My aha this week is not really new. I've taken many online classes and at the beginning of each class I have the same feeling of being overwhelmed. I started two accelerated online classes and left yesterday on a week long family vacation to SanDiego, not very good planning on my part! Anyway, one week down in the classes and things have smoothed out. For some reason it is always the first week that seems so overwhelming and then it all starts to make sense. As I am finishing my last two classes it finally has soaked in that I just need to get passed the first week.
As far as what I learned this week, the blog world and the Facebook world is so fascinating to me. There are so many blogs out there about every subject possible. My daughter has one that she updates regularly about college life. It is pretty interesting to read for me as her mother but I'm not sure why anyone that didn't know her would be interested. It does seem more like an online journal as someone else mentioned. Facebook is somewhat similar in the amount of information people share. Some Facebook users do not realize how damaging the posts or pictures on their page could be to their reputation. I search Facebook for a name before I hire any applicant. I had one girl that I interviewed and liked in the interview but her Facebook page was awful. Her language on her personal postings and all of her pictures of drinking and partying made me select someone else. I don't understand why anyone would have their site open so everyone can see.
I saw the movie "Social Network" this week. It really was a very good movie and I highly recommend it for anyone that didn't see it. I don't know the real story behind the creation of Facebook so I can't say whether the information was accurate or not but the storyline and acting was awesome. Zuckerberg's character was absolutely fabulous. His rapid speech and random thoughts showed just how much of a genius he was. The most interesting part of the movie for me was the relationship part and how Facebook has changed that. The fact that a relationship is not formal until you have changed your Facebook status or being able to check out someone's Facebook page before dating them. There is so much you can find out about someone if you can see their Facebook page. It really has opened up your life for all to see and if you don't protect who your "friends" are or protect the information you are putting on there then you would never have any idea who is looking. I'm curious to see what this will do to our social environment twenty years from now.
Gina -- Great post. I agree: the digital world is very different that the physical one. I remember a clip from one of Professor Esch's videos last week that suggested we must reevaluate privacy and relationships -- that's so true with the instant access many people have to others' "private" information. I, too, saw The Social Network this week, and I was reminded again how quickly a few ill-considered key strokes can cause real trouble with real people in real life.
ReplyDeleteThe privacy situation that was most striking during the movie was when Zuckerberg wrote the scripts that would go pull all the images from all the other house websites and used them for a purpose other than what they were intended. Should make most people think before posting anything online.
ReplyDeleteI am overwhelmed a bit too. Especially with the whole blog. I hope I am doing everything right. When we had a someone from one of the grade schools come speak to us about interviewing he mentioned cleaning up the Facebbook page because they do search it. My page is mostly my kids.
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