Blogging hey? I had a blog once but I started it as a cathartic teenagers and as I grew up, I didn’t want people to read my backposts about ‘hotties’ and embarassing moments. Also, the same thing that Professor Lawton was talking about happened, the most interesting people just stopped posting. Actually, there was a pretty scary rumor that someone who had deleted his/her blog account decided life was not worth it anymore (if you know what I mean) so avoiding that topic became pretty depressing and difficult – for a teenager at least. However, on the bright side, I’m sure grown-up’s blogs are much less dramatic. I wonder if we’ll talk about the trend of teens spending hours upon hours surfing the net and instant messaging. Particularly, I’ve noticed that if the 13-17 year olds want to coordinate a social gathering, they’ll IM each other and only use the phone if that doesn’t work. I think if I were to do that, I wouldn’t catch all my friends online at the same time or else someone would get the time or place wrong, etc. But these teens are probably experts at the whole thing by now.
Hey look at that, I went to google an image for “addiction” as in “internet addiction” and it brought me to a Greys Anatomy Addiction website link but that was out of commission so I actually ended up at the wordpress tag listing for Greys Anatomy. I’m sure some people in the class will be able to find conversations of interest there.
So just incase you missed anything while the professor was going over the WordPress features, I thought it was kind of neat that I was able to find WordPress tutorials on Youtube. Here’s one:
Please note: On a Mac, many of the tools look different so I still have not found the spellchecker yet.
Thanks for that tutorial thing – perfect! I am loving the design you chose as well.
I am fascinated with the “addiction” discourse – I know that Grey’s Anatomy is a show that many people like a lot, but are we really addicted to it? Probably not. Also, I realize that it is said “tongue in cheek” but I think it undermines people who do actually struggle with addiction.
Great start!
Thanks for your comment!
I feel the need to clarify my use of the term “addiction”. I was meaning it in regard to “internet addiction”, which is a studied phenomenon, and found it humourous when “Greys Addiction” showed up as a result. However, I do feel that addictions should be taken seriously and it was not my intention to undermine people who struggle with them.
I have spent some time researching the literature on internet addiction as a project in one of my Research Methods classes. From what I remember, most scientists theorize that it is similar to the type of gambling addiction that results from use of VLTs. There have been many studies conducted on the high rate of e-mailing and instant messaging (to a point where it may distrupt a person’s life, therefore classified as addiction) performed by some individuals and quite a few focus on this phenomenon in youth. Therefore, as I was pondering above, I’m sure there are many reasons that they are the population of interest.
I can completely see where you are coming from with the whole MSN-message-your-friends-and-coordinate-an-event thing. In fact, my friends and I do this regularly. It’s convienient. Mainly, it’s good because we go to different University’s during the semester so it’s obvisouly cheaper to talk on MSN and plan to meet up in Calgary. Usually we start conversations and then on MSN you can “add-in” people to the conversations. Normally we can keep a conversation under control with about five people, although in Junior High I recall having one conversation with ten people (now that gets a little crazy.) I don’t think MSN is really a bad thing though, or even harmful. It helped me learn how to type. I couldn’t possibly talk to all my friends typing one letter per finger. In just a few months of getting MSN (when I was in gr. 7), I was a typing pro. There is hope for MSN…!
I just have to say because maybe im a little older in the crowd, but when i was junior high – we used ICQ! Does anyone even remember before MSN anymore? It seems technology is aging faster then we are. And by the way, nice layout. Its very zen.
Bufferflyxo:
That is so true! I think you will find that it is quite the trademark of our generation that we do not technically know where our fingers are supposed to be on the keyboard or the correct typing posture but we can type up a storm if there is something interesting to talk about. Unfortunately, I was also dorky enough to have fun with the archaic program “Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing” lol. I really do enjoy MSN for its speed and, like you said, that it is free. I think more communication errors happen between people in e-mails because there is a time lapse between when an e-mail is sent and received/replied to where circumstances can change. However, a lot of my friends are tired of msn or have added people they do not talk to on a regular basis so it seems like when everyone goes on they are “Away” so it is like standing in a room where everyone is avoiding eye contact. Weird!
turtle23:
My older brother always used ICQ but because we were 5 years apart, he did not want to teach his little sister how to use it (he probably thought I would be on the computer all the time and we only had one back then). Everytime I tried to figure it out, it just went over my head, I could not figure out what in the world to type!
I also remember waay back in the day, before we actually got the internet, our modem could connect to BBSes (Bulletin Board Services) – do you remember those?
Hello youtubeaddict.
I found it interesting your comment about the 13-17 year olds IMing eachother. I think all this new technology is one area that todays youth have actually exceeded over the adults (if that makes any sense). We are obviously a society of change but with the rapid advancements taking place how can we keep up. As was said in class on Wednesday, no sooner do we figure something out, its tossed out the window because something new and exiting came along. I thought rapidly changing trends mainly took place in fashion but i think the speed of technological advancements may have it beat. Awesome post definately look forward to reading more.
youtubber…. I can’t remember back as far as the BBS, however I do remember our first family computer, with the blinking curser and the screen only in black and green. that was a sweet machine.
Yabbadabbadoo:
It’s very true that the youg’uns are better than us at technology. Another factor to be considered is probably that they started interacting with computers at a much younger age than generations before them. I mean, now you get boxes of Cheerios that have CD-ROM games for toddlers to learn the alphabet – no wonder they kids know what they are doing! However, there is not as much backlash against this as when, like Paul was saying, before computers parents used to plunk their kids down in front of the TV for hours and hours. The computer is just about the same thing, only it is somewhat more interactive. But maybe we’ll have to wait a few years, I think the first studies are coming out to show that all of this early interaction with computers is changing how the brain is wired – I overheard that in one of my psych classes. So we’ll see, maybe people will panic about this trend nonetheless.
One thing that really bothers me about kids and technology is that they generally do not realize it costs a lot of money! I saw two elementary school-aged kids wrestling on the grass the other day and they both had iPods with them and were yanking on each other’s headphones! ahh!
(I’m not trying to sound like the ppl who say “Kids these days…” lol, I’m only 20, but these things are still surprising)
Thanks for your comment!
Turtle:
mmm DOS, when the most exciting thing was the “directory” command. I totally remember playing Oregon Trail in elementary school with those huge floppy disks too. That was the best game ever!
I like how on several of these blogs it’s like a competition to see how far back we can go, this not a criticism but an observation. It nice to know that other people have also made there way through years crappy technology and horrible messaging services.