The Adventures of Formspring... and Cyberbullying.

This week we briefly covered the topic of cyber bullying during presentations. Cyber bullying is a complete breach of privacy, which unfortunately has become a common fear for American teenagers and adolescents. Due to the fact there will always be newer technology emerging that makes different kinds of communication quicker and easier, children will always use their involvement with such mediums as social networking sites to say things they would never ordinarily say to people's faces. Cyber bullying is extremely cruel, it can either happen between two people or it can occur between a large group of people due to the fact these sites make every aspect of life public. This adds to the humiliation that these victims feel. Formspring makes this bullying ten times easier, formspring is a website attached to someone's facebook that allows anonymous questions to be asked to the owner or the facebook.
The anonymous aspect is what gets this site into trouble, people can post disgusting questions and posts to hurt a classmate and get way with it. Formspring has also been known to experience quite a bit of hacking using IP addresses. This allows people to further disguise their identity when attacking others online. Formspring is a very dangerous tool to give to students or children in middleschool because it can misused and have serious emotional damage on its victims. Formspring reminds me a lot of the campus anonymous web directory, Juicy Campus, which was very popular in 2007.
Juicy campus allowed people to anonymously post anything or any stories on this site for people to comment. Of course the medium started out to be a fun way for college students to share crazy times, it quickly flourished into a site covered in awful anonymous posts bashing college girls and humiliating them over the internet. The site had to be closed down due to recent suicides because of its existence. This is a huge concern due to the over zealous amount of suicides recently due to bullying. The first time I saw a formspring last year, people from my old high school were posting humiliating questions to this girl and openly mocking her on her own website. I remember being amazed at how calmly she answered these questions. I discussed it with her the next time I saw her and immediately asked why she would start this site and put herself out in the open with such mean people on the internet. She commented that some posts were mean but some brightened her day. I do not know why anyone would leave this site up for people to analyze and criticize her as a person. I also think it is a very vain site to have.
Formspring has the possibilities to leave a lot of damage on our young generation. Previous generations did not have the exposure to this technology like we do so we can not even guess the potential impact this anonymous site may have.

Gaming Wikis

The video gaming world has become a realm that the average individual cannot likely understand. Users become completely infatuated and consumed by the world and game created for their enjoyment. There are endless gaming wikis available online for active users and even the motivated user that is interested in creating their own video game. One for example, Wikia gaming, allows the gamer to be interactive, as well gives the gamer access to Action, Adventure, Blogging,Shooters, Simulations
,Game Industry, Fighting,,and Racing Strategy. All the games are free and once the gamer is finished they have access to an active so they communicate with all of their other gamers.
Another product on the shelves that has revolutionized the game world is FPS Creator software. This software, which I read about on their wiki, is a commercial application that allows inexperienced or experienced users to efficiently make new games very quickly without any programming. The wiki describes its efficiency in saying, "FPS Creator uses a drag-and-drop system in which the user can select entities such as walls, floors, ceilings, doors and windows to create a level. This level can then be populated by entities such as furniture, desk objects, enemies, weapons and pick-ups. Light-markers can be used to place lights of which the color and range can be defined, and true light mapping has recently become available with a newly integrated tool created by the same developers." This site is ahead of its time and will lead to many new emerging video games in the future. The video game world, which was always interactive, has become even more so now that users can communicate while playing with one another and discuss the game on blogs or chats, even though users are probably living across the country. Wikis available about gaming sites allow people that are interested to quickly access information and get involved with barely any experience with the gaming world. Wikis are a fast and (at times) can be an accurate representation of efficient digital information.

Privacy Concerns Unveiled

Most of our discussions in the past months have surrounded growing criticisms of privacy issues and concerns that surround social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. While browsing through new technologies in a section of the \ (New York Times), I came across this article about a ongoing murder trial that has been followed by many twitter users inside the courtroom. This could be detrimental activity before a trial has been closed. Was this one of the intentions that twitter creators envisioned for their product?

Privacy Concerns

During class this week in New Media studies, we have been discussing the many privacy concerns that people should be aware of when using social networks and location sharing programs. I personally had never fathomed the potential ramifications for giving to much information online on my facebook page before taking this class. After reading all the class readings, I could not help but ask myself if our generation is too open with the kind of information we make public online without any consideration of the future consequences and if this "shameless attitude" will end up haunting us when we are all adults out in the business world. Although, I find location sharing to be an interesting internet technology, I have always thought that it is a little bit narcissistic. Why does our society think it is normal to be constantly concerned with where other people are? And why do people assume that other people are always worrying where they personally are? It almost seems vain to be constantly updating the status of where one is at every given moment of the day.
Privacy boundaries have started to become extremely blurry these days due to the emersion of recent internet technologies. Is internet activity ever considered a safe or private experience? The answer is no, everything can be replicated with only one click. I found it extremely alarming that even our browser history can be accessed easily. I read an article in a computer magazine discussing this invasion of privacy and how the user must disable the manager history by clearing it and using a few other tips suggested by technicians. Firefox provides a website of tips aiding any user in protecting their privacy and browser history.

(http://malektips.com/mozilla_firefox_-_security_and_privacy_help_and_tips.html)

Utilizing Facebook

For most people, signing into their own facebook is just entering their own personal and digital space but for others facebook has taken on a whole new significance. As we learned in our media class, facebook began as a social network created in 2004 for college students by a college student. Although it was made to appeal to our younger demographic, facebook has grown and transcended what people expected of a social network. Facebook is now utilized by people of all ages not just young adults and adolescents. Due to its overwhelming popularity, the site now has many applications and settings to personalize the type of experience the account owner is looking for. Some facebookers don't care who sees their information and are not concerned about the privacy aspect because they are just looking to communicate with their friends. While other social networkers or users need privacy for jobs or from family members. Some people have unique purposes for their facebook as well.

As I was looking into amazing and inspiring stories surrounding people that met over facebook and are now getting married, I came across a story of a woman that found her son that had been kidnapped over facebook. Can you imagine the technological world reuniting you with a missing child? This post (http://www.tomsguide.com/us/missing-boy-found-facebook-superpoke,news-4021.html) tells the story of a woman whose son was abducted by her husband after going to have Thanksgiving dinner with him in Hungary in 1982, 27 years ago. Avril Grube looked for her son for many years but her efforts were unsuccessful. Until her sister searched her nephew "Gavin"'s name on facebook because she was simply curious to see what would come up, Gavin Paros came up. Grube's son Gavin was now apparently 30 years old and a father himself. His father had also died in the time that had transpired. Gavin had three children and had created a facebook to reunite with his American family. Grube and Gavin were reunited before she had a stroke and entered a nursing home. I found this story to be amazing because what are the odds that a police investigation could not locate a missing child but facebook had the power to 27 years later.

I also found a facebook dedicated to finding a missing child. Although this story is a little more depressing, I could not help but be amazed that there are facebook pages dedicated to the search of missing children. There also many facebook pages remembering people that have passed since owning a facebook. In some way these pages keep their spirit alive, at least technologically they do. People can still post their thoughts and sentiments to the deceased for years to come. Some people might think its beautiful and others might think its outlandish. The medium of facebook has indirectly shaped so many aspects of life. Facebook has made it possible for a social network to find connections that people did not think were possible.

Other stories:
http://www.click2houston.com/news/23933020/detail.html

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/facebook/7045759.html

An HBO Favorite Ends Its Seventh Season

This past Sunday, September 12th, 2010, the HBO hit sitcom Entourage aired its season finale of its seventh season at 10: 30 pm following the finale of True Blood.  The popular series happened to have quite the competition, considering the 2010 Video Music Awards was also aired on this entertaining evening.   Despite this minor complication, fans still managed to tune in to catch the last episode of the season.I know I did.  Like most of this season, the finale left viewers saddened for all of their favorite characters.  It was definitely a rough season for “Vinny Chase”, the leading character of the sitcom who developed a serious relationship with a questionable celebrity and became an out of control addict.  This obvious change has not only affected Chase but the rest of his crew’s well-being as well.  We watched this season while Chase’s reputation fell apart and while Ari Gold, the show’s comedic relief, lost about everything he has worked to protect, his family and his fame in the movie industry.  What will happen next season?  Will Vinny being taking a trip to rehab or jail?  Will Ari be struggling through a rough divorce with Mrs. Gold?  Will Chase disown his brother and the rest of his friends over his love for his partying lifestyle? Only time will tell…  Fans sit with anticipation until next summer’s premiere of the eighth season.  But, the bigger question is did this season’s ratings decrease or increase?  Many fans were either delighted or disturbed by the show’s incorporation of sexuality, nudity, language, and drug use.  

 The finale brought in 2.724 million viewers Sunday according to http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/07/27/sunday-cable-ratings-true-blood-entourage-the-glades-kourtney-khloe-more/58344. I guess Entourage is not doing too shabby, just as I had hoped.