Research Plan

1. Familiarize yourself with the topic
My topic: Why do we feel the need to be someone we are not on the internet?

2. Identify some questions
-Why are people going on sites such as myspace and facebook and posing as someone they aren’t?
-What types of people (age groups) are being attracted to these websites? And what is it about the site that attracts them and makes them want to open up?
-Is there a thrill do it? Do they get something out of it?
-Are these people posing as different genders? Different age groups? Different Interests?
-What are the dangers?
-Are young children revealing too much about themselves on the internet and allowing pedophiles to find them much easier?
-Are people more outspoken on the internet then they are in real life?
-Can people open up more and reveal personal issues on the internet that they can’t share in the real world?
-Do people have more friends on the internet than they have in real life?
-How are people presenting themselves on the internet? (How do they dress, who are their friends, what are they doing in their pictures, what do they say about themselves in subject categories?)

3. Decide what you need to know to answer your research question:
I need to find websites that offer information on people being more outspoken on the internet. I need to maybe talk to people or survey people to see how they feel about the subject and maybe get anonymous information about who these people are. I probably need to go on MySpace and Facebook and similar sites to see how people are using these sites and how people allow these sites to control their lives and how people view them on the internet. Perhaps I can find some news articles that relate to the dangers of people posing as different genders or ages on the internet. I need to find chat rooms or forums where people discuss their feelings about opening up on the internet. I can also relate what I know from personal experience.

4. Formulate a research plan that includes:
Detailed statements of your research questions:
Statement of purpose(what you hope to show/discover)
List of the information you need to gather
Preliminary list of sources
http://abcnews.go.com/technology/story?id=4272721&page=1
Maintaining multiple personalities online…abcnews.com
http://animeost.new/f205/do-people-have-different-personality-internet-31789/index3.html
Blog site; feedback on people explaining their feelings about having multiple personalities online and being more outgoing/outspoken
http://www.fbbook.com/fblog/category/from-the-book/your-story/
Website/blog based on a book written about the effects of facebook, the blog has people
Sharing their personal stories and feedback on how they related to what they read in the book, some very interesting points are made based on what I’ve experienced myself on this website and feelings that I’ve heard other people express about the website itself.

Plan for gathering your information
-Find sites on the internet that hopefully explain people’s desire to be someone they aren’t on the internet

Blog 5: Web Essay Topic Info

Before I started my researching I was stuck between two topics. Thank you to those who commented on my subject; from that I was able to narrow it down a little more easily! 

The topic I chose is the concept of how the internet or cyberspace is taking over our lives. Everything that we do, we do, or can do, online. In my essay I want to explore the different avenues of what we can do on the internet and just how much it effects our everyday lives. 

For example: Communication (email, instant messaging, facebook, myspace...); Daily Chores (shopping, groceries, ordering dinner, develop pictures, refill prescriptions...) 

I of course will narrow that down a little bit more when the time comes but those are currently my ideas for my essay. In class we did Exercise one on page 19 of Johnson-Eilola. 

Just a few of the things I found

http://www.fbbook.com/fblog/category/from-the-book/you-story/

 This website is actually a blog for a book that a person wrote about facebook and how our lives are very consumed by facebook. I found some very interesting information on the blog because someone made a post talking about relationships. She makes mention that a breakup is not official until you change your status on facebook. I don't know about anyone else but I know this is an on going joke between my friends and I. We feel the exact same way, once you change you facebook status, everyone starts becoming so concerned about your life. 

the second website i found was for Information Week, Defining the Business Value of Technology

http://www.informationweek.com/showarticle.jhtml?articleID=196902629

on this site I found an article that talks about how Americans are spending too much time on the internet. The header of the article is "Report reveals 65% of U.S are spending more time with their computers than with their significant others." It goes on to give a few more facts about our internet usage and so on, but I felt that that quote alone was very significant for my research. 

The third site I found was actually a site for Parents, 

http://parenting.families.com/blog/do-you-kids-spend-too-much-time-online

there was an article on the site asking if Parents felt that their children spend too much time on the internet. The site offers information to parents to regulate their child's usage of the internet as well as ways to protect them. A very interesting fact, though I'm not sure I'll use it, was this: "80% of the parents reported that their kids grades had not gone up or down with their child's internet usage" and "Americans 66 and older remain the most disconnected. For all other age groups at least 74% are online with the largest concentration(99%) being those who are 18 and under"

I'm still in the process of developing my idea and researching some more for it. Dr. Chandler and I have discussed me polling some of my friends, family and university students to get their opinions and internet usage patterns. If anyone has any comments or suggestions please leave them, I'd very much appreciate it!

Blog 4: McCloud

Are humans really a self-centered race? Scott McCloud seems to think so, and I think I agree with him! In his work, The Vocabulary of Comics, which is basically a comic strip, McCloud uses a series of pictures and symbols and compares them to humans to show us that we can be very self centered individuals and also that not everything is what it seems.  

In the beginning of his comic, he has the narrator explaining to us that what we are looking at (a pipe) is not actually a pipe, nor is it a painting of a pipe or a picture of a pipe. It is a copy of a picture of a pipe. The point McCloud was trying to make is that not everything is what it seems. Just because we see a picture of a hamburger doesn't mean it's actually a hamburger, it is simply a symbol or a representation of the real thing. 

He next shows is pictures of faces some of which are cartoon characters that we know very well. He shows us that we see ourselves in these characters because they have human characteristics. For example, When we see a picture of Charlie Brown, we don't really see a cartoon character, we see a little boy in a yellow shirt. McCloud calls us a self centered race because we put ourselves in everything that we do. He later shows us a picture of an electrical outlet which is basically a representation of a face (this is where he states "we humans are a self centered race") .

I very much have to agree with all of the ideas that McCloud presented. I think humans are indeed a very self centered race. I also now realize after reading this what he meant about symbols and that not everything is what we think it is. I'm sure its a concept that I've always known was true but just something I never really thought about. 

Free Writing for Cyberspace Project

What do I do in my spare time?: In my spare time I work a lot. Especially on the weekends, I work at Coach in Bridgewater mall. When I'm not working I spend a lot of time with my boyfriend Mike. Mike and I like to go to the bars in New Brunswick with our friends. We also enjoy staying home and watching movies or just relaxing. I love reading, reading is probably my favorite thing to do. I love books, I collect them and re-read them as often as possible. I do used to enjoy going on the computer a lot, on websites such as MySpace and Facebook, I'd check my email a few times a day and sit online instant messaging my friends. I no longer enjoy doing these things, they have become a bore to me. I still check my email about once or twice a day and every so often talk with friends and log onto Facebook.

What Ideas Interest Me?: Something that interests me the most that I'd like to write about for my cyberspace project is the idea that the internet is controlling our lives. As I said earlier, I no longer enjoy spending a lot of time on the computer, browsing the internet and interacting with people online. Don't get my wrong I'm not a big phone person. I don't love talking on the phone, I'd rather send a text message or an email. But I don't understand why people are using the internet and allowing it to take over their lives. People pruchase their groceries online, they can create a whole new persona for themselves on the internet.

What Do You Plan to Do With Your Education: Although I am currently an English/Special Education major, I think my main topic of interest is actually speech therapy. I would love to work with children who are deaf or have a speech impediment. I want to help those children learn the tools they need for communication with others. I wouldn't mind being a teacher, after all that is what I'm going to college for but I feel like I can do so much more to help people,especially young children.

Topics Discussed in class:

Digital Literacy

Properties of digital spaces: Immersion Remediation Hypermediacy

Global Villages

Virtual Realities- telepresence

Cyberspace can make things happen in the real world

Smart Mobs

Computers are taking over our lives ***My Topic for Cyberspace Project

Contagion-Viruses

Fan Fiction

Potter Wars

Copyright Issues-Intellectual Property

Why is fan fiction "illegal" while satire is not?

Emergent properties-what makes many independent being act as if they are a single organism

New ways to use launguae-digital writing as more like talk than talk is talk

New Ways to use images "visual rhetorics"

How do interest groups find/form each other on the internet?

Brainstorming for project:

Poll people from different age groups such as

ages 13-18

ages 18-25

ages 25-40

ages 40 and up

-how often do these groups of people use the internet

-how do the older generations feel about the use of the internet as a whole

-why is it so important that we are constantly attached to our computers

-what types of things are these age groups using the computer for? (myspace, facebook, shopping:groceries, clothing, appliances,etc...emailing, chat rooms, cooking tips ...)

-do any of these people go on the internet to feel like they belong? Do any of them belong to networks that allow them to interact with other people?)

-While on the internet do you feel as though you can be someone you are not, more outspoke...more outspoken, another gender, another age

Blog 3:Summary of Rheingold

Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs:The Power of the Mobile Many was probably one of my favorite articles we've read so far this semester. Rheingold discusses how something as simple as an email or a text message can become something so complex. In the beginning of his essay he discusses the overthrow of Filipino President Estrada in 2001. The Filipinos were not happy with his control of the government and decided to take matters into their own hands. This was all done through mass text messaging (where one person sends a text to a friend and it keeps on going through a chain) and emails. 

He goes on to tell us about the term "Smart Mobs". Smart mobs (the technical term being mobile ad hoc social networks) are groups of people that are formed from chain text messages, emails, chat rooms and so one, to perform some group task. Sometimes the smart mobs are formed to over throw a government as Rheingold exemplifies earlier on in the text, or it could be just for fun. 

During class Dr. Chandler had us search for Smart Mobs on the internet using search engines other than Google. The results were very fun and enjoyable for everyone to watch, I think. I found that there will be a mass pillow fight in New York City on E 14th and Broadway on March 22 at 3:03pm. Anyone and everyone are invited to attend, the only directions given online are to be there on time, to tell anyone you know, and to keep your pillow in a bag until the set time. Once the fight begins you are only aloud to hit other people with pillows (unless someone without a pillow asks to be hit). We also watched a video on YouTube.com in class that showed some young Japanese men chasing after older Japanese men for seemingly no reason at all. 

Blog 3:Summary of Glister

Paul Glister's Digital Literacy is about the differences between print (such as books, newspapers, magazines, etc...) and digital literary works (things we read online). 

Glister points out that in most print, the words on the pages are very final and it could take a very long time to correct a mistake never mind the costs. For example, if an author publishes a book and misspells a word, it could take a long time for a reader to notice the mistake. Once the mistake is pointed out it could be a very long process to recall the misprinted books and replace them with a corrected version. It would also cost a lot of money to fix the mistake as well. With digital literacy, when we notice a mistake on a webpage it is so easy to fix it. It can take a matter of seconds for the author to log onto the page, edit it and save the newest copy. It is the least time consuming and costs nothing. 

Another difference between the two is this: Factual information is constantly being changed and updated. It is a very long process again for books to be edited and published. So when factual information in an encyclopedia needs to be changed, it takes time for it to be done. Whereas in places on the web such as Wikipedia, information is edited and changed within minutes. It is a much faster and efficient way to get up to date information about most subjects. 

Blog 2:Summary of Heim

Michael Heim's VR 101 gives us an idea of what virtual reality means, and what we have come to view virtual reality (or VR) as. I felt that there was no better way to explain what he meant by this than to quote him directly. He explains that "Our culture intentionally fuses- sometimes even confuses- the artificial with the real, and the fabricated with the natural. As a result, we end to quickly gloss over the precise meaning of virtual reality and apply the term "virtual" to many experiences of contemporary life."In this he further explains this concept in the idea of an ATM machine. While an ATM may seem like a virtual reality, it is really only virtual. ATM stands for automated teller machine and Heim explains that while it is not actually a bank teller, the machine can perform the same duties as a bank teller.

Next Heim describes the three "I"s of VR; immersion, interactivity, and information intensity. Immersion is explained as an isolation of a person's senses to make them feel as if he or she were really in a particular place. Interactivity or interaction is created by a computer's ability to change a scene as quickly as a person's mind can change it's perspective of something as well as a physical position. And Information intensity is the idea that the world of virtual reality can almost create a different life based on intelligence. He also says that Information intensity of VR can create a Telepresence. A telepresence is when "a VR system succeeds in creating the interactive feedback loop between or perceptions and the real environment, then we have full telepresence."

Heim next introduces us to Helemt or HMD (head mounted cameras). HMD allows a person to put on a helmet type device and see and hear only what goes on in the small space inside of the helmet. Special gloves can be worn to feel around inside of the virtual space created by the helmet to inhance the feeling of actually being there. The HMD creates the "six degrees of freedom" which follows the dimensions of the body and allows the camera to move the same way we do.

Finally he talks about CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment). The CAVE throws away the idea of helmets and gloves and replaces it with graphics that are projected onto walls of a room. It is a surround sound and surround screen projection in a large room rather than a small screen and headphones inside of a small helmet. The idea of the CAVE is to immerse into the environment portrayed on the walls with a much more open feeling of actually being there.

Blog 2:Summary of Bolter and Grusin

In Bolter and Grusin's article "The Double Logic of Remediation" the two introduced to us the idea of how society is trying to erase something we've all seen in media, and then multiply it in a new form. For example a book being made into a play, and then into a movie; so on and so forth. The next thing always needs to be bigger and better than the last while trying to make you forget the last thing at the same time. But while doing so, the old media that first created the concept has to remain strong and come up with better ideas to stay in the competition. In the article they bring up the concept that filmmakers will often spend millions just to make sure that when you're sitting in the theater watching a movie, you feel like you're actually there. So then every filmmaker after that must spend even more money and use even more amazing techniques to make their movie feel even better to you. 

Another idea that they bring us is that newscast are becoming more and more like websites. Whenever you watch the news, as a new story is being introduced the newscaster will usually have a small graphic over their left or right shoulder that narrates what the upcoming story will be about, almost to sort of draw our attention to that news story just because of a pretty little picture created by a web designer. 

The article continues to give different examples of how the medians are constantly using immediacy to lure people into their way of doing things. And each time a new median comes up with a creative concept it will always get built up to something bigger and better. 

Blog 1: Woolley

Chapter Six of Woolley's Virtual Worlds A Journey in Hyper and Hyperreality is Woolley's explanation of cyberspace. He begins by telling us about the concept of a global village and that electricity is needed to transport information rather than time or space. Woolley repeatedly went back to the idea that cyberspace or rather technology as a whole is an extension of our bodies, just as the telescope is an extension of our eyes; the phone is an extension of our ears and mouths; cyberspace is an extension of our nervous system, being able to transport signals from one place to another. Woolley then went on to explain that just as our bodies and nervous systems can attract virus's, so can networks in cyberspace. He used the example of the AIDs virus attacking a persons body and how quickly it can spread from one person to another; it can also attack one person's computer and spread from one to another. Next he compared two similar incidents in the stock market involving computers, one which occurred in 1987 and another in 1989 to show that it is the effect of the computers and that one person alone cannot help or hurt the situation. 

What I felt that Woolley tried to express the most in this chapter was that, though cyberspace can be a wonderful thing and can help us considerably in everyday life, we cannot always rely on it. We have to be able to stand on our own to feet because any random day our computers can crash and we could temporarily be without access to our bank accounts, stocks, emails, etc... 

Blog 1

I think that writing in cyberspace and writing in meat-space are two completely different things. We have tools in cyberspace that allow us to constantly check and recheck our work, such as spell check. We have access to email which allows us to send out writing to other people to have them check our work. And others have instant access to our work which in tern gives us immediate feedback on what we're writing about. In meat-space the only way to check our work is to do it ourselves or if we're fortunate enough at the time, have someone check it for us. But humans aren't always as efficient as computers and we don't always catch every detail as easily. 

I also think that immersion, interactivity and information intensity being available will not make for "good" writing. I think that people rely to heavily on cyberspace nowadays and do not focus on the aspects of learning things. No one goes to the library anymore to research anything, it's all done online. No one worries about grammatical errors because everyone trusts that the computer will fix it for them. I feel that future generations may be able to write a perfect essay using perfect punctuation and grammar on the computer, but when asked to write it down on a piece of paper they barely remember to add a period at the end of a sentence.