Final Blog for 2011...

As I was going through and checking to make sure I had completed my blogs required for the semester, I noticed that I failed to post one for October 28.  Considering it was a "free" assignment, I decided to end this semester's blog postings with a free topic. (So there are 2 blogs for this week). 

I think it's important to see all the topics that have been researched concernign the Identity, Privacy, and Safety of the internet, recapping what we have learned.  It's clear that these issues are completely relevant concerns for this generation of internet users. 

We began the semester by observing how many different kinds of users are constantly on the internet: professionals, stay at home moms, kids, etc.  We can now understand how monitored we are in our uses of the internet, and we viewed a cartoon displaying the downsides of the internet, specifically in the social networking world. There is much need for caution when browsing the web.  We saw (with Pinterest) how the internet allows people to express themselves similarly as they do in Facebook or MySpace, posting things which they find interesting, explaining more of who they are.  And finally, we ended by understanding again how prevalent the internet is in our society.  So much of what we do is online, and so much is easier because of the internet's availability. 

The internet does allow people to express themselves, developing their online identies.  As people begin to post more and more on the web, the article mentioned in this week's previous post discussed the necessary concerns.  Every day, the line blurs between fame and privacy-invasion.  As our culture moves to exponentionally rely more upon the internet, the wisest thing its users can do is show caution in what information they choose to reveal to the public world.

A Scholarly Article Concerning Internet Identities and Privacy

This week I have chosen Emily Nassbaum’s “2007: New York: Do it Yourself” as the scholarly article which discusses the issue regarding the privacy of the internet, focusing mainly on the late teen/young adult generation.

There are several reasons that this article can be considered scholarly: it is peer-reviewed, the name of the author has been provided along with her credentials (she is an editor of New York Magazine), and specific quotations and real-life experiences are used to support the author’s claims.  Moreover, a vast amount of copyright information lies at the end of the article. Besides all of this, the article claims to be academic and scholarly.

In the article, Nassbaum makes several claims that she ends with.  She feels that young adults are now more prone and willing to publish information online that was once considered too personal for the world wide web.  Her second opinion is that when people see your public life, they judge you.  Nassbaum recounts a story of a Columbia University student, Xiyin. Xiyin began an online journal a few years ago that she now posts for public consumption (if of course you are her online friend).  In fact, she began her journals simply being honest but now reveals to readers anything she thinks will keep them reading her entries.  Moreover, Nassbaum looked at the social networking profile of Xiyin, finding pictures of her partying a few years ago.  Xiyin is well aware of this fact, and she in fact supports it.  It is with this piece of evidence that Nassabaum claims the avid internet users are starting to blur the lines between humiliation and fame.  Things that would once mortify someone to see online about themselves is now a means for easier discovery of who they are.  Hence, the more about you that is available, the more people see you, and the more people konw you. 

In the article, a rhetorical message is obvious to readers and well conveyed.  Nassbaum supports her view that internet users are in fact swapping personal lives and privacy for the chance at fame.  If you read her piece in detail, you can see the concerns she has, an uneasy and almost disapproving tone flowing through the entire article.

"Back When I Was in School...."

"Back when I...(fill in the blank)."  How many times have we heard that from someone of an older generation?  I can recount my mom telling me of how she didn't have the internet with all the journal, magazine, news, etc. sources available to her when she wrote research papers in college.  It was up to her to find the pieces on her own, and this definitely required a TON of work!  More so then I've had to do for my papers at least.

So this week I have chosen to consider what it would be like were the internet not available to students around the country, specifically college students.  I chose to observe the prevalence of the internet in our studies after having completled the writing assignment for English class. 

For the writing assignment I went online, found the topic I wanted to discuss, then searched several news websites in order to gather the closely related articles.  After I found what I wanted, I was able to reread (or rewatch) each piece online however many times I wanted.  There was no going to the library, turning on the TV, or searching the newspapers involved whatsoever.  I canNOT imagine how much extra time that would have required for the analysis assignment.

I think it's very easy to take for granted the extent to which information is available within a space of not even 5 cubic feet (namely, your computer).  It was so easy for me to simply get back on the internet, retype my search in google or the URL address bar, and access the desired information within seconds.  Within the past 2 decades, the internet has drastically changed the way people go about writing papers, collecting information, catching up on headlines, etc.  I am hardpressed to think of anything in fact that I cannot discover on the internet.  Needless to say, I am so thankful for this somewhat new technology!