Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds can be used in many ways. Virtual game and virtual business meetings online as well as school might be many of the famous reasons why many enjoy virtual reality. Many people prefer to jack into the virtual reality because they want to escape from the chaotic reality. These players mostly are anti-social game geeks who create news avatars with altered physical appearances and identities displaying more confidence, friendliness and extroversion in the virtual world, according to Stanford Alumni Bailenson (Bailenson). This, on the other hand, can lead to low self-esteem and self-confidence unabling them to interact and communicate with actual people. In other words, virtual world affects a user’s perception of the real world that there is no place for them and lead to the inability to connect with an actual person. The idea of a life lived online outside a regular society is seemly dangerous and unhealthy. According to Dr. Takahiro Kato, a psychiatrist working at a hikikomori support center, computer addicts hikimomori, a term used to describe estimated 500,00 to one million Japanese citizen who refuse to leave their homes, displayed depressive and obsessive-compulsive tendencies (Kim). As technology advances, virtual life becomes increasingly more lifelike and is applied across a broader range of fields from entertainment to medical therapeutics nowadays. A number of global communities leaning towards virtual world also suggest that we might be ready for the futuristic virtual world similarly unrestricted by the physical constraints of the Earth. Consequently, the 21st century better known as the era of Technology is ready to jumpstart the new era of Virtual Reality.

Infinite Reality: The Dawn of the Virtual Revolution. Perf. Jeremy Bailenson. Stanford Connects. Standford Alumni Association, 9 Oct. 2014. Web. 26 May 2016.

                  Kim, Monica. "The Good and The Bad of Escaping to Virtual Reality." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 18 Feb. 2015. Web. 26 May 2016.

Creativity and New Media

This is the best example to show how creativity is fostered through media. I created my virtual me on Avakin Life. The look is not my liking because I can only design with the choices they give, but I can customize the Avatar later when the levels are up and the choices are unlocked. I was just playing before, so I never knew and thought this is the basic of creativity. I enjoyed working on this assignment although I am not good with technology and virtual worlds. This app is really great. It is good for people like me who are not familiar to hang out with people in real world. We can meet a lot of friends in the game and enjoy in the games as our second life.

Creativity

New media has impacted our lives substantially. It fosters creativity in our society in many ways. With the evolution of new media, People are able to create and collaborate together in coming up new ideas. In the article “Twitter Serves up Ideas from Its Followers”, Claire Cain Miller discusses how companies use Twitter as a tool to monitor what customers think about their products and services. As a result, the companies can use the customer's’ feedbacks to provide better customer service and generate new ideas. It is both of benefit to the customers and companies. Claire also mentions, “the Internet lets people exchange ideas easily and rapidly with large groups, and computing tools that let people design new products cheaply”. Not only the Internet fosters creativity easily and rapidly, but it also helps companies save money. With the growth of technology, practically anyone can create anything and modify it better.

Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites are very beneficial in sharing information. Twitter for example, is very satisfactory in sharing thoughts with the friends and stay up-to-date with the latest breaking news with ‘tweets’ from every corner of the world. Twitter amazes me with how a news can travel across the globe with a click of ‘retweet’ in a split second. Instagram, famous for its extensive use of hashtags, is also very much like Twitter in basing an account with followers and following. It is entirely photo and video based so we cannot upload a status without a photo or a video. The perks of using instagram, however, are its awesome filters and sharing the world through one’s eyes. Facebook, on the other hand, is complicated compared to Twitter and Instagram. Facebook has a lot of features. We can chat via Messengers, send money, advertise via a Facebook page or a link on the status, and playing games which all uplift an enormous interaction with the world. Facebook may have some privacy issues with people sharing their real information, but we can always change the privacy to ‘only me’. LinkedIn, unlike the other social networking sites, is intended for sharing one’s professional life. It is a professional network with a communication circle limited to co-workers, classmates, and anyone of professional relationship. It is a great website for jobs and internships seeker as well as employers who are looking for suitable candidates. All of these websites can have privacy issues, but they can be very beneficial if used properly. Among these sites, I use Facebook the most because not only can I share posts with intended audience and privately chat with my friends from all across the country, I can meet new friends via social gaming as well.       

Technologies

Businesses today gain many advantages from social networking. For instance, corporate recruits new employees via professional website such as LinkedIn, which is very efficient in finding jobs because it enables career seekers online to display their strengths and skills on resume. In fact, in her article, “Social Networking Technology boosts Job Recruiting”, Maureen points out that she looks for top executives on LinkedIn. It also allows people to connect with their friends and colleagues as well as endorsing and writing recommendations for their friends. Moreover, they also use Facebook and Twitter to advertise their products, which not only enhances their image by attracting the customers, but perhaps is the cheapest and the most effective way for corporates to connect with their customers and receive feedbacks from them via their tweets and Facebook statuses. Although benefits of social networking and social media marketing are significant, it also has a ‘dark side’. In USA Today article, “Viewpoint: Why Social Media is Destroying our Social Skills” by Jasmine Fowlkes, there is evidence that in today’s society social media interaction dominates both online and offline conversations. Students and young adults nowadays prefer facebooking, tweeting, and texting to face-to-face conversation. They would only be able to express themselves on social media and would be lack in interpersonal communication with people around them, which can, in fact, lead to their loss of self-esteem and self-confidence in the real world. Technology is constantly evolving and so is communication. People will prefer to catch up with this ever-evolving world with instant updates and statuses on social media than prolonged face-to-face chats.       

Blogs VS Wikis

Blogs are usually web pages and websites by an individual writer to portray his own perspectives to his audience and get feedback through the comments left by them. Blogs can be used for collaboration where people with similar interests share their opinions. Multiples viewers give feedbacks on blogs by leave comments and respond to comments. Wikis, on the other hand, are websites that allows people to collaboratively edit on theirs contents. Wikis have multiple authors; can be edited and made changes. They are for group efforts to cooperate and share information. Wikis provide a sense of convergence and collaboration that can be seen as beneficial to the information provided. They are intended for according information while blogs are based on communications between people of different places and preferences. To put it bluntly, wikis are facts sharing whereas blogs are opinions sharing.

Ezra Goodnoe discusses the rise of Wikis in corporations in her article "How to Use Wikis for Business”. She states that, “Thanks to the Web, and networks in general, the cost of publishing and sharing information has diminished substantially — which makes wikis the killer app for corporations.” Her statement shows how effective websites like wikis can be. For instance, employees participate in information sharing on wikis and blogs which generates an interactive platform for community and creativity across the entire company. Wikis is extremely beneficial to a company that has international business because it provides an easy way to have ideas presented  anywhere instantaneously at anytime, which promotes a sense of convergence. Thus, potential uses for wikis not only give easy access to information, but also create a more organized and interactive organizational culture in businesses.

In his article “Brooklyn Blog Helps Lead to Drug Raid”, Michael Wilson writes how much of an impact a blog could make. The article is about where neighbors blog about their neighborhood. Someone started blogging about drug activity in their neighborhood which lead to another person commenting on the blog, which consequently lead to a conversation. Eventually, they were arrested and brought to justice with a drug bust in the neighborhood. In short, a post on a blog enable authorities to put a stop to the crimes.

Description

This project is to analyze whether social networking is better or worse than the real thing. Social networking has become such a big part of our daily life. However, there are many pros and cons that affect society physically and mentally depending on how people use it. I am going to analyze how social networking has evolved and how it can affect the way we communicate, interact, and live. I am mainly focusing on both the positive and negative effects of social networking, and demonstrate which one weighs more.