Assignment 11--Avatar name Courtney Sittingbull

A few weeks ago I was watching NBC's The Office and one of the characters who had recently broken up with his girlfriend slipped into a depressed state. To help cope with his depression he created an avatar on "Second Life.com" His co-worker also created an account to follow him in the virtual world and discovers he had created "Dwight's Second Second Life", which set up of the rest of the scene in the show. When I read the assignment for this week I got excited because I didn't know that Second Life really existed.

My roommate and I spent a good few hours on the program and we started off having a lot of fun. We made dumb avatar names like Courtney Sittingbull and Rae Eebus. We probably spent the majority of the time making our avatars look like us. It was insane how realistic they would get. You could add love handles, saddlebags, big lips, small ears, long hair, etc. After I made my avatar I began exploring the virtual world. I met a girl named Loula Frog who was from Brazil and spoke very poor English. Every time I asked her a question she would ask me to wait a moment and reply a few minutes later. She began following me wherever I went and kept asking me to be her friend, so I got creeped out and ended up transporting myself to another part of the world. As I wandered around, exploring I had a man approach me. No lie, the guy came up to me and asked: "Excuse me? Can I ask you a question?" I replied with a sure he then went on to ask "Is your father a gardener?" I said no and he said "Then how did you get to become such a beautiful flower?" the only response I could think of was "Are you really hitting on me, as an avatar, in a virtual world?!" He was embarrassed and walked away. I couldn't believe it. Some people make this stuff their true 'second life'. Other people I ran into were friendly and helped my roommate and I figure things out, like how to find each other and be transported together.

By the end of our session, I ended up getting fed up with the game. It served no real purpose and wasn't anything I expected it to be. I thought it would be something similar to the Sims games or along those lines but there wasn't much to do and I became annoyed. I'm sure if you buy a package there is far more things to explore but the basic minimum package did not thrill me. I had paying for video games and I know that sounds dumb, but I don't play them often and every once and awhile I just want to try something out ha ha. Anyway in the end, the greatest part of the whole game was creating myself and that is just sad.

Assignment 10--Turn the [web]page

For this blog, I decided to go with an article that I have heard about but I had not read up on and something that I found appealing. In the last month issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine, there was a brief article on "The Signs of Male Depression: How to spot it". They used Owen Wilson's suicide attempt as the basis and attention of the article, but further explained the truth behind males and depression. They list the common side effects of a male suffering from depression will be when he complains of the physical side effects, like loss of appetite or insomnia. But most of the time will avoid the subject to prevent himself from looking weak. The audience of Cosmopolitan Magazine are young women in America, and that was clearly who the article was directed towards. They used words like "your boyfriend" and "your sex life". The article was short but to the point although it left questions in my mind about statistics of male depression, reasons, precautions, and so on.

I then went online and googled a similar article titled "How to Spot Male Depression". Right from the start it took the same approach as the Cosmo article stating that male depression is hard to spot because males are less likely to express their feelings. The website was different from the article in that it provided numbered steps to help spot male depression. Most of the steps were repetitive to the Cosmo article. Telling you watch for a loss in appetite, sex drive, irritability, and physical complaints. The one major difference between the two articles was the use of hyperlinks on the internet. On the website, certain words like, depression and men were hyperlinked to other websites that used similar information to help their readers better understand what they were reading about. On the right side of the page was a box titled, "Related Material" with different links leading to seperate websites on the same material. Links titled, "about depression", "depression disorders", "pregnancy depression", and "symptoms". I found this useful to help me answer my questions and narrow down a broad topic. Above that were other "How to" articles on depression, like how to treat depression, or how to treat a love one with depression. These helped to narrow down the topic of male depression to the topic of making an effort to help someone with depression.

The fact of the matter is, if I need information whether it be the weather or the current happenings of my local town the first place I look is the internet. The main reason is: convience. It is right there on my laptop as opposed to me going out and buying a newspaper and searching through the pages only to read a page and a half of information I might have already known. If I need further information on the topic at hand I just try a new website and continue searching. Its clear to see that the internet is a huge part of our daily lives and its clearly growing. Who knows? Could the internet lead to the extinction of newspapers?

Assignment 8---Thank you Google Calander

The web application I chose for this assignment is google calender. My brother uses it daily and said it really helps him keep organized, so I decided to check it out. The site is very easy to use. You first have to have a google account, which only takes a few minutes to make. After you have made your google account, you have access to a variety of different sites like google mail, google documents, google photos, and google groups. Once you are logged in, you can begin filling out your calender. You can plan from months in advance to hours in advanced. You can even set up reminders that will pop up and tell you about your day whenever you log on. If you go into the settings on the top of the screen, you can change the time and the weather to fit your own hometown.

The design of the website makes it easy to use. It uses little color and highlights whatever you are working on at that moment. You can also personalize your calendar by changing the colors and layout. This kind of personalized layout reminds me of the myspace community. People like to make things their 'own' which helps make this site an attraction to other users. It is also organized by the hour, day, week, and month. It has a search application on the top of the screen which makes it easy to fit all the things you need into one browser. It is a social tool in that it organizes your social life into one website to help someone busy better plan out there days. You are able to share calenders with other people online. If I wanted to know my brothers schedule, he could simply make it assessable to other uses, I could search it, and see what his plans are for the week.

I find having a calender online very useful for myself in particular. I spend most of my time online and around computers. I have a very busy schedule between work, school, and my social life that just simply logging onto a website like this would really benefit me.

Assignment 7--Stay Connected

I hate to be repetitive in my blogs but I don't spend too much time with social networks on the internet. Besides Facebook, the only other online community I've been a part of is Myspace. I also joined an online dating site once with my friends just to see how many people would be interested in us, but that wouldn't even count. The last thing I can think of is the list-serve for my work. I work at the Lockwood Library Circulation desk. Everyday I get about 3 emails from someone I work with, whether it is one of my bosses updating us on something new or something that has been a constant issue or it is one of my co-workers asking to take their shifts. We all stay in touch through email. If I needed a day off I would simply go onto my email and email the entire list-serve with the subject title as: SUB-SLIP. This lets everyone, including my bosses know that I am looking for someone to take my shift. If a person replies to me letting me know that they are able to fill in their replied email also gets sent out to everyone on the list so that I do not have 4 or 5 people all wanting to take that same shift.

I've only needed one day off so far this year, but a boy named Eric who I haven't met yet took my shift for me. A few weeks later he was looking for someone to work for him and I quickly responded to him because he helped me out. I actually just met him a few days ago and it felt like we already knew each other because of our emails. When I first started working I received a lot of emails from one of the morning supervisors (I work at night). The letters were kind of short and to the point. I hadn't met her yet so I asked some of my co-workers what she was like. The majority of them told me she was really mean and a few previous workers quit because of her, but one morning I had to opportunity to meet her while filling in for someone. She wasn't mean at all, we actually got along great. It just goes to show that you cant judge a person over the internet or through the eyes of other people.

I guess I will now discuss Facebook (typical). As most of you know, Facebook is an online community that originally started as a college network, since then it has expanded and is now open to everyone. The fact that they have opened it to everyone is in my opinion, annoying. I get friend requests from some of my seventh and eighth grade students who I taught tennis to over the summer. Now my little brothers friends are even starting to facebook, which cant be good for me. Like most college students, I want my facebook to be only seen by the eyes of my friends and those people who know me, for obvious reasons. (pictures, information, wall posts, etc) Thankfully facebook has provided what they call a "limited profile" where you get to select what people can view and not view and you get to select which people you want to see your limited profile. I immediately started my facebook my freshman year right after I got my school email address. Other freshmen like myself started friending each other. I got a few friend requests from people in my major and others from people who were going to be living in my building. Immediately people started writing on each others walls. Wanting to make as many friends as possible before entering a new enviornment. One girl in particular had over 100 UB friends in less then a week and she posted on everyones wall. She asked me when my orientation was and where I was going to be living. She seemed like such a nice girl and she was very erger to get to know everyone. This year I happen to be living next door to her. When I moved in my roommate and I decided to meet everyone on the floor. When we went into her room she was a very cold person, she didnt smile, didnt invite us in and still to this day never says HI. I cant believe that this girl was the same person I met on facebook the year before! This is just another example that goes to show how the internet can manipulate a persons apperance. There is this facebook clip on youtube that always makes me laugh...because it is so true!

Assignment 6--I'll take your identity with a side of your name

How many times a day do you think you identify yourself? Introducing yourself to someone new, maybe writing your name down on an exam, signing after your credit card. What about logging onto facebook, myspace, AIM, email, or even purchasing things off the internet. The number can quickly add up. So lets define Identity. Defined on Wikipedia.org, identity describes an individuals comprehension of him or herself as a discrete, separate entity. Online Identity applies the same kind of thing, yet it is defined as a social identity that network users establish in online communities.

Everyone in our class is part of an online community. If you are registered for COM125 it means you are registered at UB, which means you have to have a UB email address. This educational address is used for school proposes. I'm sure the majority of us have another email address we use. I know I use a different to send my junk mail to.

Lets take a popular online community, like Facebook. 97% of incoming freshman create a Facebook. The community was originally made for colleges and universities, but through the last couple of years, the community has expanded and now anyone can make one. The basic use of this system IS to identify yourself through pictures, comments and information. But how much can you believe in someone else's Facebook? The answer to that is NONE. The internet communities is a scary place to take part in. There are many weirdos out there trying to identify themselves as someone they are not, whether its for fun, money, or just pleasure, trust no one.

I recently read an article about Identity theft. It talked mostly about how identities are easily taken online through credit and debit cards. It seems quite simple. When you purchase something online how often do you think to yourself, "damn, I hope no one tries to hack this"? I hope your answer was "every time" if not, you may need to stop being such an honest person, no offense. But to my surprise, the least expected place where your identity is to be taken is not on the internet, but in a restaurant. I guess it makes sense, you are personally handing over your credit card in complete trust to someone you do not even know. They have your card for about 5 min and hand it back to you. In those 5 min they can easily write down the name and numbers and go home and have a complete shopping spree on their internet. Sorry, to get off topic of ONLINE identity, but I just found it so interesting.

Instant messaging is another scary place where many people claim to be someone who they are not. I've never used a chat room, but I use to have an open screen where anyone could 'search' me and just start talking to me. I had some really weird comments but I always ignored them. Many young girls use chat rooms as a way of meeting 'boys' their age. But how many of these men really are who they say they are? and how many of these girls are really as old as they say they are? A number of reported incidence have occurred over the years with young girls agreeing to meet a young boy they met in a chart room and only coming to find they are not who they said they were and they end up in some really bad situations.

The bottom line is, if you are going to be online, use an identity that doesn't define who you are and never trust anyone.

Assignment 5--Someone might be watching

Own a facebook or myspace, maybe even a blog? Keep your photos on webshots or other Internet photo printing sites? Have you ever wondered who might be looking at you, examining you, or even reading up on your life? Privacy on the Internet doesn't really exist, it has no boundaries or rules. According to wikipedia.org, privacy is "the ability of an individual or group to keep their lives and personal affairs out of public view, or to control the flow of information about themselves." Privacy is possible in our everyday lives, we do it all the time, whether it is dancing in our rooms, showering, singing obnoxiously in our cars, or even just talking on the phone, we all want our privacy and most of the time respect others privacy. But it is possible to do so online? Most of us would say, "yeah, I'm safe. My facebook/myspace is set to private so no one except my friends are able to view it." Well, good for you! You have that one under control. But what about the pictures your friends put up of you? Those are able to be viewed by their friends who you may or may not even know. Those pictures can be copied and within minutes be flying around the Internet with your name attached. Don't feel so safe now, do you?



Here's a scary story that I experienced with online privacy. When I was a sophomore in high school, myspace had just made its first real impact on high school students. Knowing that it was going to be the next big thing, I immediately made one. Being naive I instantly started accepting people as friends so my number would be higher, strangers and all. One man imparticular started leaving me comments. I found them flattering but ignored them. A week or two later I began getting phone calls to my cell phone. An older man would call and hum into the phone then hang up. I found it strange and told my friends. My boyfriend at the time tried to scare him off with threats whenever he called but it almost became a joke between my friends cause he was doing no harm to me it just started to become annoying. Within that week, someone with an unfamiliar screen name IMed me and told me that he had met me in the bathroom, when I asked him to leave me alone he said "no, you leave me alone you started talking to me". I found this very strange and after putting all these weird instances together, I finally told my parents. We looked at this older mans myspace together and found out that he was forty five years old. He posted my pictures in his profile and had me set as his top friend. He wrote weird stuff in his "about me" section talking about how he thought he had found the love of his life. In an instant my parents picked up the phone and called the police. After questioning and many investigations that took what seemed like years, they finally found the guy. He claimed to have gotten my phone number from one of my friends walls after I had posted it. My screen name was posted on my own profile and he simply just copy and pasted my photos from my profile onto his. He was charged and a restraining order was placed against him.

To this very day I still don't believe this happened to me. Of course I deleted my myspace from the internet and a couple years later got sucked right back into the trend and made myself a myspace. I am more careful of what I do online now. I have it set to private, I don't give out any information of where I live, my number, my email address, my hometown, or anything of the sort. I think about my privacy a lot while going online. I look at other peoples profiles and wonder why they aren't set to private. With the amount of pictures people put in their profiles and the ratio of sober to drunk pictures, it puzzles me as to why they are even posted for the world to see. Recently I heard that smaller colleges were using facebook as a source to kick students out of the their facilities if need be.

My home town is very small and a few months ago a bunch of 7th grade girls got busted by their families for posting sexual pictures on the internet. I would never want to embarrass my family on the internet by posting things that would disappoint them in me. Today the amount of access strangers have to our online 'private' things is getting a bit ridiculous.

The privacy online that once made people feel safe is quickly going extinct.

Assignment 4--Give a little, Take a lot

"I love your watch, where did you get it?"

"Oh this? It was a gift from my friend Mindy!"

"I love your watch, where did you get it?"

"Oh this? Target."

We've all been asked this question or a question similar to it. Which one has more meaning to you? If you said the second one I would have to question your pattern of thinking. Receiving a gift from a friend, family member, significant other, or even a secret admirer has a lot of meaning to you and the person doing the giving. It always makes me smile to see a close friend wearing the shirt I bought them or my dad listening to the CD I gave him for fathers day. Giving and recieving gifts is an american custom. People do it everyday. But did you realize many of us give gifts everyday without wanting anything in return? This is known as gift economy.

According to Wikipedia.org, a gift economy is defined as, "an economic system in which goods and services are given without any expilict agreement for imediate or future Quid pro quo (something for something)". I will use an example referring to something I have done in my life. A few years ago a close friend to my community passed away from heart failure at only 17 years old. My town was mess, but immediately started giving to his family by making them dinner, giving them cards, and helping them out with whatever they needed. Chris loved playing tennis, it was his passion and his life. Following his death my tennis coach approached both the boys' and girls' tennis teams and had an idea of some sort of tennis related dedication to him. Within a few weeks we all pulled together the school district and students to help with our project. We had been talking about putting in tennis courts behind our school for years and this time seemed better then any. Yet we were still a few hundred thousand dollars short. We had come up with an idea of an adult casino night at the school to raise money. The teams served at the fuction and the parents gambled. We ended up making quite a bit, but still needed more. It almost felt like we were a running business. We had a group taking care of the budget, a group creating ideas, another group talking with the construction company and it all seemed to be coming together. With in months we had familys of the community donating hundreds to thousands of dollars. About less then 2 years later, the courts were built with his name arched across the top. At the opening ceremony his parents stood up to thank everyone for what they did and couldnt find the way to give something back in return. In the back of all of our minds we knew we wanted nothing. Because when people asked his family "how did you get courts dedicated to you" we knew they would be saying "it was a gift from the school district and the kids" and they would smile and know that it meant more to them than anything.

Now this example of gift economy might be a different approach then what everyone else was thinking. But the second I read the definition I knew this was one of the most important things I gave, knowing I wanted nothing in return. There are many other situations that occur that can be considered gift economy. Take something simple that you probably do everyday (or so I hope), holding a door for someone when walking in or out of the union. You dont expect them to give you a dollar everytime you are generous. What about helping a friend with homework? Or even covering someones shift at work.

There is a difference between giving a gift of gradiuted from giving a gift of obligation. A gift of obligation would not be considered a gift economy because you feel the need to give the gift because a person has already given you something and you are trying to return the favor. When I think of gift economy I think of the Liberity commericals.