Reflective Post for Week of 4/30

When I signed up to take COM 301, I never could have imagined that I would get as much out of the class as I did. I immediately became aware of my own habits when it comes to CMC. I realized that I take the technology we have for granted. The unit that dealt with the digital divide hit me especially hard, because it really made me aware that we are very privileged in America to have such widespread access to technology. I also realized that I definitely take CMC for granted in my own life, and I think many people around me do too. Now, when I see someone texting on their phone or chatting over IM, I think about how fortunate we are to be able to do these kinds of things. Also, as a result of this class, I have learned that I’m not as dependent on CMC as I thought I was. I CAN function without it if I have to, and because of this class, I will probably change the way I communicate. I won’t rely as much on technology, and I won’t get so frustrated when it’s not working.

In my personal and career life down the road, I will definitely be using CMC, because it is so prevalent in today’s society, but I’m not sure I’ll be using every aspect of it. For instance, I know we’ve talked a lot about online dating and relationships, but I don’t think I could ever be comfortable using the internet for this purpose. Even though I’ve discarded a lot of negative biases I had previously had about this, I still think I’m more comfortable finding a significant other offline. Also, I don’t anticipate using blogs much in the future. Although I’m glad we had to set one up for the class and post to it regularly, because it was a good way to learn what they’re all about, I’m not very comfortable posting my thoughts on the internet for all the world to see.

One thing that I actually might use in the future is a wiki. Much to my surprise, I’m actually enjoying using it, adding and editing information, and exploring the other groups’ wikis. My initial reaction when I learned about this project was “Oh great, you probably have to be a technology aficionado for this.” But to my surprise, I found that posting and editing the information was really easy! Even roaming the internet for sources and writing the articles has been kind of fun. I feel like a CMC expert at this point! Anyway, I think wikis are a great way to collaborate online and a great source of information for other people who need it. I can actually see myself using one again in the future.

In general, this course was a lot more hands-on than I expected, and I liked how we got first-hand experience with CMC using the blogs and wikis and such. I also think the online classes were a great idea, especially the week-long class. Even though it was a lot of work, I think it was a good one-time experience so we can know what online learning is really like. All in all, I really enjoyed this class, and I would recommend it to anyone wishing to learn more about CMC and their own habits online. I certainly learned a great deal in this class!

Reflective Post for Week of 4/23

Last week in class we watched a movie that I really like, You’ve Got Mail. I was pretty excited to actually watch a good movie for a class! It got me to think about this movie from a new angle and to analyze it more in-depth than I have the other times I’ve just watched it for fun. The area that I’m going to focus on in this blog entry is whether Kathleen and Joe were cheating on their partners while communicating via CMC. It’s not a clear yes or no answer; there is evidence both for and against this assertion.

The first time infidelity is mentioned is when Christina, Kathleen’s friend and coworker at The Shop Around the Corner, brings it up. She says that cybersex is infidelity, and that it is not a good idea. During their entire friendship over the internet, Joe and Kathleen refuse to talk about any personal or specific information…could this possibly be because they feel that discussing personal matters would be cheating? When Joe asks if Kathleen thinks they should meet, she can’t seem to fathom the idea and closes the computer instantly. If they feel guilty talking about personal matters, surely they would view actually meeting as cheating.

When they finally agree to meet, Joe brings a friend along and asks him to look through the window to check her out first. So even if they were cheating, at least they were being safe about it! In the end, it’s hard to make a definite call as to whether Joe and Kathleen were cheating on their partners. Although they didn’t actually have cybersex, they definitely flirted online a few times. And although they never actually met—when each knew who the other was—until they had broken up with their other partners, they were obviously feeling guilty beforehand…and it’s widely known that if you’re doing something that you feel too guilty about to tell your partner, it’s a form of cheating…but it’s still a cute movie, even if they were cheating 

Reflective Post for Week of 4/16

For this week, our assignment was to read an article online and reflect on it in our blogs. The article was about an older lady who was having regular e-mail exchanges with a much younger man, and soon the conversations turned very sexual, even though the man, Rob, was married. My initial reaction to this article was that it was quite disturbing and creepy. I wondered why the woman let it go on for so long before finally lying and telling him she’s in a relationship and unable to socialize because of a spine injury. I guess she was suffering from loneliness and just wanted some excitement in her life, not to mention stimulation, but she could have at least found someone her own age!

On Rob’s part, I think he must have had some psychological issues to find such an older woman so attractive and then to allow the “relationship” to progress so far. Even after she sends him her picture, hoping he’ll back off, he only seems to come on even stronger. The woman, Sue, doesn’t seem too concerned with the fact that she is ruining a marriage, however. Although she tries to give him hints to make approaches to his wife, she lets their cybersexual relationship go for such a long time that she is obviously not all that concerned about his marriage.

I guess this example in many ways illustrates how addicting the internet can be. In the article, Sue says “…I had become used to his mail and had felt almost addicted to its receipt each day.” I suppose for this reason, neither Rob nor Sue could break off the relationship, even though it was clearly an unhealthy one for both of them. This is an alarming situation, but one that demonstrates much of what actually occurs on the internet. Cybersex, as warped as it may be, is a means of satisfaction and enjoyment for many people, and it is a reality with today’s technology. I would just advise that married people refrain from any communication—especially cybersex—that their spouse isn’t aware of!

Reflective Post for Week of 4/9

This week is fairly short and we only had one class, so there’s not much to say. I enjoyed the You-Tube videos we watched on Wednesday. I think the story of the girl with leukemia is very interesting. It’s awesome that through CMC, people can share matters so close to their heart and generate a response because of it. It seemed like a lot of people sympathize with her and want to do anything they can to help. I’ve never thought about You-Tube as something that could promote such thoughtful ideas; I guess I’ve always viewed it as just a website where people put silly home videos. But this showed that CMC can be used for good and meaningful things too. That can be good evidence for people who are convinced that today’s technology is bringing society down.

On another note, I have been running around this campus like crazy the past few days getting forms signed for my semester abroad in Oxford this fall. The hardest part was figuring out what classes I’m going to take when I get back in the spring. I know that a teacher in the English department is offering a 2-part writing workshop this fall and spring that I really wanted to take. I contacted him and asked if I could take the second part when I come back without having taken the first. He actually told me that I could take the first part through e-mail while in Oxford if I want to, so that I won’t have missed anything when I get back! I thought that was a cool idea, so I ran around some more getting the appropriate forms and signatures. Anyway, this will be the first time I’ve ever taken a course over e-mail. Granted, e-mail is not a highly sophisticated technology—it’s been around for awhile now—and it IS only a 2-credit course, but I’m still excited to experience taking a class solely through CMC. Hopefully I can put what I’ve learned in this class into practice!

Reflective Post for Week of 4/2

Our recent discussions in class have been about language on the internet and making conversation. Earlier in the semester, we looked at a bunch of different acronyms used online, such as LOL, OMG, etc. Last week, we did an interesting activity in class in which we had to write an e-mail using a lot of these acronyms. Obviously, we all over- exaggerated for the purposes of the activity. I know I personally do not use that many acronyms when communicating online. I will admit that when I talk on IM, I tend to use LOL way too much, but other than that I try not to overuse acronyms. And when I send e-mails, I rarely use them, because, like we discussed in class, I typically think of e-mails as being more formal and IM more informal. I usually only e-mail teachers or relatives, and I wouldn’t use such casual language when talking to them. Over IM, however, I mainly talk to my friends, so I feel more comfortable using informal language.

For “homework” last week, we had to have a conversation over IM with at least three other classmates. This seemed like a strange assignment, but I guess the point was to learn how to communicate over IM about something other than the typical stuff that most college students chat about when using this technology. Even though I gave up IM for Lent, I was willing to make an exception for homework! Our conversation went pretty well; it did feel a little weird talking to classmates over IM whom I really only see in class a few times a week. Later, I read back over the conversation and realized that I started almost every sentence I typed with the word “yeah” as an introductory clause. I’m really not sure why I did that; I guess I wanted some sort of lead phrase before I actually typed what I wanted to, and it seemed like an informal and appropriate one given the mode of communication.

Well, since today is Easter, I can officially use Facebook and IM again. All in all, it really wasn’t that hard to go six weeks without these things—I guess since I knew I couldn’t, the temptation wasn’t even there. But now that I don’t have any restrictions, I’m sure I’ll go right back to using them and become as sadly addicted ever. My goal is to remember how long I went without them and to convince myself that I don’t need to be on all the time. So hopefully it’ll work…but the opportunity to use them will be there when I need it! Happy Easter everybody!!

Reflective Post for Week of 3/26

On Wednesday of this week’s class, we looked at some websites that allow you to create avatars, I believe they’re called. Before this class, I really wasn’t familiar with any of these websites, so it was something different. It was really cool to see how into it people get, and how many different websites like that are out there. It was also interesting to see how many generalizations the class came up with about the true identities of the characters that were all in that room together. We can make guesses about the real identities of the people who created them, but we might be entirely wrong in the end—the question that it comes down to is whether or not people try to match their true personalities to the avatars they create. This goes back to concepts such as online identities, multiple identities, and other ideas we’ve been talking about in class. Some people might be trying to show true aspects of their identity, thereby matching their avatar closely to who they really are. Other people might be using such a website as an escape, creating a completely different type of person than they are in real life. This would be a form of identity play. Whatever type of person you create, though, each one has symbolic markers associated with them, and other online gamers are bound to make judgments about the type of person you are based on the features of the avatar you create. All in all, I’d say that it is impossible to know for sure just who you’re dealing with when it comes to things like avatars, but it’s interesting to see the types of identities that come out through the characters.

Even though I’ve never had any personal experience dealing with these kinds of websites, I can relate a little bit, because I’ve been around people who play the Sims computer game. Although I think the idea of controlling somebody’s life is entirely stupid and pointless, my roommate plays this game a lot, as well as the twin girls I’ve baby-sat for the past two summers. There are a lot of different options for making your “Sim character” stand out from others. You can pick out different outfits, hairstyles, etc. I don’t understand the attraction of such games, but I guess for a lot of people the idea of escaping reality and living someone else’s life has a certain appeal to it. Personally, though, I’m happy enough with my own life that I don’t feel the need to create a new identity through any kind of virtual game. :-)

Reflective Post for Week of 3/19

This week in class we read about online identity and online community. To some extent, we’ve already discussed online identity when we talked about anonymity. More than just the ability to be anonymous, however, the internet also provides the ability to completely change your identity—the book gave an example of a man pretending to be a woman or vice-versa. This seems kind of silly and manipulative, but the reality is that people do it all the time. Reading about identity play, however, made me think back to the ethics chapter, and something wasn’t matching up in my mind. I might be overlooking something, but isn’t pretending to be someone else, even if for a harmless purpose, a violation of online ethics? A less extreme example of online identity that we also discussed was not necessarily pretending to be somebody else, but changing qualities about yourself—like, for instance, telling somebody you’re neat when you’re actually messy, in order to make a better impression. Also, I think somebody brought this up in class, but an example that springs to my mind is with social networking sites like Facebook. There is a space in the profile section to write “About Me,” and sometimes people will write about the way they’d like to be or the way they’d like to be perceived rather than the way they actually are. I guess this isn’t as bad as outright lying, because in the long run it could help you achieve goals or change things about yourself that you’ve been meaning to for awhile, but it is still a form of identity play.

The chapter about online community discussed the effects of CMC on both online and offline communities. I found a lot of the material interesting, because as long as the internet has been around, these have been important questions for consideration, but until now, I’ve never really thought about how CMC affects communities. I guess in a way, I’m part of online communities through things like Facebook, IM, and this blog, but I’ve never thought about it like that. As far as CMC hindering offline communities, however, I don’t think that is true. For instance, my best friend from high school goes to Duquesne, and the only way we can talk while we’re both at school is by using cell phones, IM, Facebook, etc. Lately we’ve been so busy that we’ve actually been texting each other to set up a time to talk on the phone! It sounds really pathetic, but without CMC I would not be able to keep in touch with her at all while away at school. So in my opinion, while CMC can definitely hurt the notion of community if used improperly, it can also foster friendships and communities in many instances.