Flash Mob

            A group of people that organize to come together in a public place to demonstrate, dance or act out an organized routine is known as a flash mob.  We recently organized a flash mob with our class to do snow angels on the floor inside of our student union.  It turned out to be a success and everyone had a great time.  Everyone spread the word to numerous friends so that the mob would grow in numbers and be more than just 24 people in size which is still effective but to be more dramatic you’re going to want to have more people involved.  It was cool to see how a bunch of people that don’t know each other that well just knowing about an organized function come together and put on a performance in front of people. 

            While being on the floor looking up at people passing by it was funny to see how people reacted to what we were doing.  They had no idea what was going on while others that knew about flash mobs just kept on walking by.  Some people even took time out to stop and ask what we were doing on the ground all making snow angels or if we were just out of our mind crazy.  The idea of putting something like this together and once finished to walk away and act like it never happened, makes people think about what just went on.  Flash mobs can be once in a lifetime performance for someone to encounter in their life, some flash mobs are just for fun and others can be to protest or send a message out to a group of people.

Using the latest Internet technology, we allow two strangers to chat with each other anonymously. 2011, Networking is the key. Connecting with people in virtual world is what we all do. Everyone is a stranger until you become friends with them. Most people get stress with work or school and badly need to pass time. Sometimes, they get bored chatting face to face with friends too. So they switch to random video chatting with strangers. Chat roulette is the most common site to do so since it’s a web application which uses peer-to-peer connection.

Our recent assignment was to break away from the multimedia and online social services and talk to someone in person, a stranger face to face. I decided one day to ride the shuttle across campus to my next class instead of walking to class like I usually do.  It just so happened to be a rainy so the shuttle was packed, possibly making the ride less awkward being I had found the last seat next to this girl.  As I sat down I said hi and proceeded to talk about how shitty the weather was and how I didn’t want to be going to my classes.  She responded the same way and the conversation was flowing well, until her phone vibrated in her hand.  I felt that since I was a stranger she gave first priority to her electronic device and for the rest of the ride she was blowing up whoever was on the other side.  I would try to start the conversation again but every time I was interrupted by a more important text message. Before I knew it I had reached my stop, I stood up and said, “good bye was nice riding with you, have a great day,” and walked off the bus.

I felt that because I was a stranger even though she was sweet enough to have a conversation with a friendly stranger, she still had other priorities then talking with someone face to face. Maybe it was something she wasn’t used to or doesn’t normally do on a day to day basis.  For me, I felt like I had accomplished something new that I haven’t done for awhile and was connected for a bit with a human being not on a social site that I didn't know. Will I do it again? From now I made an agreement with myself to not make it an awkward moment when faced with having to share or sit next to a stranger and instead start up a conversation and network face to face rather than over online.

Blog 2

The way people interact with each other in today’s world is completely different over the computer then they do in real life and it has been seen all over the world with facebook, online dating services, and twitter. Personal conversations to people in today’s world can seem so uncomfortable because they are so used to their online personality. You can start and end a conversation whenever you want when you’re online compared to in real time. I feel that this is so true and many people would rather talk to a girl online then in person only making when they finally meet up to be so socially awkward. The way that people can meet and interact with people online break all the rules of past interactions back in the day when you actually had to go out to meet and socialize with people. Online chatting gives more space between conversations and makes it easier to be whoever you want to be and avoid the personal interaction that may sometimes be awkward for a person. As technology keeps advancing their finding more ways to make socializing over the net easier and more personal to do, thus almost creating a personal interaction yet on a screen or video. People tend to anthropomorphize their computers and blame them for things that happen in them. Say a conversation ends and the person signs off on them they will tend to talk to the computer thinking something is wrong instead of thinking that person just didn’t want to talk. We do this on a daily basis for everything we own whether it is the computer, car, TV or even an appliance being used. People today depend on technology and the advances that will come with it to operate their daily lives.

Blog 1

I chose this image because I am currently in my last year of my sports and leisure studies degree and felt that this picture depicts what my major is all about. I’m looking forward to working in the sports world after college and going on to managing my own training facility for sports. Sports have always been a big part of my life and my physical fitness as well. My free time involves a lot of time spent playing sports outside and enjoying them with great friends. I’m also very dedicated to working out and being in an athletic shape.
My online persona vs. my real life persona, I would have to say are the same people. I’m a very outgoing person and I feel that that comes across in real life and in my online life. My online persona is not fake because many people take your online persona to be who you are now a day before they even meet you in person, so by being myself in both worlds I feel that people would be able to understand who I am easier. Instead of acting like two different people making it harder for someone to understand or get to know me. In today’s world how people act online is the way that some people feel that person will act all the time, whether it’s true or not. People make judgments off of pictures, comments, or statuses all the time on face book and believe that that is how the person is. When in reality it could all be an act just to have more friends or to be someone their not. That’s why I feel like, why not be your true self no matter whether it’s online or in real life, why not make it easier for people to know the true you.

Twitter

Twitter is nothing like Facebook or other social networking sites that allows you to post pictures and information about yourself.  Twitter is more of a promotional advertising, and breaking news type of information sharing site.  It allows individuals to promote their likes and interests and allows them to follow news on famous people, friends, world leaders, or news channel for up to date information that may be important.  It allows anyone to be a journalist and to broadcast news by tweeting or re-tweeting other tweets that people share.

            Twitter provides easy, fast updates on worldwide events and happenings at the touch of a finger whether it is on a laptop or on a smart phone.  There is less information being shared about the person themselves and more about their interests and followers. Tweeting controls the amount of information being shared in a post to 140 words so this way it’s more of a breaking news report style presentation rather than paragraphs about an event. You are also able to use hyperlinks to link to a site that may have a full length article about the event for people to further read into and find more information. 

Twitter is simple and easy to use for all across the world and brings everyone together to hear breaking news.  Finding people to follow is a breeze, all you have to do is type their name in the search bar and you find their page.  Hash tags allow people to trend with others across the world and combine them into one page.  It connects people from different areas and shows them who else has that interest, like, or activity going on.  Twitter, is a public site that helps to promote and share, information, events, and celebrity news to everyone across the world at the touch of a button and follow.  It contains less junk and ads then facebook and provides a faster service to the online community.

Online Privacy

Honestly, there’s little that you can do now to keep information about yourself from being listed online.  There are hundreds of sites collecting personal data about someone such as: credit card companies, schools, shopping stores, and other online sites being used.  Anyone that goes online knows that there are ads on the side of websites that have your information because they are showing images and other forms of media that you are interested in that they get off of their sites.  Personal privacy doesn’t exist online any more unless you don’t have any form of electronics and leave deep in the woods where no one can find you.

The information that people share today online will always be out there for the public’s eyes.  Many companies such as career builder and colleges/university are now using the web to look up employees or future student’s profiles or any information they can find before they hire or accept them.  This can go one of two ways for the person, either they have a professional, clean profile or they have a profile that will make future employers and school not want them. Many people don’t comprehend the difference between internet sharing vs. F2F sharing of information.  You post something on the internet, its open to the world to see it, F2F if that person tells someone else the information will spread slower than that to the internet if it even gets out. With the amount of information sharing sites out there today you can find any kind of information about any one.

Second Life

Getting started on Second Life at first was a little tricky and hard to comprehend. Figuring out if you wanted to make a human avatar or creature was a rough first start.  The second was trying to construct a look-a-like avatar, dressing and accessorizing it. Coming onto second life I wanted to stay true to who I am and create an image similar to that in the real world.  I wanted my identity in second life to match the one that I have here in the real world, I didn’t want to portray myself with something that I am not, so I tried to do the best I can with my human avatar to represent myself.

While fooling around with my human avatar and his looks, I felt as if I just had to learn the computer world all over again.  I was so lost in the beginning not knowing how to walk, talk, fly, or teleport to anywhere I wanted to go. I didn’t know where there was to go, what there was to do, or how to really interact with people.  It felt all new to me again and like I had to start over and take baby steps into the modern world. After playing around and learning the gimmicks to the second life world so that I would be able to move around, I dived right in and started up a conversation with a person. I realized that some people do take second life seriously, just as they would in their real life and in fact share and show the same information about themselves on their profiles.  I started to open up, spread out and talk to other people before our first meeting on second life to understand and grasp what second world was about.

I soon realized that people on second life interacted the same ways that people do in real life. That people with certain likes would hangout in certain areas, such as people that like to dance would be at the clubs and dance halls, people that like to swim at the pools, and so on.  After numerous hours of playing around meeting people, flying and teleporting to see various places, I now see that second life is very much so just like real life, but it allows people to start over or form a new identity for themselves and be anonymous.