There are many different forms of blogs with a different target audience. It is important to understand who you are directing your blog at otherwise it will be lost for no one to see. In this instant, my blogging posts will be critical and analytical rather than a dreary problem page where an agony aunt is awaiting.
Within Digital Culture i will attempt to explore and explain the good and the bad involved in the many mediums.When a new medium is born, a dark side to that medium is also born which has the capability to be detrimental to society as a whole such as Facebook or the constant hound of consumerism through advertisements which invade our everyday life. I feel that with blogging there is more room to scrutinize with certain world events where as with an news organization there will inevitably more restrictions on what you can and can't report.
Blogging as a whole can provide a independent and more free analysis of events and news around the world, as opposed to an organization such as the BBC or ITV who adhere to Association press. It gives you a much broader spectrum to write about as opposed too a biased news report about how we are winning the wars and depicts the civilians as joyous. This is incongruent as they are being killed and hounded by NATO bombs everyday along with the infrastructures of their country's being destroyed for years on end.
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Thursday, 27 October 2011
Friday, 14 October 2011
Why study digital culture?
In this day and age digital culture is a very important topic to study as it is important to study the impacts of digital culture on our society as a whole. Are the new mediums a good thing or should they approached with caution? Within just over decade digital culture has transformed from the cold dingy room of a press office, and has transformed into many mediums. Currently there are many different forms of media which includes blogging, podcasting, Twitter and Facebook to name a few. It is thought that by 2015 there will around 15 billion people globally connected via Electronic devices, a scary thought.
Social networking is having a major influence on digital culture and it seems to have the ability to mould society without even trying. Social networking has now become entwined into everyday life with the average user spending approximately 6 hours a month on Facebook. My opinion is that this figure is actually much higher, as in my own experience i know tens of people that spend the majority of the day on it. A lot of people say they don't even know why they are on there, because a lot of the time there is nothing to do and just end up trawling through pages endlessly. Just think of what could off been achieved within that time frame. The question we should ask is, are social network sites creating a new love affair and addiction and does it affect the way in which we interact with social groups?
Currently there are around 687 million registered users of Facebook worldwide but the Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg doesn't think that’s enough and aims to have 1 billion registered users. The larger the database, the larger the income revenue will be, as company's will be willing to pay more for advertising and your personal data. In the past year, on average, it has grown by 20m a month, although analysts say that this number is steadily declining in the west. A spokeswoman for Facebook said: "We are very pleased with our growth and with the way people are engaged with Facebook. More than 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day." This to me sounds like a new addiction where the users have to get their fix everyday.
Over the past few years i myself have witnessed how Facebook has influenced how the social circle of friends interact on Facebook. From personal experience it seems like it is mainly effecting the current generation of teens and it would seem each social circle will act differently to the next one. For example for some unbeknown reason there is a trend for young women at the moment to take pictures of their friends on the toilet. Goodbye morals. I can't see the month through without seeing at least one of these pictures surface on my feed. It would seem that self respect is slowly being worn away, not caring if the whole world can click on their profile and see them urinating. Are you confused because I am. It's as if no one wants privacy anymore and Facebook endorses it. When did the right for privacy disappear? Even if you wanted that picture not to appear on the site, you don't really have any choice in the matter, if your friend decides that they want to upload it then they will, what's stopping them? It's not very feasible to expect someone to contact the Facebook team and demand they take it down from the friends photos, it just wouldn't happen with the majority. Again, where has privacy gone?
Studying digital culture is pivotal because along with other issues, it essentially has the possibility of digressing culture through the use of manipulation. With the likes of Facebook and Bebo etc, there is a constant live feed from people's lives and a log of what they are doing. It's more or a less a socially accepted spying tool used by the masses or a big stage full off bad actors performing. People constantly update their photos and status's which in turn influences the audience because, not everyone is as confident as they say they are and this feeds their paranoia about themselves. So what we end up with is a social circle of sheep’s where the majority of people do the same thing. It's pretty hard to see an individual picture these days. Picture on the toilet anyone? Of course this is really about being accepted by the world and your friends which is fine but then again would people be as paranoid about their image if it wasn't there in the first place? This is a dangerous road as individuality and identity could be lost.
As well as this Facebook has the potential to increase jealousy and again paranoia. In 2009, the journal CyberPsychology & Behaviour published results from research into relationships and the impact from social networking. It conclusively found out that it does increase jealousy. This is because partners are more likely to get paranoid from there partner talking to people from previous relationships. Amy Muise from the study says “Ambiguous scenes involving a partner and contact with past romantic and sexual partners are among the common triggers of jealousy in romantic relationships, and these ambiguous scenes are a regular occurrence on Facebook. This is just one reason why having access to personal information can be dangerous. If you new everyone's thoughts you'd probably hate everyone.
Another interesting thought is looking at how social networking effects a person's education. Looking back at my educational life and even right now, i know that I have been distracted at times, which ends up with no work or a incoherent piece of writing. The Telegraph said "Researchers at Ohio State University found that a majority of American students who used Facebook every day were underachieving by as much as an entire grade compared with those who did not use the site". A researcher from the University was stated as saying "Our study shows people who spend more time on Facebook spend less time studying,". I highly doubt Newton would of discovered gravity or calculus if he had been checking Robert Hooke's status.
I understand that digital culture is a very important advancement in humans and it will undoubtedly be around for a long time which is a good thing, but at the same time we need to analyse and truly understand some of the detrimental aspects of it such as social networking.
Social networking is having a major influence on digital culture and it seems to have the ability to mould society without even trying. Social networking has now become entwined into everyday life with the average user spending approximately 6 hours a month on Facebook. My opinion is that this figure is actually much higher, as in my own experience i know tens of people that spend the majority of the day on it. A lot of people say they don't even know why they are on there, because a lot of the time there is nothing to do and just end up trawling through pages endlessly. Just think of what could off been achieved within that time frame. The question we should ask is, are social network sites creating a new love affair and addiction and does it affect the way in which we interact with social groups?
Currently there are around 687 million registered users of Facebook worldwide but the Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg doesn't think that’s enough and aims to have 1 billion registered users. The larger the database, the larger the income revenue will be, as company's will be willing to pay more for advertising and your personal data. In the past year, on average, it has grown by 20m a month, although analysts say that this number is steadily declining in the west. A spokeswoman for Facebook said: "We are very pleased with our growth and with the way people are engaged with Facebook. More than 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day." This to me sounds like a new addiction where the users have to get their fix everyday.
Over the past few years i myself have witnessed how Facebook has influenced how the social circle of friends interact on Facebook. From personal experience it seems like it is mainly effecting the current generation of teens and it would seem each social circle will act differently to the next one. For example for some unbeknown reason there is a trend for young women at the moment to take pictures of their friends on the toilet. Goodbye morals. I can't see the month through without seeing at least one of these pictures surface on my feed. It would seem that self respect is slowly being worn away, not caring if the whole world can click on their profile and see them urinating. Are you confused because I am. It's as if no one wants privacy anymore and Facebook endorses it. When did the right for privacy disappear? Even if you wanted that picture not to appear on the site, you don't really have any choice in the matter, if your friend decides that they want to upload it then they will, what's stopping them? It's not very feasible to expect someone to contact the Facebook team and demand they take it down from the friends photos, it just wouldn't happen with the majority. Again, where has privacy gone?
Studying digital culture is pivotal because along with other issues, it essentially has the possibility of digressing culture through the use of manipulation. With the likes of Facebook and Bebo etc, there is a constant live feed from people's lives and a log of what they are doing. It's more or a less a socially accepted spying tool used by the masses or a big stage full off bad actors performing. People constantly update their photos and status's which in turn influences the audience because, not everyone is as confident as they say they are and this feeds their paranoia about themselves. So what we end up with is a social circle of sheep’s where the majority of people do the same thing. It's pretty hard to see an individual picture these days. Picture on the toilet anyone? Of course this is really about being accepted by the world and your friends which is fine but then again would people be as paranoid about their image if it wasn't there in the first place? This is a dangerous road as individuality and identity could be lost.
As well as this Facebook has the potential to increase jealousy and again paranoia. In 2009, the journal CyberPsychology & Behaviour published results from research into relationships and the impact from social networking. It conclusively found out that it does increase jealousy. This is because partners are more likely to get paranoid from there partner talking to people from previous relationships. Amy Muise from the study says “Ambiguous scenes involving a partner and contact with past romantic and sexual partners are among the common triggers of jealousy in romantic relationships, and these ambiguous scenes are a regular occurrence on Facebook. This is just one reason why having access to personal information can be dangerous. If you new everyone's thoughts you'd probably hate everyone.
Another interesting thought is looking at how social networking effects a person's education. Looking back at my educational life and even right now, i know that I have been distracted at times, which ends up with no work or a incoherent piece of writing. The Telegraph said "Researchers at Ohio State University found that a majority of American students who used Facebook every day were underachieving by as much as an entire grade compared with those who did not use the site". A researcher from the University was stated as saying "Our study shows people who spend more time on Facebook spend less time studying,". I highly doubt Newton would of discovered gravity or calculus if he had been checking Robert Hooke's status.
I understand that digital culture is a very important advancement in humans and it will undoubtedly be around for a long time which is a good thing, but at the same time we need to analyse and truly understand some of the detrimental aspects of it such as social networking.
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