In the two interviews that I read, I think the one that had the most influence on me was the interview with Markos Moulitsas Zuniga. At first I thought maybe I would be more interested in Ana Marie Cox’s blog because it just sounds like something I would be more intrigued in, but after I read it I don’t think her opinion would have any effect on who I vote for, even though I do like her tone and sense of humor. I think DailyKos would be more likely to shape who I vote for in the elections because he has been involved in the political blogging for a few years and went from having not a lot of readers to around 500,000 per day. Another thing that he talks about is how he made it on a list of the top 5 war blogs, and he was the only anti- war blogger on the list, which affects me because like I have mentioned previously in my blogs that my brother is currently in Iraq so that war has an influence on my voting, and since he is anti-war that would also have an influence on my voting.
I read a blog from Jezebel titled “Annals of Anorexia: Should Sites like Facebook Ban Pro-Ana Internet Groups?” that was about an eating disorder charity asking Facebook and MySpace to take an active role about pro-anorexia groups. A rule of Scoble’s that this blog follows is using a human voice; this article talks like it is a conversation not a blog. Another rule that this blog follows is never hiding information; at the end of the blog there are websites for articles about this issue. Another rule that this blog follows is post fast on good news or bad; national eating disorders week is this week, and the blog was just made yesterday at the beginning of the week when the charity asked the other groups. A rule that this post doesn’t follow is ignoring Slashdot, there is no mention of it in Jezebel’s blog. I think Jezebel’s blog follows the rules, they mostly seem to just say tell the truth and don’t hold back but be accurate and I think Jezebel does a good job doing so.
First I searched in Google for articles, I entered ‘texting + teens in Europe’ and found a few articles on bbc.news.org. Then I searched ‘text messaging’ and ‘teens’ in Ebscohost and found 28 articles, then searched ‘text messaging’ and ‘Europe’ in Ebscohost and found 35 articles. Other key words and subject terms that I may use later on are ‘SMS’ or short messaging system because that is what text messages are, ‘U.S. teens + text messaging’, ‘text messaging’, ‘texting + teens’.
Annotations:
1. Levinson, Paul. The author wrote this book to discuss technology advancements. Other topics included are information on the move, the world wide web, and cell phones. It was written for anyone that is interested in learning about technology.
2. Magid, Larry. Magid has been a technology columnist for over 2 decades. The other puts his opinion in about how texting is influencing his life and has done research about texting’s influence on other people’s lives. This article is from CBS News online.
3. Regan, Tom. A source that he uses is The Buffalo News and also a survey by Zogby International. Another subtopic included is how text messaging influences teen driving. This article is from USA Today.
4. Bean, Thomas and Harper, Helen. This article uses other sources such as a survey done by the National School Board Association. The authors discuss how not only text messaging influence education but also chat rooms and blogging. Found on Ebscohost.
5. Buckley, Olive. Buckley discusses the topics of teens talking about their problems anonymously through texting. The author wrote this to show how texting has helped teens discuss their problems. Found on Ebscohost.
Bibliography:
1. Levinson, Paul. Cellphone: the story of the world’s most mobile medium and how it has transformed everything! New York; 2004.
2. Magid, Larry. Be Smart With Your Cell Phone. CBSNews; 2007.
3. Regan, Tom. Text-messaging is danger to drivers. Christian Science Monitor; 2007.
4. Bean, Thomas and Harper, Helen.
5. Buckley, Olive. How I… Connected with Teens By Text Messaging. Pulse; 2005.
In “Take an obsession, then feed it!” an interview by Nick Denton, he talks about how blogging is going to change the world and the first step is though the media. For example, he talks about how people the read the New York Times online, have found the link through a blog. Besides bloggers going to New York Times online, he also talks about how bloggers are going to be the people who influence what is on the front page of the paper. Even though he states that blogging influences the media, he also says that it isn’t enough to change the media 100%, and that as the Internet grows, so will advertising and the audiences of blogging. As a result of reading this entry, it made me realize how not only does the Internet affect our daily lives, but so does blogging and I think it’s really interesting to see how blogging will grow and become part of our future.
After reading “Blogs Will Change Your Business” by Stephen Baker and Heather Green I think that it is more important the affect that blogs have on business’ rather than non-business organizations. There was a blogger that worked for Google and he wasn’t giving dirt on Google, just saying that his health plan is not as beneficial as other companies and the company found out about his blog and 2 weeks later he was fired. The employees blog could have blown up into something more and officials could have investigated Google’s health plan benefits and how much overtime employees are putting in. Another example of when blogging impacted a company is General Motors. Not only did the Vice President launch his own blog to gain more feedback from customers but the company also “uses them on occasion to steer past its own PR department and the main stream press (225).” Bloggers can discuss problems with companies and influence eachother’s thoughts about a company.
I read Jezebel’s article titled “Wife-Carrying, Rosary Clutching, Speed Dating: Valentine’s Day Is A Global Affair” at http://jezebel.com/356425/wife+carrying-rosary-clutching-speed-dating-valentines-day-is-a-global-affair . This blog is about the different ways that countries celebrate Valentine’s Day. I thought it was really interesting learning about the different habits of each country. I think the most interesting country I read about was Thailand, Jezebel says, “the Thai government wants to make sure that teens are not getting it on this V-Day. Every February 14th they turn on all of the lights at full blast in public parks and urge parents to make their teens come home early.” I thought that was informing and funny that the government is trying to prevent something like that from happening by turning on the lights at a park. Another country that was really interesting on Valentine’s Day is China. The men race other men while carrying their wives, a tradition from the 19th century, while teenagers donate blood in the campaign, “I’d rather lose blood than virginity.” Which I also thought was very interesting and would have never imagined that people do that on Valentine’s Day.
I read on the North Korea Zone blog an entry titled “North Korea worried about cybercrime”. The only picture that’s on this blogsite is the picture on the top of the website, and the rest is all navy blue and red text. There’s a headline feed category to the right of each blog, and on the left of each blog is another column that lists resources, other comments, and other bloggers. The other posts are about what’s going on in North Korea, mostly political and some articles have opinions about the U.S. and North Korea. McKinnon says that the blogs are not by any Koreans, but by people that are outside of North Korea that discuss what’s going on in that country. I think McKinnon’s view is still correct, in the article I read it talked about how North Korea is worried about cybercrime, but it also says how North Korea barely has an internet so what is there to be worried about. I though the blog was going to be consist more of blogs about helping North Korea.
In Ayelet Waldman’s “A Weblog Saved My Life”, there is a statement that she makes that I agree and disagree with. She says, “…the first thing that comes into anyone’s mind is the thing that comes out on the page…” (Kline, 310). Although I agree with Waldman up to a point, I cannot accept her overall conclusion that bloggers speak 100% what’s on their mind. Blogging is a way to express emotions and gain opinions, but there is a line that some bloggers are not willing to cross and will not completely put themselves out there. I agree that bloggers may want to just spill it all and vent completely what’s on their mind, but there is also a person’s sense of privacy and the thought of ‘what if he reads it and knows it’s about him?’ or something along those lines that catches the blogger before he or she submits the post.
In “My So-Called Blog” by Emily Nussbaum, she discusses the use of blogging and online journals from teens. I think it’s acceptable that parents monitor their middle-school children’s blog, but has a limit. Children at that age have to release their stress somehow, and if it’s online through a blog then that’s fine, but there is a point to where a parent needs to be concerned about what exactly is being vented. In Nussbaum’s entry, she writes how she observes an entry that reads, “I have depression, bad skin, weight problems, low self-esteem, few friends and many more reasons why I am angry. (352)” That entry is something that, if I was a parent, would like to know about. Also if a child was feeling like this, there would be symptoms displayed that he or she was upset, which should give a parent a reason to ask questions and be concerned. As a kid now, being on AOL Instant Messenger is part of growing up, so that isn’t something that should be monitored, but it’s the MySpaces and some online journal entries that parents should have some sort of a reason to get concerned with.
My 3 main interests for social computing technologies are texting, distance education, and social networking services. Texting is using a cell phone to send short messages. Distance education is when a teacher and a student communicate by fax, a website, or e-mail. A social networking service is a group of people that share interests or activities, and communicate through various ways such as blogging, e-mail, and discussion groups. Popular examples of social networking groups are MySpace, Facebook, and Bebo. I’m interested in the groups of teens, non-English speakers, and multiculturalism. I’m interested in teens because I am one and that’s easy for me to relate to. Non- English speakers is another interest because I like learning about different cultures and a lot of culture can be learned through a language. Multiculturalism is my last interest because like I said before I enjoy learning about different cultures and hope to study abroad one day. The geographical areas that I am interested in are Australia, because I have friends that live there and I want to study abroad there, and Europe because I want to go there one day. So putting all of my interests together I decided that I want to do something that incorporates text messaging in the use of teens in Europe, because Europe includes a variety of countries that are varied in culture and behaviors which I think would make the research interesting.
