Post replies/reactions to your classmates posts.
Social Interaction:
To start off, both of the videos containted shocking statistics. I like how in the "What is Social Media" video it started off as saying "Social media is the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution". In "Social Media Video 2013" one of the opening facts was that there is 1billion people on facebook, which makes it the third largets country in the world. Those facts led me wanting to know more in both videos. Although the facts were shocking, I can't say I was surprised by them. Everyone knows the internet and social media is the new trend and growing rapidly. I hear these things everyday so I can't say I am unaware that facebook is popular, and that newpapers are becoming less popular. I never read the newspaper. I get my news from the internet or television.
I thought the "second life" game was very cool! Its amazing what worlds and fantasies people can create online. It is very much real life. Everyone you meet in the game is a real person playing and every place you go in the game has been created by another user, very much like real life. It is filled with friends and endless discoveries.
Personally, I did not enjoy this lab as much as I did previous labs. Online chats make me feel very uncomfortable and freak me out. I have always been told to stay away from random, online, strangers wanting to talk. I understand that not all chats are random, and some are actually very purposeful. For the most part though, I did not like being forced to join an online chat and just watch what was going on- I felt like a preditor. If anything, I would much rather be part of a discussion board. They seemed much safer and actually has a purpose. I have my own sorts of social communities, like twitter, pinterest, and facebook, but I do not use them to chat with strangers. I use them to connect with my family and friends and keep in touch with people. Online communities today are becoming much more popular. As one of the videos stated, 1 in every 8 marriages met online. As we have learned previously in class, every advancement has positive and negative effects and social communities is one of those advancements. For the most part, I believe online social interactions positively influence the world. We can chat with a friend overseas in a matter of seconds, and get in touch with old high school buddies. I am excited to see what comes next.
The article explained how software can determine the ultimate development of an online community, and how ‘threaded' communities are good for small groups. Our class uses a threaded structure and it makes it easier for us to find specific information by the thread titles, and respond accordingly.
Factors that contribute to one's decision to enter a community are personal need and desire to learn something, as well as the probably most normal motivator of boredom and the desire to belong. Different types of communities have a range of high to low social interaction, monitoring, citation, and anonymity. Facebook would be an example of a highly social community, and Wikipedia fits the description of an enduring informational community. Local communities are town and city websites, official sports team pages, etc.
Personally I don't really belong to any kind of online discussion community about particular topics of interest. I use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest but even those are a medium to low social destination for me. Many of the sites are used for narcissistic purposes, as a way to document things that are important or interesting to me so that later I can look back on it and remember the random threads of my life. Interacting with my friends and family is definitely a plus, but usually I don't post things to deliberately communicate with any one person. Sort of like stream of consciousness but way more filtered.
Second life was like a virtual reality where your avatar could build a life and fill it with friends and fun things like houses and cars. Every person you encounter has a human user behind it, and all of the site content was built by someone else. It was highly interactive, high desire for social connection, a place to belong and focus on creating something for entertainment purposes. Consistently synchronous communication and exchange of data.
What is social media? We want to belong to a group and talk to our friends, but we don't feel like getting dressed or leaving our house so we go online. Communities help each other, build things that last, and serve as a place to meet and interact with others of similar interests or locations. Online communities are designed the same way. Are you looking for people to talk about snowboarding, fashion, your favorite TV show? To create a movie to share with hundreds of people and get feedback? There is an online community for all of these desires, and for casual chatting and funny pictures there is Facebook, Twitter, etc. etc.
The Youtube videos were full of wild facts, things that happen all the time because of technology and social media that we don't even think to consider because it has become so normal for us. Kindergardeners are learning on Ipads, college students are getting jobs through LinkedIn, the Wikipedia book would be over 2 million pages long and ain't nobody got time for that!