So I was surfing the web trying to find an article about people misusing the internet.  I found one about the online preditors using facebook and myspace to lure young girls into meeting older men.  This article sounded like all the other ones out there about the same topic.  This article led me to another site about how kids shouldnt have computers in their bedrooms.  The article stated that when kids have computers that are hooked to the internet they get less sleep and are not paying as much attention in their classes.  The article references “datelines: to catch a preditor” and how the late night unsupervised can lead to children meeting older people who are looking to harm them.  I think that a lot of kids have no idea how dangerous the internet can be, its a lot easier to impersonate someone online.   All it takes is a fake picture and a few made up facts and you can be anyone, any age from any state.  It is a lot easier to hide things from your parents when you have your own personal computer in your bedroom, and the article claims that many parents dont want to deal with multiple kids fighting over the computer so they give them each their own personal computer.  I didnt get my own computer until I was heading off to college and at that time I wasnt even living with my parental units.  In the article it stated that 10% of children 8-10 have their own computer.  It sounds crazy to me that an 8 year old would have his or her own computer, I didnt get my own until I was 18 and I didnt get my own cell phone until I was heading off to college also.

I agree with the article that it is bad for young children to have their own personal computer, there is too many things that could happen over the internet to children who are not quite mature enough to handle it in the correct way.  There have been too many situation involving teenagers hurting themselves over something that transpired over the internet.  Like the article about a young girl who commited suicide because the mother of a girl she knew impersonated a boy the girl liked and called her a bunch of names saying that she should kill herself because the world would be a better place without her.  What kind of person says that to a teenager, I would never understand how someone can be so cruel.  The internet is a place where people think that they can get away with doing bad things to other people.  I think that home computers should be kept somewhere that can be seen by someone else and be monitored on a regular basis.  Children are not ready to handle many of the things that can come up on the computer and they should be kept away from it as long as possible.  It is the parents responsibility to keep their child protected and monitored when they are surfing the web either for homework or doing personal things, even though kids under 15 shouldnt be spending hours on the internet, they should be reading a books or outside paying.  I didnt have a computer in our house until I was in high school and during my childhood I was outside with my older sister and cousin playing in the mud or just doing anything we could think of and I think that shaped who I was, because now I can survive without any technology, unless I have homework that needs to be done then I panic a little.

http://redtape.msnbc.com/2006/02/why_are_kids_st.html#posts

So when I was reading the description for this blog I instantly thought of a couple times when I was chatting with a friend on AIM and something was said that started a fight.  Being 15-16 years old at the time everything that was said was blown way out of proportion.  The one particular fight that I remember the best was of course over a guy.  My friend Amanda has introduced me to a male friend of hers and he and I hit it off right away.  So we started talking on the phone almost everyday and we talked on aim regularly.  One day I was talking to Amanda on aim and she was telling about how her and another friend of ours Laura were frequently hanging out with the guy and another friend of his.  So being a 16 year old girl I got mad at my friends for what I thought was going behind my back.   So we had our fight over the computer rather than waiting til the next day and talk about it face to face.  The fight was a lot worse than it needed to be because we did it over the computer, we both were more free with our words and Im sure if either of us could remember what was said we would regret it a lot more now.  As a result of this fight we didnt talk to eachother for about a month and there was a lot of talking behind backs with our other friends.  When I look back at the situation now, I realize that we both made the situation a lot worse by involving all of our other friends.

After about a month when we finally started talking again we talked about the whole situation and we both realized that we were wrong in how we approach the situation.  She realized that she should have told me about them hanging out and probably should have invited me rather than Laura.  I realized that I should have allowed her time to explain rather than just jumping to conclusions about things.  I think that it made us closer because we realized that we had done something that was wrong on both our ends and it took that for us to communicate better.  We also realized how much talking behind eachothers backs we had done and that is was just more hurtful to eachother when we could be honest and just tell them if we have a problem with something.

After this kind of thing happened a few more times, not always with the same person, I realized that I needed to change the way that I handle situations that come up online.  So instead of fighting with people online, if the situation warrented it I would wait until we talked face to face or I would just drop the whole thing.  I decided that it was a waste of my time to handle situations in the wrong way.  I guess I realized that as I grew up fighting over the internet was childish, I am a lot freer with my words when I know I dont have to look the person in the eye when I say something to someone.  I guess I really have grown up a lot since I was 16 and that is a good thing.  Situations that occur over the internet are in my opinion never handled correctly, there is always some part of the situation that is taken out of context and how you handle that depends how you let your personality influence your reactions.

So when reading Wood and Smith they stated the “haves” and the “have-laters”.  I took a look at this from my my usage of computers and internet.  I was lucky enough to be in a house that had a computer relatively early, I think I was in middle school.  And then lesss than 4 years later the internet reach 50 million people.  I think it would be harder if the internet had been introduced now rather than 10 years or so ago.  If we were just starting to use the internet I am sure that things would be handled a lot differently because I am a different person as are all the people around me, we have grown so much since high school and things are dealt with in different ways.  So I am glad that the internet was introduced to me at the age that it was.

Many of us have had a conversation with a Grandparent or an older family member about our use of the internet.  I decided to talk to my great uncle Bob about his use of the internet.  He lives in Coeur de lane, Idaho and we communicate mainly through emails.  He actively uses the internet for both work and communicating with family that live here in Oregon.  I had to use the internet to ask him the questions and so it just showed me more that he was up to date on all the workings of the internet.  My uBob (as he is known to me) uses the internet for both work and personal business,  he knows how to send pictures through emails, which is very advanced for a man of his age.  It is a vast difference between uBob and his brother (my grandpa) I don’t think that my grandpa even knows how to turn a computer on, let alone know where to find the internet.  I think with uBob and the internet it has made his life easier, he is able to work from home and when he travels for business it is easier to stay in contact with his family back at home.  Also it is easier for him to stay in contact with his son who lives in Arizona.

UBob says that the internet has helped improve his life.  We are able to chit chat more often now that we have each others email address, and planning family functions when they come down happens a lot quicker.  He likes the internet, he knows that it makes our lifes easier and it has brought us closer together as a family.  Before we would only talk when they came down during family gatherings, but now we send emails back and forth every few weeks.  I will be graduating this spring and getting them situated with a place to stay and planning the whole trip was a lot easier to do over internet rather than trying to catch each other on the phone with 2 opposite schedules.

In my opinion uBob has adapted very well to the changes the internet has brought.  He is one of the few baby boomers that I have seen use the internet, I know people who are younger than him who are more internet illiterate than he is.  I grew up with the internet and I still dont know how to use the internet all that well.  I am one of those people who just dont understand technology; computers, tvs, surround sounds and cell phones.  I recently bought a new cell phone and my 15 year old cousin knows how to use it better than I do, even my 9 year old nephew knows how to text message, I have a hard enough time getting a whole text message out without a million spelling errors.  It just shows that the younger generations are more adaptable to the changes the internet brings.  Im sure that the Generation Z or iGeneration will know how to use computers at a very young age, definately a lot sooner than we had learned to use them.

When I was trying to decide who I wanted to talk to in the 36-60 age range, I wanted to chose someone that I knew could use to internet but that it didn’t consume their life.  That person was my dad,I taught him back when I was in middle school, how to set up an email account and how to get on the internet.  He still is not the most technology savvy guy, that must be where I got my lack of tech skills.  He will get on the computer to send out a couple emails but that is his extent to surfing the web.  My dads computer is so old and slow that I am pretty sure the thing is as old as I am.

My dad doesn’t have time to sit on a computer wasting time browsing websites for hours at a time.  He works for union pacific and he doesn’t need the internet to do his job, it would be weird seeing him working on the train cruising the internet.  He has no need for the internet, but he chose to set-up an email account so that he could talk to his friends and receive messages from some family members who live out of state.  I have never sent or received an email to or from my dad.  We are the type of people that need to speak to the person over the phone or face to face.  We show a lot of emotion when we talk and emails do not show our emotions like we would want them too.  The internet hasn’t really affected my dad in a positive or a negative way, His life would be pretty much the same whether he had an email account or not.  He realizes that the internet is a useful tool for people like my roommate and I because we are in school and need to access large amounts of information to write papers and complete projects.

The major differences between Gen X-ish and Baby Boomer that I chose to interview is that the outcome is different than what many people would think.  I chose my people based on that fact that I know my dad doesnt use the interenet on a regular basis and I wanted to see what he had to say about it.  I wanted to hear him talk about how he had to learn how to work a computer so late in life, same with my Great Uncle Bob, they both had to face learning how to adapt to this new technology when they are both over the age of 50.  I have a hard enough time knowing what to do and I am only 23 years old.  A big difference between these older age groups and their young counterparts is that many of us younger people had a computer in our houses growing up and we were taught basic computer skills in elementary school or more in depth skills in middle and high school, and even in college they will take the time to show you how to work certain programs if you struggle with them.

With this age group I had the pleasure of chatting with one of my friends whom I know uses the internet a lot.  My friend Brittany uses the internet for school, personal business and socializing with friends.  She is a student here at OSU and she is originally from California, so she has all her friends up and here and back at home.  She not only uses the computer to access the internet she also has an iphone so she is always able to get on the internet no matter where she is at.  That is the perk of being young is that we are faster learners when a new piece of technology, well some young people are, not so much me.  She sees the internet as a useful tool to help her with school and keeping in touch with peole back in California,  not only does she need to keep in contact with her friends she is also trying to get an internship for this summer.  It is easiest to communicate with companies via email due to conflicting schedules, and with an internship so hard to acquire right now staying in touch with people is even more important.

The internet has affected her life in a positive way, she is 2 years younger than I am, so she was exposed to a computer at a younger age than I was, and it shows.  She is more computer literate than I will ever be.  She is able to work on homework in the comfort of her own home rather than having to go to the library and search through shelf afte shelf of books looking for the information that she can find in a second on the internet.  The internet makes life a lot easier for young people because we have so much more information at the tips of our fingers and all it takes is for us to go out and fine it.  The internet hasnt changed the way she lives because she has grown up with it, and it is all she knows.  That is how most of Gen Y and the iGen will be, we are more capable of adapting to the internet and the newest technology.  Its weird seeing my 9 year old nephew pick up a cell phone and start texting, I barely knew how to use a regular house phone at the age of 9.

There is a vast difference between the 3 age groups.  The youngest generation was raised with computers in their homes, and it was our parents who bought those computers for us, and our grandparents are slowly bring computers into their houses.  Some people in the older generation still dont use computers, a lot of them do not see a point in buying one, they dont need to use the internet.  I have a friend who works at target and she regularly has to tell people that if the product isnt in the store then they can find it online, and a majority of the time the older people respond with “I dont own a computer” It shows that some people arent willing to change with the modern time.

As I stated in my previous blog I love history.  So I joined a group that discussed Henry VIII and everything that has to do with him.  I am a big reader also and I am normally reading about 4 different books all of different topics.  I love the tv shows about Henry and his wives, also the movies and the books.  I am constantly reading books and watching the history channel when shows about the English court are on.  So when I was looking for an internet group to join that was my first thought, I love to hear about other peoples opinion on a topic that I am so focused on.  So when I joined the group I was nervous about starting out a new topic with the other people in the group.  I have never been a part of a internet group before so the whole process was new andscary for me, similar to this blogging experience.

To start the process of being accepted into the group I started off a new post to see how many people would respond to it, and I was shocked that within the first 2 days someone posted a response to what I had to say.  I knew at that point that I had been accepted into this group and I could start a discussion with this other person.  2 other people joined in on our talk about Anne Boleyn and her portrayal in the different movies, TV shows and books that have been written.  We all had similar ideas in the way that we thought that there was some basis of truth behind what is being said.  We each thought of different scenarios that showed a different act that she did to get the reputation that she did.  Our converstations were our own opinions mixed with different facts that we all knew.  I felt that by multiple people responding to my post that I was welcomed to the group right away.

I saw in some responses there were a few disagreements and about 95% of the time we were all in agreeance with our topic.  When there was an disagreement to anything that I had said, I went back and reread what I had said then read what they thought was “wrong” and then thought about how they could have misinterpreted what I meant, then I would respond to them so that we could continue the conversation without any misunderstandings.  In some of the responses to my posts people start off disagreeing with me but in they end what they are saying is actually the same things that I had said. All of that makes me laugh because it is like they want to badly to prove me wrong yet they have no facts that disagree with me.  In my most recent post I made a statement that I felt sorry for Anne Boleyn’s sister Mary, because from everything that I have read or watched about this family she is used and then sent away, so I do feel a little sorry for someone like that, and a member of the group wrote back to me saying things that added to my perspective of feeling sorry for someone that was used in a way that no one should be.   I have never had the desire to be a part of an internet group, even if it is about one of my favorite topics.  I joined for our class and that was it, I dont have time to get into a discussion with someone everyday unless it is my roommate and we normally talk about things that affect our everyday lives.  I may occasionally check up on my post to this group just to see how many posts and responses I get.

So when I started thinking about what I would write an academic paper on I thought back to my favorite topic.  History, I love to read about history, especially 15th century european culture.  The renaissance was an amazing period and I was lucky enough to take a few classes on the topic here at OSU.  I got interested in european history while taking a class on the history of the renaissance, we studied their clothing, interiors and architechture.  When I started researching where I would get my information, I had to be careful of websites that are peoples opinion on what happened.  Finding credible sources of information can be hard, there are plenty of websites thats were made by people who really enjoy learning about that topic.  I use google a lot when I am trying to find different websites and they can bring up a lot of useless information.  I found 3 websites, 2 that I thought could be really credible and 1 that is possibly filled with the wrong information.

The first website that I would use was titled Unique facts about Europe: The Renaissance.  With each website I would try to verify the information by checking with other websites to see if they have the same information.  This first website I think is credible, they have valid information that you can find on other websites.  With some websites you cant always take what they have written as the truth, some of the information seems like it is altered.  Some websites will include information that pertains to modern day, trying to bring in the information so that we can understand it in our society.

The second website is wikipedia, it is always in the search results when you google anything.  Its not always reliable for truthful information.  Since wikipedia gets some of their information from people who visit the website it is hard to track where all the information is coming from.  I trust wikipedia form some information, it is one of the websites that I use on a regular basis, I use it for finding out random bits of information.  Such as trying to figure out how tall Rob Dyrdek is, it gives you the random tidbits of information that makes is easily accessible.  I know that many professors do not accept wikipedia as an acceptable source for academic papers.  So it is not always a credible source for all topics but for some it can give you good information.

The final source that I found was just called Europe in the Fifteenth Century.  The layout of the website does not give off the impression that it is credible, it is just paragraphs on writing.  It doesnt seem like the creator of the website gave much thought into the people who would be reading the information.  I do not think that this website is credible, it seems like it could be a paper that someone wrote and posted it on a website.  I would have to double check with multiple other sites in order to believe that the information was true.  Based on these websites I would think that the student took some time in figuring out the information, but with the last source it would seem that they kind of gave up looking for credible sources.

In woods and smith they talk more about internet addictions, Some people that are using the internet for 12 hours a day can search all over for the best information on a subject.  But students like us do not have the time to sit in front of the computer all day and browse through thousands of websites.  So we have to put up with the limited amount of time that we have to browse websites.  I think that if you search and find some great websites, all it takes is a little bit of patience.  I think that in society it is not “cool” to sit in front of a computer for prolonged periods of time, you are seen as a nerd if you would rather play on the computer rather than go out and hang out with your friends.  We have certain societal norms that we are taught to follow, you have to go along with what society says or you are seen as an outcast.

http://www.fashionencyclopedia.com/fashion_costume_culture/European-Culture-15th-Century/Europe-in-the-Fifteenth-Century.html

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/Europeweb/factfile/Unique-facts-Europe20.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance

Starting this weeks blog post started out difficult for me.  I have a huge family all of whom have had their own type of influence on my life.  I could have written about 10 letters and another 8 or 9 emails to everyone lettering them know how much they mean to me and in what way they have influenced me.  I had a very difficult time narrowing it down to my final 2 people.  I had the hard choice of deciding who had a greater impact on my life.  I have both my parents who have shaped me in their own ways, then there is my aunt and uncle who took me in when living with my dad was no longer a good situation.  Then there are my cousins, all 15 of them, how do I narrow it down to 2.  I also have 3 siblings, who in their own way have given me direction in my life.The two people that I ended up choosing were my brother and my aunt Sue.

The letter to my brother was a very special one, my brother was killed 2 years ago.  So I knew that there wouldnt be a letter in return, but I felt that it was necessary to write him a letter telling him how much of an influence he had been on my life and how he is still.  The letter to Aaron was heartfelt and I knew it would be hard to get my thoughts down on paper.  I got a chance to tell him what has been going on in my life and how much I have missed him.  Writing a letter that will never be answered is hard, you ask questions that you’ll never hear an answer to, you can share with them what is going on in your life but they’ll never actually know, you think that they will hear what you are saying but its not gonna change the fact that they are gone.  You write a letter that doesnt need a stamp or even be mailed.  I wrote this letter for myself, and I like knowing that I can sit down and write a letter to him whenever I am missing him or just that I need to talk to him.

The email that I sent was a lot easier to send, I sent the email to my Aunt Sue.  Talk about an influential person, you look up that word in the dictionary and there would be her picture.  She is one of the most loving, caring, protective women that I have ever known, and I am very glad to say that she is my aunt.  In the email I was very informal, which is how I always am with my family.  We are not a formal family and if someone were to write a formal letter to one of us it would be weird.  I got to tell her how important she has been in my life.  If I have a problem with anything or need advice on anything she is the person that I call and talk to.  She is always ready to help any of us kids when we need it.  She took me in during my freshman year of high school and gave me a place to stay.  Her house will always be my home even if I havent actually lived there in 3 years.  I was able to express to her how thankful I am that I have her in my life.

The letter to my brother was very long in length, somber in some places and funny in others, I wanted my letter to him to be very expressive.  The letter to my aunt was not as long, and it was straight to the point.  I know that she doesnt have a lot of time to sit down in front of the computer and surf the net.  The response I got back from my aunt was what I thought it would be.  She just told me that she was proud of my and that she will always be there for me whenever I needed her.  We are better at expressing our emotions to eachother in person, we are a very animated family and even using emoticons wouldnt be able to convey how we are truely feeling about eachother.

In Postman there was a part in the reading that stated in the middle ages that people listened to the authority of their religion.  I think that the same could be said when talking to your elders, I know I take in and listen to things that my aunt and uncle tell me from their past experiences.  We may have greater access to information these days than they did in back in the middle ages, so we dont have to rely on one source for our information like they did back in the day.

So last week I got mixed up and blogged about facebook and myspace, and so this week I will be blogging about the media assignment from last week

So for this week I watched the Brad Paisley music video for his song “So Much cooler Online”  I had seen the video before and I love this song.  It is one of his best songs he has recorded.  I like that he creates songs that are meant to be funny and give you something to laugh at.  That is a great change of pace for country music.

The characters Brad creates in his music videos are often the unpopular people who are craving the attention and acceptance of other people.  In “Cooler”  the main character is an overweight, balding, asthmatic pizza delivery guy who lives at home in his parents basement in his offline persona.  He is very shy and not good at talking to girls, even ones that do seem interested in him.  In his online persona he goes from being 5′ 3″ to 6′ 5″, driving a hundai to driving a mazarati and has a fine taste for wine.  He changes instantly when he turns on his computer, he grows a couple inches and sheds a few pounds.

This is most likely the way that many people feel about themselves and they create a new persona online where they are free to express themselves and are not held back by their own personal anxiety.  There are many ways to express yourself online; in chat rooms, blogs, facebook, myspace and instant messaging.  As stated in chapter 3 of Wood and Smith, some people take it personal when their “friends” online are untruthful, you expect people to be honest and tell the truth.  Such as “Julie” wasn’t really a mute, paraplegic who was housebound.  Actually “Julie” was a full-time professional male psychologist.  That is a great example of people creating an alternate persona online or a pseudonym, it could be you disguised by a name.  In some ways the internet is a great way to express who you are, show people how creative you are, the type of music you listen to, the types of movies you watch or the books you like to read.  Some people feel that they cant be their true selves around their friends.  Lets say there is  football player and he is expected to be into sports and guy stuff, but really he is into reading books and poetry.  How can he feel free to be himself around other jocks when their image is to be the tough guys.  But he could be online under a fake name and get to talk to other people about his interest in these things.  Some people use the internet in the way that allows them to explore a part of themselves that they are too embarrassed to show people face to face.

With the overall video I think that Brad was just having a good time and trying to be kitchy, same thing with his other songs such as “celebrity, Im gonna miss her and alcohol.”  I dont think that he was trying to show how society views people who make up alternate persona on the internet, I think he just thought it was a funny story line.  I thought it was great that he made it so the offline personality found someone to love and someone that had similar interest as he did.  Offline guy was the underdog that everyone roots for, the type of guy that deserves to find his other half and in his case it just happened to be Marcia Brady.

This week we were supposed to create a facebook or myspace account.  I already had an account for both so I paid more attention to how I communicated with people.  I have had my facebook account since freshman year at OSU and I was very against it at the start, I just thought it was going to be a waste of time and I didnt understand the point of it.  Now that I have had an account for more than 4 years, I wonder how I would have kept in touch with people over the years.  I am way more of a facebooker than a myspacer,  I am still very new to myspace and have only had an account for around 6 months.

On facebook with all of their new applications you are now able to chat directly with other people who are online at the same time, post a message on their wall or send them a message.  Facebook gives you many different options for communication.  I personally like to post a wall comment rather than chat with someone on the new facebook chat app.  I dont like to sit on facebook for long periods of time, I get on and write a quick message to a few of my friends and then move on to the next website, but when a friend sends a message through the chat I feel obligated to sit there and have a full blown conversation with them, or sometimes I forget that I am talking to them and I will sign out of facebook without even saying bye.

Wood and Smith had talked about synchronicity, how internet converstation can be either synchronous  “real life” such as facebook chat or asynchronous ” time lag” such as a wall post or message.  I think that if you have something urgent to tell someone facebook or myspace wouldnt be the form of communication that you would choose to get the information to that person.  Facebook is a more common form of Asynchronous communication, and AIM chat is a better form of Synchronous communication.  Facebook is a great way to interact with people over a span of time, you can have a conversation with someone throughout the day and exchange pictures, send them funny bumper stickers or pieces of flair.  You can see their pictures and see what they had done over the weekend, or if you have a large group of people that you are trying to get together sending out a massive message is a great way to get your information to the people who need it.  Just this weekend a giant group of my friends and I went to sunriver to go snowboarding and just hang out with eachother, and since there were 18 of us, facebook was a good way to give everyone directions and set up time to when we needed to get on the road.  I use facebook for more than just posting pictures and chatting with people, I like to use it as a way to show my friends what Im doing in life.  I can chat with my friends and as I say “stalk” people.  I only stalk people I know, so no need to be afraid