Social Capital...

Social Capital can relate to a lot of different things but when you relate it to the new media it means how you can connect with so many other people and use new media as a resource to reach out to these people. This according to my research enables you to reach out a lot more than if you didn't use the web at all. Through emails and even website now such as this one, even some MMOG's on the internet help you reach out to other people that maybe you haven't even met. Now the web even has job applications. Through Monster. com you can post your resime on their for a job that you want and possibly get one. From the reading "evaluating the social and cultural implications of the internet", I've found that the internet can offer a lot more than people usually think about. From the article I've found that it can let you govern yourself, think outloudly for yourself, educate others about things as well as educate ourselves. There is so much more but reaching out there to the unknown or at least the unknown society of web users we can gain so much more. 

The social capital in my life alone I've gained a lot from. Facebook to me is the biggest social capitalistic source there is on the internet. I've gained a lot of friends and more importantly kept in touch with a lot more of them more frequently. I think that Facebook is genious even though some people use it way too much. On facebook I've got a lot of friends and I keep in touch with a lot of them and they can see what I'm up too. If it wasn't for facebook I don't think I would keep in touch with them as much. This last summer I actually contacted one of my alumni from facebook and I was looking for a job and he offered it to me and now thats where I'm at, happy and honest work. 

Social capital has a lot to do with interpersonal relationships. If it wasn't for social capital and being in touch with as many people I don't think social capital would even exist. We gain a lot from the resources that we find through others, such as advice, new reads, and other important news. I found out that my brother was engaged before he even called me from Facebook. Social Capital has gained me a lot of opportunities and I think that it helps with networking people even in the job area. At my work we communicate through a program that allows us to email our corporate office back and forth if we have questions or whatever we need. I think for interpersonal relationships this helps out a lot and it directly keeps us in touch with one another all the time. Social Capital enables connectivity and communication between people, without this then I think that interpersonal relationships would suffer and that many people would lose gaining resources that they could have through this. 

Privacy and Technology...

Privacy to me lately has a hard description. Almost anything related to new media has no or little privacy on it. Following this last week of watching all the presentations the people that had video's on one girl's facebook profile even though she was an Ivy League graduate, really had surprised me that jobs wouldn't give her a job. I think that if you work hard and get your work out of the way than anyone should be able to have a good time. Some of pictures I found didn't really have anything too shocking, maybe partying or out in the sun on the beach, but I think that most employers have to realize that they were a kid once too and they need to understand that college is fun too. College if you just sat there and studied all the time and slept at night, I think that you would go crazy people need to get out and relax every once in awhile to clear the mind and clear up some unwanted stress from College usually. College in general people need to have some fun because afterwards you grow up have kids and get married and responsibility comes knocking at your door. Marx stated in his article many reasons that privacy is important, but the one that I found to be the most unique was, " The ability to control information about the self is linked to the dignity of the individual, self-respect and the sense of personhood. Self-presentations and back-stage behavior are dependent on such control". I totally agree with this statement because even though someone may party or relax and have pictures of them posted on the internet, I think that it doesn't say too much about their character and their work ethic. I have many pictures on my facebook that I want to actually get rid of now before I graduate, but truthfully you can find anything from a google search on the internet now-a-days. Privacy should be upheld that is why some of the new media technology that I've been reading about with ubiquitous computing may make privacy much less aparent to yourself or others. I believe that everyone should have right to privacy but if it is necessary such as a missing person, drug abuser, murderer, or any other criminal form that privacy should be taken. I think that the sex offenders website is a good site for the public, it posts all of the sex offenders in your area and I think knowing the kind of neighborhood your going to move into whether your a college student or someone who's trying to raise a family makes you more aware of your surroundings. 

How does this relate to interpersonal relationships? I think that privacy is important to interpersonal relationships because they should be private. For all you know someone could be reading you so called private conversation with the other person. One of my friend's bought his girlfriend a phone and paid the bills on it and came to find out that he could read the text messages that were being sent from the dealer's website. He eventually came to find out that she was cheating on him and he dumped her. To me, I'm glad that he found out but that simple example goes to show that no one is safe out there and anything can be found at any time in the world wide web. 

Ubiquitous Computing...

Ubiquitous computing regers to a new genre of compuing in which the computer completely permeates the life of the use. Ubiquitous computers according to the readings is described as an invisible force, assisting the user in meeting a person's needs without getting in the way of thinking about doing something. There are four necessary elements needs to make it happen are Nanotechnology, Wireless Computing, Context Awareness, and Natural Interaction.

Nanotechnology is the trend that is focusing on the miniturization of computer components down to an atomic scale is known as nanotechnology. This is the future of computing and new media in general, such as the Ipod, now the Ipod Nano came out it is really conveniant for people when they are working out and at work, its small, also some cell phones have changed to be smaller but I don't necessarily feel like they are more usefull than a regular sized cell phone but now a days I don't think there is a regular size, but comparable to the first cell phone aka the "brick". The Wireless Computer element lets people use new technology without the complications of cords, such as wireless keyboards. There is also wireless controllers now for video game consoles such as the Xbox and Wii. Context Awareness is the awareness of a users current situation, say that you had a chip in your head and you were getting hungry and wanted to know where the closest restaurant is, then without even having to go through the trouble an address pops in your head. Or you were looking for a movie time on a date, then you could now all the closest theatres to your location and the times of movies. Natural Interaction is hard to explain but its the element that engages us into computing, such as being able to type your thoughts on a computer without actually typing. According to the readings, Donald Norma, a well known reaseacher in human-computer interaction, once said that he doesn't want a word-processor, he wnats a letter writer-seomthing that will allow him to get the job done writing a letter, wihtout the instrument getting the way. Ubiquitous computing could either be your best friend or your worst enemy, I think that its an invasion of privacy but it can also help you out when you need it, its a double edged sword because at the time your computer can know just as much about you as you know about yourself. 

How this relates to interpersonal relationships, is that it could mean the future for communicating over the internet. For one text messaging wasn't big until the late 90's but that is wireless communication over a server that you don't have to type in say AOL chat rooms or Facebook Messenger. It can also hurt you though as well, say you had a psycho ex-girlfriend or a psycho ex-boyfriend that wanted to find where you were at and stalk you they could just hack into your system of thinking and find where you are. If this was to ever happen there would have to be massive security on this to save everyone's privacy. In the reading one the reason's that privacy is important is because, " The ability to control information about the self is linked to the dignity of the individual, self-respected, and the sense of personhood. Self Presentaitons and backstage behavior are dependent on such control". This is a reason why I don't think that ubiquitous computing would ever benefit interpersonal relationships, I think they would ruin them because you would do actions you wouldn't normally do because of it and morals and personal character is something that computers and new media can't give you. 

Digital Division....

Digital Division is a complicated thing. There were many different cases that we read in class that can review all of the things that can be related to digital division. Digital division to most people is the trouble with accessing the computer and the connectivity of all the computer has to offer. The computer in general can be a tough thing to follow I would assume that learning on the computer and having trouble with access of everything and anything on the computer will never be solved. From the readings of Warschauer he doesn't agree with the definition of  the digital divide because truthfully there is a lot more problems to deal with than just access of a computer and using all of its applications. For one the most important thing I think is the fact that even if you had all the tools to access the computer and every application in the world, you have to have some education on how to use them. There is also a language barrier, the world's most common language for the computer is English, in other countries such as China or France may have no problem, but the underpriveled countries would have to learn a whole other language to even start a computer and sign in. There is also the problem of the cost of broadband vs. dial up. Cost is one thing but like in the case of New Dehli, they only could use dial-up, there is way more access involved with Broadband, faster downloads for one and most sites now you need to have broadband to access them. There is the case of total cost which plays into most of it, everything you do now-a-days costs you money in one way or another from driving your car to wearing shoes on your feet. Driving your car because it runs on gas and gas is ridiculous, then wearing shoes even, they will eventually wear out not matter what unless you change shoes everyday, I have close to 20 pairs of shoes and they wear out on the soles. A computer is expensive from the cost of repairs to buying applications for the computer as well as internet access, today the access is the expensive for the faster you want your computer to be. There's a lot more to digital division than even the words that I've put down, and I think that there always will be. 

How this relates to interpersonal relationships, digital division can even divide relationships. Say you have a significant other in another country, where access is minimal, it would be hard to communicate with the other and the only way you could do this is over the computer, phone calls are way to expensive, the cost of a computer is probably way too expensive over seas. Over seas as well in some areas there probably not much broad band as well as there is in America. Digital Division in a way almost helps personal communication, because if we didn't have computers or had trouble accessing the computer and all its applications say the internet where people mostly communicate now with Twitter, Facebook, etc. then people would be forced to communicate with each other in person, well at least talk on the phone instread of the internet.

Phishing and Netiquette....

Phishing and Netiquette are both different terms that my tech talk team and I discussed during our tech talk. Phishing is a concept that is the same as "Fishing" except in technology terms. Fishing you usually use bait to catch the fish well the same concept applies, you are the fish and emails/ identity theft are the bait. Phishing is the stealing of funds and identity through cyber space. Usually most of these messages may come as an e-mail or a message in chat room even. For example, the most common one I've heard of is AOL, AOL is famous for their chat rooms and online instant messaging, so if someone was to come into a chat room a "Phisher" would act as an Administrator from AOL asking for money or else the service will shut down. If this happens they may ask for your credit card number/ social security number/ or maybe even a home address. You should always do background checks before you just hand your identity over. Most recently it’s been happening through online banking, I've gotten e-mails from countless people acting like they are from a bank I haven't even heard of claiming that I am a member at my bank. The dumb thing to do would be to hand over my social security number and let them take care of it. Most of the hits are usually through TAX season now more than ever, some may send emails posing as the IRS asking for personal bank/social security information because they believe that you messed up on something in your taxes. You always have to watch, some forms come in through donations, an email will come out asking for money to help out with a donation to help a kid come over from Europe or somewhere in Africa or Asia and it will ask you to please help donate. You always have to do background checks on everything now, I mean it’s not to say that you can be greedy or what not but identity is not safe anymore even on the computer/ internet. Doing my research on both of these can help damage your life, so be careful.Netiquette is something totally different; netiquette comes from the word etiquette, which is a social behavior basically how you portray yourself to society. After searching the web and reading some things and watching TV clips on netiquette it’s very important. Netiquette now-a-days could mean a lot of different things such as how you get a job or even into school somewhere. I know for a fact that a lot of jobs can do background checks and they can go and see how you are in your personal life. Anything you post anymore is really up in the air on the internet for anyone to post now-a-days. A picture from college days might cost you a job in the long run. It good to have netiquette because anything out there can ruin you. For instance in class we talked about some instances with privacy, I believe that a good example of netiquette is Michael Phelps and his incident that cost him some sponsors, everything now a days with media I believe lets people know you as well as you know yourself.

MMOG...

MMOG is a virtual world/multi player game where people can go in as avatars into a whole new world. MMOG's are getting more and more popular with the new game World of War Craft or WOW as many call it. WOW involves you making up a mythical creature who you play in this world where it is a multi player three dimensional game. I have seen people playing WOW a lot and I haven't really grasped why the game is so addicting. I think that many poeple thrive on the fact that you are in a whole other world and you can recreate yourself in the game. MMOG's can help support thousands and thousands of people. I did some research into MMOG's and now many new game consoles for new media have capabilities of MMOG's. Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, and other consoles now-a-days are using like capabilities involving the internet to play other people around the world. Now-a-days you can play basketball or sporting games with someone from another country as long as they have an internet connection. MMOG's involve avatars, mythical creatures, virtual worlds, and other things you won't see in real life. Avatar's can be mythical creatures to a basketball player you create. Many of these video systems use VOIP to help players communicate through the MMOG. This will help friends at their own homes play games together, or help you interact with other players around the world in games such as HALO or WOW.
How does this all relate to interpersonal relationships? MMOG's is a place where even though you may not be in the game and talking to someone as an avatar, you kind of are. Now- a-days game systems such as the XBOX 360 and some computer games have microphones set up so you have the opportunity to talk to other people with in the game that you are playing. I believe that the game is the world is totally different and even through MMOG's you can't still really have interpersonal relationships. Interpersonal relationships should be communication in person between people, being on a game console or in a virtual world where everything is mythical and unreal can't really be an honest relationship between one another. I mean who knows maybe people communicate better in MMOG's then they do in real life, maybe some people have actually met the real person behind the avatar depiction of themselves you never know. MMOG's I feel can hurt and help interpersonal relationship, if an individual has social problems or is shy then yes that can help them build social skills, but if a person does choose to hide behind the computer or tv screen then it would not help as much. From what I got from the readings about this it seems like this is an alternative for people who want to escape reality and I don't believe that this is such a bad thing all the time necessarily because lets be honest if you had the chance to escape from your life for one day, who wouldn't take it?

Goldfarming...

Gold farming to me is wrong. I think it is cheating and I don't really believe it is healthy for the people on the other side of it. I mean the actual workers in Gold farming. Gold farming from what I got from it is paying money to get along in video games. I am personally not a big video game fan, I was always a sports person. The one game I did play as a kid was Zelda on Nintendo 64, which is the best game ever, and I found myself playing it for hours upon hours. I would sit in front of the TV constantly playing this game even at night at times I wouldn't go to bed because I wanted to keep playing this game. It is a one player game and you keep advancing through the levels until your character, Link, would grow up. I would consider Link the avatar of the game which you control. The outcome of the game is making him stronger and completing tasks or levels to advance and finally you come to the end and beat it. When I think about it I wouldn't use gold farming to help me out in this game at all really. I don't think that I would personally want to. I am just one of those people that likes to take the task at hand and do whatever I can to accomplish the task. I don't think that at the end of game I would feel that I would accomplish that much from the game if I paid some one in like Europe or Asia to help me advance in the game. Maybe it just depends on the game but I think most video game users play to feel a sense of accomplishment. I don't know I think its almost desperate to pay someone to help you advance in the game. I thought that the last tech talk when they used clips from south park was genius but at the same time when you saw that, what if the south park characters had used gold farming to help them advance in world of war craft? Would this have been as great of an episode, would cartman and the crew have felt a sense of accomplishment? I really don't think so.
I think that gold farming is a lot like sweatshops almost. The sweatshops have unfit conditions and the workers do not get paid enough for their work. In the clips that Annie showed I felt the same way about them because the conditions were crammed and they literally would be working all day and all night to meet the buyers demand. I mean the workers may seem like they are having fun for playing games but at the end the only one who gets any benefit from it is the boss of the gold farm. From watching the video's that Annie showed us I don't think that the workers seemed very happy and I don't think I would be either playing a game for someone else that I know I could win in my sleep. Goldfarming according to the readings and the video's that we watched in class and some that I watched on my own time, have many social and ethical issues. One the social issue that I find the most with the research that I've done is in direct relation to sweat shops. Now sweat shops are working long days getting paid way under minimum balance and being forced to work basically. Goldfarming involves workers playing video games for money to help out these goldfarmers who pay them to advance the goldfarmers character on an MMOG. After seeing these viedo's I couldn't believe that these workers had worked under some of the conditions that they did. I'm sure that the work was fun but obviously the only one who was benefiting from this at all was the boss who mangaged the goldfarming operation. The boss can call it quits whenever he wants and leave all of his workers without jobs. Some of the shots from the videos I've seen seemed like the workers were working all day and were either in a cramped appartment or a cramped office space like cubicals that they just grinded on playing games and making money for the boss. I find it very similar to sweat shops in that the workers are getting paid unfairly and the work conditions in which they work in. 
How does this relate to personal relationships? Well obviously the gold farmer's workers don't really get out that much and they live in the game day to day. They are different people and different avatar's all the time. I think it would be extremely hard to have a social life when you are sitting at a computer all the time. For some people their lives are embezzled in their avatar's and to me I think that you should be happy with who you are, but whatever floats your boat I guess. I don't really see the value in trying to be some one your not. As for gold farmer's I don't really see the value for you getting paid horribly for playing video games all day everyday. No wonder there are so many exercise commercials on TV for people not to be lazy anymore, because obviously media is trying to tell you not to consume so much.

Interpersonal Relationships...

Interpersonal relationships to me are being ruined by some new media. From the personal conversation that people used to have with each other is being overtaken by such things as text messages and internet chatting. I think the lately ever since text messaging came out it has been the worst. I don't think many use the phone or in person communication as much anymore at all. I can see the use in the feature on your phones but now people don't talk on the phone or in person as much. I guess in some ways if you have something to get across to another person really quick and straight to the point that text messaging would be useful. Also if someone was deaf or blind that text messages would be the way to communicate. I think personally that text messaging is a great invention I mean I do like person to person communication but text messaging takes the 4 hour long conversations out of the mix when you just want to get something across. According to Bujega, inter personal relationships are being ruined by new media technology. New media technology according to Bujega's piece in the reading comes from not being able to see the emotion and character of a person when they are saying something or trying to express something to the person inside the conversation. Bugeja argued that social networking sites are almost like death to interpersonal communication. He also stated that people are so engulfed in new media and web2.0 that they begin to confuse it with real life. For Bujega, face to face interaction in place-based community is the source of individual moral development and social well-being. 
The other thing is chatting online either in chat rooms or in instant messages. I am not gonna lie I use facebook chat a lot and agree that it is pretty useful ever since they added it to there site but I find now that I'm sitting at the computer on facebook twice as long as I should be. I think that this is useful to people with disabilities. I think that Americans or even people around the world now since facebook has expanded are taking too much time to communicate through new media rather than face to face or even letters anymore. I think that new media is making it almost easier for people to communicate but it does take away from personal communication between people. It might be easier with people who have social skills to communicate and get their feelings and emotions out from new media such as chat rooms,text messaging, blogging or even instant messanger, but the emotion sometimes is almost unrecognizable. Sure you can put little emoticon's and stuff but sometimes your feelings and emotions can be misread through the new media. I mean can honestly anyone say that they can tell someone's emotion at the time through a screen? Maybe its just me but I honestly can't and thats when personal communication can be better than just something you read from a screen.