burns
       
      I think it is very bizarre that people actually do gender-swapping and play a different role. It is crazy that people can go home and act like they are a different gender.
  • A 21-year-old college senior defends his violent characters as "something in me; but quite frankly I'd rather rape on MUDs where no harm is done." A 26-year-old clerical worker says, "I'm not one thing, I'm many things. Each part gets to be more fully expressed in MUDs than in the real world. So even though I play more than one self on MUDs, I feel more like 'myself' when I'm MUDding." In real life, this woman sees her world as too narrow to allow her to manifest certain aspects of the person she feels herself to be. Creating screen personae is thus an opportunity for self-expression, leading to her feeling more like her true self when decked out in an array of virtual masks.
    • Laura DePamphilis
       
      I think this is really spooky and weird that people try to be different people and act crazy than what they would normally do in real life. That comment on "rather raping on MUDS" is just horrible to me. Even though he says "there is no harm done" it is still gross to me that people think like that. Just because it is on the computer and not the real world, its wrong to me. I can see how people like to act like differnt people towards MUDS, and can allow their "self" to be expressed, but I think some people get way too wrapped up in this sort of virtual world.
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