Week 6- lecture

Media
New Media 
Social media
This lecture was a real eye-opener in terms of the way in which internet has allowed people to be whoever they want. It is the ultimate fantasy world. People can pretend they are someone they're not and form friendships with people they normally wouldn't. In fact, people can spend all day socializing without even leaving the computer.

The lecture bought up the terms virtual community and individual identity. Virtual community just that, a virtual community. The group of friends we have over the internet. And virtual identity being the way that a person can look however they wish to look and have the personality they've always wanted through the internet. I really liked this photo which appeared on one of the slides of a dog at a computer with the caption 'On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog'. This picture really brought home the fact that internet is ruining our sense of reality. Everything is done via the internet these days: Dating, social networking, even job applications are done over the internet. We have almost completely emerged ourselves in the fantasy realm. It's really quite sad. Instead of people getting out in the world, experiencing things and meeting new people, they're doing it all without even leaving their seats. It's really lazy.

On another note, it does allow the isolated a chance to meet people of common interests and views on things. But then there's always the chance that the other person has created an individual identity which is completely different from their actual identity. For example, I once went into a student chat room thinking that I would have a decent chat with another student when I was really bored. From the second I signed in, I was bombarded with men claiming that they had the perfect body. Apparently all the good looking men are hiding behind their computer screens. Not one of them said that their nose was a little too big or they had a bit of belly, they were all perfect faced body-builders. Hah, yeah right. You can never believe a person with all of your heart that you meet on the internet. Well that's my opinion anyway.

The next segment of the lecture was devoted to Web 2.0 which is our current era in web history. Who knows, maybe one day instead of being defined by how many years after Christ's death it's been, we will be defined by our internet age. "What age are we in again, oh yeah, Web 5.7". So basically Web 2.0 is the notion that now allows the ordinary citizen to have their own vlog or facebook profile where they can tag people or chat, whatever their heart desires. It's hard to imagine how much further we can push technology before it takes over the world.

The lecture then went into questioning who owns what we post on the internet which you can read in further depth in my previous blog.

So anyways, that's about it for this week.
:)