Aya Haneda - Blog #2

The topic that was examined last class was “Chatrooms and Forums”. At the time, I found it peculiar that we were assigned to perform these tasks online but later realized that the idea of chatrooms and online forums and how an individual communicates through online were associated with what we were doing for class. We were commenting on an aspect or question that raised answers and our other audience; our peers in our class had the likelihood of reading it. This explores the concept of “writing on an online forum” and the idea of how CMC can be interpreted differently than Ftf; similar to what was explored last week. The way my peers (receiver) in class interpreted my online answer could have differed to meaning that I had intended to build.

In this class, I explored the Mommy Forum, similar to the name of the online chatroom where like all forums target a particular author, in my case it targeted mommies. Upon understanding the forum, I didn’t think I would have much to investigate but while answering the questions did I realize how much effort and time were used to create the layout specifically for individuals of this target age. The Fantasy Football forum had a layout where in the mommies eyes may seem more complicated than the layout in the Mommy forum. The features of stars, rankings and approvals have aided mommies or future audiences in other forums to show how effective or important a comment or humorous a comment might be.

From this class, I realized how much thought were put into the idea of online chatrooms than I once believed. Every aspect and every detail proves a solid reason of why the aspect is present in the chatroom or online forum. Every star, approval, upvotes are all features that work well. I believe that these features all aid the goal of an online forum, which is to communicate with a wide variety of audiences that you may not have Ftf contact in at that point in your life. Linking this concept to our class in CAS283, the idea of the lack of social context cues and social presence theory could be the reason to the misperception of my comments. The third factor – the Channel is missing in the hyperpersonal communication by Walther. The channel holds a key role in understanding and decoding messages. Without cognitive reallocation; body positioning, facial attributes it is hard for the receiver to decode this message and thus we tend own a self-fulfilling prophecy; the feedback loop where we try to treat our partners interpretations aligned with your own perception.

Another aspect that we touched on was the idea of reliability of individuals on these forums.  We have the freedom to create our own nickname and this could be related to the idea of falsifying your own identity. What are the dangers to online forums and communications? You may know more than what you factually know and you may have a tendency to reveal more information about yourself than through Ftf. CMC has a tendency to self-disclose earlier compared to other types of communication. In the Mommy forum, this was visible when individuals stated what they were doing everyday and where these individuals should go to find “fun baby toys”. These mommies felt so comfortable with the idea of other mommies feeling their same stress and happiness that they tended to give many personal information.  Individuals should be careful in the world of CMC.

Blog #2

In class we spoke about the four factors of hyper personal communication. They are: the sender, receiver, channel and feedback loop.  I am going to discuss how those factors played into an experience I had with meeting someone online.

            My freshman year of college was a hard transition for me at first. I was homesick most of the time and wasn’t close enough with any of my new peers to vent about it. I decided that I would turn towards a complete stranger to gratify my emptiness. This stranger was someone that had added me on Twitter about two months prior to my arrival at Penn State. This boys name was Tyler. We were the same age and we both attended the same school.

            Tyler and I held extensive conversations through direct message on Twitter. He was there for me through practically everything that troubled me as a freshman because he was going through the same transition I was. The friendship never became intimate, which was what I enjoyed most about it. He was genuinely a good friend that I could talk to. It was this way for about a month that we had spoken to each other, but never met. I tried several times to meet up with him but he was always very last minute with an excuse to not show up. “I just remembered I have an exam review,” or my personal favorite, “I don’t know the campus very well, I got lost.” After multiple attempts at scheduling a date, Tyler soon confessed that he was actually a girl named Samantha. Who, oddly enough, was not lying about her age or where she attended college. She was a freshman at Penn State University. When I asked her why she had lied, her answer was baffling. Samantha told me that she was unable to express her emotions to men because they always had an ulterior motive. She felt that the best way to have an in depth conversation with someone was to pretend she was a good-looking guy that a girl could talk to. It was a strange excuse, but understandable nonetheless.

            Samantha was considered the “sender” in this case. She was selective about her self-presence and was able to abandon information she did not want anyone to know, for example, her gender. Samantha’s interpersonal performance was completely truthful in every aspect except for her sex. This is an excellent example of how easy it is to be something that you are not through hyper personal communication.

            I was the “receiver” in this incident. My ability to interpret only the information she provided made me fall prey to believe she was a man. Not only that, but my impression of her was unrealistic. What kind of genuinely good friend would ditch out on multiple attempts to meet up?

            The “channel” in this case was her immediate feedback, personal language and my feeding into it. I believed the lies she told me because I was only allotted the ability to read her thoughts. I could not hear them, or see her express them. Interacting with each other depended solely upon messaging each other back. Our friendship had nothing to do with any other channel.

            Our “feedback loop” was our intense conversations that focused on our similarities. We were both freshman going through a difficult transition. Because of that similarity we were able to bypass magnifying our differences, which eventually made our friendship even stronger. I wrote long paragraphs, and so did she. I complained about my exams being too stressful, so did she. I missed my family, and so did she. I treated her consistent with how she treated me.

            By learning about the four factors of hyperpersonal communication, I was able to better understand why this entire situation happened the way that it did. Interacting with someone over the Internet allows you minimal access to social context cues.

Blog #1

             Over the course of the last to weeks we have talked about many things. There were two topics that stood out to me’ obsolete technology and gratifications from the media.

 Obsolete technology is a very interesting topic because in today’s society something new comes out almost every day. It was interesting though to stop and think about the technology you used to use. It was funny when we all made a list in lab for all the old technological devices that we used to use back in the day. Things like Nintendo 64, pollard cameras, flip phones, and so much more. It was funny to hear someone say an object that you still use to this day. Nintendo 64 was my favorite one. My roommates and I used Nintendo almost every weekend. We like to play what is called ‘Drunk Driving’ with Mario Cart.

Technology is getting more and more advanced every single day, and with today’s economy it is tough to keep up. But what I am concerned about that is, what is it doing to today’s society. I recently watched a Ted Talk video in my sociology theory (SOC 405) by Sherryle Turkle called “Alone Together”. [ Ted Talk Video -  http://www.ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_alone_together.html ]

            In this video Sherryle Turkle talks about how technology is taking over today’s society. It is changing the way that we do everything. Sherryle mainly focused on everyday cell phone use. She had many great points. One point was that we would rather send a text then make a phone call. Sending a text is easier for use to do instead of make a phone call because it allows us to think about what we are going to say, then edit, think again, and finally send the message back. This gives us the chance to ‘save face’. Making a phone call does not give us the connivence of editing what we are going to say. Talking on the phone or in face to face allows us to really find out who that other person is. Answering instantly is a lot more nerve-racking then texting because we do not have anything to hid behind. This is going to be a huge problem for the younger generations when they have to go for an interview. Text messaging is great, but we need not take advantage of it. 

Sherryle Turkle really explained that we use technology to give us multiple gratifications. The fact that we can search the web at anytime almost anywhere is crazy. But is it causing more bad then good? This answer can go both ways. In the video, Sherryle shows pictures of CEO’s texting during meetings, and lawyers on their phones during court. This is just like students texting during class or surfing the web for anything they please when it would be most beneficial to be paying attention instead. Yes this technology has made the world a better place, but it is also causing harm to humans. In a way it has made us ruder. Sherryle goes into great detail about this in her video and if you have 20 minutes you should all watch it.

Technology is always going to change, but we need to make sure that it does not have a negative affect to how we interact in society.

Depending on Technology

Gabby Santoliquito

Section 002

Technology is something that unfortunately I believe we have always taken advantage of and will depend on from here on out. Especially for our generation currently, we have grown up with technology to play with, listen to music or watch videos on and communicate with one another. Though as time passes, we are constantly having new devices thrown our way and are always wanting more. Almost every year or two, a new iPhone is released, followed by a competing Samsung device trying to prove that it is better than Apple's newest edition. We're constantly hearing about the most recent television coming out, whether nowadays is 3-dimensional, high definition or LCD. Right now it feels as though we will never be content, and at times, the fact that enough is never enough is scary.

Our dependence on technology affects our everyday lives and we don’t even realize it. In particular, computer mediated communication (CMC) is quickly taking over our social skills. Technological determinism looks at the ways technology is the primary cause of major social transformation at all levels including how we perceive the world, interact socially and is changing the way we learn and study throughout universities and the government. After social media sites came out beginning with Myspace and eventually switching to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. we lost the need to not only have face to face conversations with each other but we also don’t even have to be who we actually say we are if we have some sort of “profile” on the internet.

The different ways that we depend on texting and social media sites is something that when we sit back and look at the issue, complain about or criticize, yet almost all of us, including myself, are guilty of doing the same things every day. We don’t have to go over to our next door neighbors’ houses, knock on the door and ask them to hangout anymore. If we want to hangout out with our friends and ask them if they’re home, we simply shoot them a quick text. Not only have we become accustomed to having conversations via text, we expect an automatic response. When we were growing up, we had to call someone’s house phone, leave a message and wait for them to call us back. There weren’t “read receipts” and we couldn’t call someone 10 times in a row, like we can text. Part of me wishes things were the way they were when we were growing up, yet it’s something I know will obviously never happen again. We depend on apps to give us directions, store our thousands of emails and even remind us of something as simple as when to eat dinner. I can’t remember the last time I used a map, nor felt that I had to.

By hiding behind small phone or computer screens, we’re losing the capability to have actual conversations with people. How can we expect to be prepared for actual interviews and the professional job atmosphere with an older generation when we won’t be able to type out our answers and wait for a response via text or email? 

Blog #1

            Between last week and this week we have talked about obsolete technology and Written Vs Digital Communication. Obsolete technology is technology we don't use or that it outdated. For example, Cd Players, cassettes, Tamguashi, Floppy disks,etc. We also talked about the gratification's or benefits we receive from internet use.

            In class we discussed how it would take technology a longer period of time to change and for us to switch our gadgets onto the next new thing. Now a days technology changed so fast we could barely keep up. In a survey done in class we saw that about 61% of the class said that we can survive without using the internet the rest didn't agree. Many said they would rather interact face to face, however you take one second to look around and the majority of the interactions done are online. I personally am guilty of that. As technology has changed we depend more on technology.

             It's safe to say that technology is taking over. When we wake up and go to sleep our phones are the first thing we pick up or put down. Through out a busy day it is easier to send someone a text, a message via Facebook or even an email because you get to continue doing what you are doing and talk to whom ever it is you need to talk to. For example, I'm busy with school work but I can find time to send a message to my family that is currently in another country indicating that I am okay or whatever message it may be. If I had to call them it would take more of my time which I would have to dedicate.

             We also see that people go online for things like diversions, personal relationships or personal identity. Having busy life's with school, work and family can be very stressful we use technology like the internet and Tv as a form of distraction. After a long day of school or work I look forward to getting home and using Facebook/Instagram to forget about the real world and have me time. We also like using the internet to maintain relationships with people who are far from us.everyone does this with family and friends even people they don't know. We like feeling connected and going on the internet is one of them. I personally like using Facebook and Instagram when I'm bored or have nothing to do because it keeps me updated with the things my friends and family are doing.  They also entertain me when I have nothing to do like when I'm waiting for my bus or even my professor at the start of class. The reality of the matter is that technology has and is dominating our lifes. We say we can live without it but can we really live with the one thing people constantly go to throughout their day without even realizing it?

technology :) :/ ;) :(

Uses and Gratification of Computer Mediated Communications

Recently in our lecture we discussed the uses and gratification of CMC (computer mediated communications). In lecture we discussed common gratifications such as, social utility, surveillance and information seeking. Social networking is by far a big factor that falls under usage of technology. People devote  a lot of their time to websites. Got example Facebook, twitter and instagram. Honestly you can find people on their electronics anywhere you go. I know, when I wake up in the morning or before I rest my head I check my instagram and sometimes my Facebook. I wouldn’t say that it runs my life but I find instagram pleasing when I’m bored. If you’re not familiar with instgram, it is a social network where people take pictures and videos of what they are doing or what they may have did through out there day. Seems a bit on the nosey side but it is actually gratifying.

When hearing the word surveillance what comes to mind? When I hear that word I think of cameras or recorders or somewhat in that order. Where you are observing something or someone. Yes, people have cameras for security reasons to be aware of what’s going on around their property when not present. As for someone in their late teens or early 20’s, technology can be used for surveillance of their significant other. This can be by Facebook, instagram, twitter or any website similar to those. Also going through phone calls, text messages and emails. Like I mentioned before these networks can be quite nosey because you’re giving people a welcome into your life.

Furthermore I believe people let technology dictate their life and turn to technology for every single thing. For example information seeking, I can recall myself always going on to Google or YouTube to figure out how to do something or for an understanding of something I’m unaware of. I Google everything, when I’m clueless about something the first thing I think of is “Google”. I never say to myself “let me read a book to figure this out”. It’s a horrible thing to say but if I don’t have reading that is class related I would not read. I have recently tried to start making myself read more outside of school but it’s a big adaptation. It’s even more challenging when technology just keeps expanding. With the expansion of technology as the years go on, we forget about the old electronics we have and look forward to the newer ones.

Last week in lab we spoke about obsolete technology, obsolete technology is technology that is no longer in use or created. Since technology keeps growing, we are forgetting about old electronics and just look forward to newer things that are being released. For example we talked about how apple just keep producing new iphones, ipads and laptops. I have an iphone 5 but when the iphone 6 comes out next week I will be receiving one as a gift. One of the questions in in lab was to identify electronics that we no longer used but still maybe had possession of are, or that we just got rid of. We also had to explain why we no longer had them or used them. The majority of the answers were that people upgraded their devices.

It was very upsetting to know that no one had the excuse of an older device breaking; the older technology seems to be very strong and long lasting than the latest technology. It is also hard to tell how long newer technology can last because every few months something new is coming out.  I find technology very upsetting because of the way people revolve their world around it and how wasteful people are of older technology when the latest features come out.

Technology has its good effects and bad effects but sooner than later nothing will be old fashioned anymore, the whole world will be based off technology. Is that what we want as a society?

Blog One

Gratification of Social Networking.
 Samantha Cruz 

This week in class we talked about gratifications of CMC and what exactly we’re doing online. we talked about four different types of gratifications, the first one is diversion which is basically escaping from your normal life or emotional release. The second one is to establish or maintain social bonds and companionship's. Thirdly, personal identity which is self-reference, or reality or exploration. Last but not least, surveillance which means seeking some sort of information. There’s a lot of people who go online for different types of reasons weather it’s for professional or personal use. Let’s talk about why some people might use social networking to escape from their personal issues.
Most Americans are constantly on the internet for various reasons and one of the most important reason is to escape from reality (their normal life). You’ll see many people online especially on Facebook venting or talking about how shitty their day was or how bad their life is. Sometimes people feel that putting their problems out their will make people feel bad for them, I mean some do but then some really don’t care. They’re looking for that comfort from strangers so maybe that’s why people vent their problems out to the world like it’s nothing serious. Another reason why people might use social networking as an escape is because some Americans might have a fancy life like making pretend their someone else when they’re not; nothing like their actual life which is the reality.
Another reason why people use the social network is to establish some sort of relationship or social bond with other people. Many young teenagers are either “Facebook” famous or “Instagram” famous which means that they have a lot of active followers following them. Usually when you have so many followers that mean that you’re a very social person and you know a lot of people so you end up establishing relationships with then even with people you don’t even know.  Then it all comes down to personal identity. Honestly, on the internet you can be whoever you want to be, you can portray a person that you’re not but more like a person you’ll want to be. So basically on the internet your social personal identity can be whatever you want because the strangers on there don’t really know you.
Last but not least, there’s surveillance which means information seeking. 98% of Americans do a lot of surfing through the internet whether it’s for personal use or business. You can find out ANYTHING in the internet if you actually know what you’re doing or what you’re looking for. The internet is public and anything you do or say is unfortunately recorded or saved. There’s a lot of reasons why people use the internet whether it’s for good things or bad. Even though it has its flaws, the main thing the internet has is an open global communication; you can talk to anyone around the world and even stay in touch with family members who live far away.  

Evolution of Technology and What it Means for the Art of Communication

         For the first few weeks of class, we have been breaking down technologies part in computer mediated 

communications. As a communications student here at Penn State, I especially found this concept rather 

interesting since I’ve only ever gave my focus to the communications half of modern communications 

instead of the technology side.

Our professor showed us data showing the amounts of time during the day the average American spends online. Personally, I figured I was the average simply using three hours per day, however when I truly thought about it I am in a much higher percentile. When considering all the time I’m online for either school or personal reasons combined with all my social media, I am defiantly a ritualized user. A ritualized user is someone that is frequently online either websites or social media and uses it as a diversion. 

An example of this would be an innocent I had over the last week of summer. My grandparents own a farm where there is little to no cellphone. Although it was only for a week and I loved my visit with family, I felt completely disconnected to the world. My nana, who owns the farm I was staying at, doesn’t own a computer or a cellphone. Seeing the difference in how my grandmother’s generation and my generation value technology is eye-opening.

Compared to the average American, college students or more vaguely my generation, spend more towards four to six hours a day online. I don’t think there is several reasons to explain this data.

For starters, we grew up with technology. As kids, we were exposed to the dial-up internet and used CD or cassette players. As we grew up, technology kept advancing. Our generation grew a dependency for technology at such a young age, it’s only expected that we kept that attachment as we grew up. 

Not only is our generation attached to technology, we are obsessed with our social presence. Our social presence is a window we created for the outside world. A peak into our personal life that we can edit, filter, and make appear as we assume fitting. This can sometimes turn into a not so honest personification.

Our social presences is molded to however we see fitting. We create an entire new person online without any second thoughts. This concept is how people can escape their real world troubles and create the life they always wanted. When we use technology or social media, we are using it to communicate and build our social presence. We avoid responsibility and reality to create the relationships we desire online.

Technology has become such an essential tool for communication. It’s turndown the walls of long distant relationships and dramatically increases the convince of our conversation efforts. We get the instant gratification we are looking for when using technology.

Our world is permanently connected online, with technology updating constantly we are always presented with better ways to utilize technology to enhance our communication skills.

Blog 1

           Recently in lecture we have been discussing the uses and gratifications of computer mediated communications and up until this time I never fully comprehended that there are assumptions about our use of communication. When I check my twitter or respond to a text it never crosses my mind that I’m actually applying concepts like social utility or content management. To me I think I’m simply going about my normal day and assuming that I’m using the Internet just as much as the average American, which is 3 hours a day.

In reality, it finally dawned on my yesterday that I am a ritualized user of social media. A ritualized user of media is a person that is frequently on or checking social media and uses it as a diversion. An example that illustrates that I am a ritualized user is just this past month my IPhone 5 stopped working and I went into panic mode because I felt completely disconnected from the outside world. I had no clue what was going on in my group message with my friends and I was missing what was being tweeted on my timeline. Looking back now I realize now how ridiculous I must have looked to my family that watched me go into a mini anxiety attack.

My generation has placed such an emphasis on social media that we have forgotten the basic principles of communication. I could have called my friends on my house phone or even better got some exercise and rode a bike to one of their houses. It is actually a relief that I learned about the different uses of media because it allows me to take a step back and realize I don’t need to be a ritualized user. The young generation already places to high of a need to be constantly checking social media that I’d rather make a positive change and dial back my use of social media.

            In lecture this past week, we also talked about different gratifications of computer-mediated communication and defined some of the most common ones. More specifically we identified one of them as social presence and social presence is maintaining relationships and connections with someone without meeting them or seeing them. Social presence is most often applied when people are using a dating site or some other form of a chat room. In my experience, social presence connected to my life when I was looking for a roommate in the summer going into my freshman year. I used Facebook to send out a message that I was looking for a roommate and eventually I began connecting with other freshman that I had never met or seen before. When I finally met the guy I was going to live with we used Facebook messaging to stay in touch throughout the summer and get to know each other. Social presence is overall a positive gratification because relationships are important to build whether they are face to face or over the Internet. However, there is always a danger factor that goes into applying social presence because people aren’t always who they say they are. Maintaining relationships online will continually be tricky in some circumstances, but a large percentage will be a positive and rewarding experience.