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Home/ Technologies and the Future of Writing Spring 2008/ Contents contributed and discussions participated by Bill Wolff

Contents contributed and discussions participated by Bill Wolff

Bill Wolff

Analysis: Philadelphia area key to winning state - CNN.com - 0 views

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    election 2008
Bill Wolff

Rowan University - 0 views

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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.
Bill Wolff

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.
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