The 20th blog entry!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/business/media/17privacy.html?_r=1&ref=technology

For my last blog entry for this class I found an article about new legal problems arising from companies tracking people on the internet and seeing how they should advertise to them.  The Internet policy task force is trying to make what companies can and can not do on the Internet more clear so people know what is being traced when they are on the Internet.

It is very weird to think about always being tracked on the Internet.  Even if it is just putting the information through a computer system to see how many people have the same interests as me.  At first thought I can not imagine what they would do with my information.  Would they just see some young adult who likes crappy punk rock who will not buy anything now, so we will just disregard his information until he gets a real job and truly starts consuming?  Then once my mind starts working on what kind of advantage a company gets with this information is kind of scary.  Who cares if they know you as an anonymous  person who goes on facebook twelve times a day.  The dangerous part is that if these companies are using this technology well, they can get a great deal of information about the general public and could be able to know how to market to everyone better than everyone else.  This would not be because they had a superior product, it would be because they could afford to obtain the information.  Knowledge still is power and if one company makes it so only they know this Internet information no one else would be able to compete.  Another unsettling part about this is that the general population does not completely understand if not know about this privacy issue at all.  When it seems that something is being hidden there is a good chance it probably is and for sure it's going to be something that they know in some respect is wrong.

Final Blog Entry 3

Just finished my final paper and put it in the sakai drop box so now I thought I would share some final thoughts I had about my final paper and the topic I wrote about.  In my paper I take a pretty hard line about how technology has taken over the life at college campuses.  Though I do agree that a big part of life on college campuses whether it being academic or social is controlled very much by technology I do not think it is to the extent I made it out to seem.  The trouble is that human progress moves a lot slower than technological advancement making it less obvious then something physical like a new cell phone.

I do strongly believe that technology is accepted very blindly, which is not a good thing.  From my experience I have found that not buying new technologies right when they come out is very beneficial.  When a new technology is introduced their is always kinks in the setup.  The next invention that comes out using the new technology will obviously be an improvement using the parts of the technology that actually work and cutting out the junk that is not needed.  When people allow themselves to purchase all the latest advancements, they are allowing themselves to be exploited by a company, giving up their money and also potentially making their life harder and more stressful trying to incorporate new technologies into their life. If Universities with all their expendable income and influence on such a large population fall victim to this exploitation by companies huge problems will arise.

The main concern with technology in Universities is whether the students are learning how to think and solve new problems in creative ways (which is the main reason of higher education) or if they are now just being taught how to use these new technologies.  It may actually be impossible to stop this because in order to function in this modern world it seems like knowing how to use the technology is one of the most important things.

Final Blog Entry 2

In my final paper I bring up a personal experience involving how technology was pretty much being forced into my social life here at Rutgers.  I had to keep it brief in the final because it was only an example and I did not want to get off topic, but for one of my final blog entries I thought  I could expand on it and tell the whole story.

When I moved into the dormitories on Busch campus I just could not seem to relate to any of the other kids on my floor or in my building.  I figured it would just take a longer time for them to get to know me and then everything would just kind of work out.  While the semester went on this was not the case.  Everyone seemed to be getting closer with each other and I still could not seem to get to know anyone in the dorm.  Occasionally I would over hear kids talk about some dormitory relationship building meeting that happened where there was free food, and I would ask them "how do you know about all these events."  Every response I got back would go along with a confused look and always the same response of "didn't you get the message that the RA sent out?"

By this point in my college career of not being able infiltrate the friend circle of my dorm,  I was going with the mentality of "screw the kids living in my dorm I'm going to make my own friends."  After about half a semester went by I was spending most of my time on College Ave away from my home on Busch.  I would only come back the dorm when I wanted sleep, and this seemed to be the relationship I was going to keep with the dorm and the other students who occupied it.  Then one night when I got back to my dorm, there was a floor meeting happening that once again I had know idea about.  Right when I walked in the meeting just came to a halt, you could even hear the record scratch that happens in movies when something awkward happens.

The RA, who I felt like I had not seen since move in day, did not look happy with me.  He called me over and asked why I had not been coming to these MANDATORY meetings.  To say the least that question pissed me off a bit.  I explained how I would come if I had any idea they were happening, and once I again I got the response of "didn't you get the message?"  Once again I was puzzled and then he told me that the only messages he sends out are through facebook, which I did not have.  He then went on to explain how if I got a facebook I would stay better connected with the world.  This is when I got super annoyed, "How does this make any sense?  How does staying at home and staring at facebook connect you more with the world than actually going out and meeting people in the world!"  In the end I got a facebook, never went to another dorm meeting on principle, and I remained equally connected to the world as I was before but now I had facebook as the middleman.

The Facebook Effect pgs 214-333

The last part of The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick goes through how facebook is now being run much more like a legitimate business when compared to how it was originally run.  This part of the book goes in detail about how facebook is taking new approaches to how they run their business in order to keep it as popular as it is.  The main way they are doing this is by willing to push the envelope on what people think is possible for them, and making sure they consider consumer satisfaction over instant monetary gain.

Kirkpatrick shows how companies are not untouched from the negative effects of the fast advancements of technology.  The difference with facebook is that they work to not let technology grow without being checked which is was Technopoly tells us as a society we need to do.  Facebook does this by finding new ways to do advertising so the website is not destroyed by flashy ads like most other websites.  The only way this was made possible was due to the fact that facebook does not take the first offers they get when it comes to advertising and makes sure customer satisfaction comes before initial monetary advancement.  Customer satisfaction has proved to be very important since the next social website could take off and overtake facebook just like facebook did to myspace.

The effects on American culture shown in this section are not necessarily from what facebook is, but what as a company they claim to be doing.  The things that facebook claims to do is that it is a place for freedon of speech, and is helping to create a gift economy on a large scale which is helping keep companies honest.  The only things that facebook says they remove from the site is content advocating hate, violence, or breaking laws.  These are very broad concepts to say they are removing, and could possibly fit almost anything said in one of the categories.  Especially if advocating breaking laws is removed then nothing in a society could be change through facebook.  The fact that they are claiming that they are keeping companies honest is a scary thought.  The first question would be who is keeping facebook honest and what companies could do without people knowing just because facebook says they are legit.  With these claims facebook could possibly change how our culture views freedom of speech and decide what companies will succeed and which ones will fail just from their backing power.

Final Blog Entry 1

Deciding on which of the two topics to write my final on was fairly simple.  I am going to choose the first topic which is about if modern day colleges campuses are technolpolies.  The main reason for this decision is that I am scared if I pick the second topic I am going to get off topic.  Since the professor warned in the description not to get too opinionated about the green movement in general, this makes this topic a hard one.  Since I believe the green movement is extremely profit influenced, only focusing on aspects of conserving that still make people money, my argument would be simple and not generate many topics to write about.  My argument would be something along the lines of even though the green movement is based on conservation in ways it still is contributing to our disposable society.

Another reason why the first topic would be better to write about is because for most of my blog entries I have referred back to Postman's writing.  This tells me that I have an understanding and I will be able to reference this book more easily then Slade's.  Reading Postman's Technopoly I definitely felt more opinionated when compared to reading the other books because I agreed with certain parts and during others just felt like he was making ridiculous connections in others.  This will help make a more interesting paper, since it will not be in completely agreeing or go against Postman.

At first glance of this topic a few key ideas come to my mind.  Colleges pride themselves as being more relevant and accepting when it comes to new ideas when compared to high schools and earlier education.  They also pride themselves as being long standing institutions that know what values need to be upheld.  My choice for the paper needs to be what choice colleges are making in what seems to be conflicting roles. Another talking point is how the students use of technology effects the choices the University makes.  Effects of Universities becoming run more like businesses in order to attract more students and how that changes the schools view on new technology.  In the end I would probably say that campuses are technopolies.  This last paragraph may seem like I was just regurgitating arguments that will be in my paper (which the professor said not to do) but this was a was a way for me to get these ideas written down so I do not forget them later.

The Social Network.

The last time I went to the movies I went to go see the stinker which is known as Alice in Wonderland.  When I decided to go see The Social Network In theatre for extra credit, I thought to myself why do I put myself through all these bad movies and pay so much for them?  Luckily I was pleasantly surprised that The Social Network was actually pretty entertaining.  This blog entry is not a review though, but about how this movie relates to American culture.

The movie follows Mark Zuckerberg who is the founder of facebook and tells how facebook originally came to be.  Mark Zuckerberg is made to seem his age by showing scenes of him partaking in college activities expected by of a college student, but not expected of a business owner.  Throughout the movie it breaks into scenes of the courtroom where he is getting sued by Eduardo, who helped start the facebook with him, and some kids who feel that Mark stole the facebook idea from them.  Though Zuckerberg is the main character of the flick he is not shown in a positive light.

One of the main themes of this movie is to show how Zuckerberg and other characters such as Sean Parker are trying to full conflicting roles in American society.  They are trying to be young college students and young adults who partake in parties, drugs, and promiscuous sex while trying to also be business men (who  are portrayed to do the same thing in American culture but more discretely).  The fact that these conflicting roles have been presented to these two shows how technology has reshaped the business world.  Technology is moving so fast that society is willing to accept any new advancement without question with idea that it will soon become obsolete soon anyway.  This mentality allowed facebook to take off the way it did and throw both Zuckerberg and Parker in a position of wealth and power which they appear from the movie to not be prepared for.

The fact that this movie is such a success and that there is not a huge outrage against facebook shows a great deal about our culture too.  The reaction from America about this movie shows that our standards say that it is fine to do all the things that Zuckerberg did as long as the general public does not know about it.  Being cut throat when it comes to business and screwing over those who have helped (like Zuckerberg did ti Eduardo) is well known as common practice in America, but when it comes to the spotlight we tend to just give a slight slap on the wrist and then not think twice about it.  Technology adds a whole new element to this too, since we still view Zuckerberg in a positive light since he has given us this new great piece of technology.  The new question has now become how much can someone get away with who is capable of advancing technology?

The Facebook Effect pgs 107-214

The second part of The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick tells how facebook functioned in the earlier days as it was becoming a company.  Throughout this whole section Kirkpatrick keeps mentioning different offers facebook was getting from various companies trying to buy facebook.  He also makes sure to include various accounts of people not wanting to work for facebook because it was being viewed as a childish company.  These two points are brought up throughout this section while discussing additions and changes to the page and how the users react to them.

During this section of the book the photo section of facebook was added.  This increased facebook's popularity tremendously, because it made it possible to see what people had recently been doing especially since the photos were kept in chronological order.  This allowed facebook to grow the same way as which technology grows.  Technopoly and Computers both show how development and growth in something are capable of happening unfiltered due to people's desire to be included or in the know of something new.  Zuckerberg also avoided the danger  that goes along with people's interest in something new.  He did this by how he introduced new groups into the page.  This was done by only letting high school kids in if they were invited by someone who was already in facebook.  Also changes were made to the site to make it seem less childish before adults were allowed to join.  If facebook was instantly opened to everyone then Zuckerberg would have lost control of how people used the page and due to people always wanting something new facebook would quickly have become obsolete from people losing interest.

American culture is greatly effected by how facebook is run and what facebook is.  The fact that our everyday interactions have become a way for people to make money shows the interests of our culture as a whole.  This is that if there is a way to make money off of something that people are doing someone will try to.  Once again the idea of how people are being thrown into the industry younger because of how quickly the industry grows comes up because the older generation of companies can not understand why Zuckerberg will not take the offers he had been getting for his company.  Since he was young facebook was run differently and had more ideals then to just make the most profit (which is why facebook is still strong today) thus making a different way for a company to be run in America.  The popularity of facebook has also made it possible for facebook itself to effect American culture.  Since Zuckerberg has been opposed to allowing people to have two profiles, it has forced work life and social life to be integrated for many Americans.  This of course also leads to new cultural problems people have to deal with.