Bittersweet world of the Internet

I was very interested in Danah Boyd’s article. When I first began reading I thought to myself, how can a thirty four year old understand what the web means to teenagers?.  After reading into Danah’s personal story, I understood how she could relate to these teenagers. After going through what she did, she probably needed some sort of outlet like the web also. I believe Danah is dead on when she talks about parent’s misconceptions of the internet. I remember when MySpace was becoming popular and I made an account for myself in eighth grade. My mom completely freaked out that I had one, because she just had the wrong idea about it. She looked at pages like MySpace or Facebook as places for the “creeps” to pick up on kids. It is understandable that at a certain age kids might not have enough knowledge or common sense on how to protect themselves on those websites. However, I feel like now a day those sites have gained a lot better privacy.  When it comes to teenagers, or anyone it seems as though they gain a sense of “courage” behind a computer screen. This could be good and bad in some cases. I feel that cyber bullying has become a larger issue since MySpace and Facebook. A lot of things are said over the internet, that many high schoolers would not say to someone face to face.  However, as Danah was saying teenagers also use the web as a place for support. The internet is a place that allows many people to reach out and find others who can relate, understand, or just listen to them. I feel that is very helpful in many cases. Behind a computer screen, depending on the site, a person may not be able to judge you on “appearance”. They can take your story or whatever you need to say , and get to know you. I know being a part of a social network has helped me in a lot of regards, even though I have been on that other end of being cyber bullied. Kids should be allowed access to that outlet as long as it is protected, and they are not abusing sites.  

Trine-Maria Kristensen

"Personality and a human voice", these are the two most powerful tools when it comes to blogging in Trine-Maria Kristensen's eyes. Honestly, I couldn’t agree more. There are many different reasons as to why people decide to keep blogs. I feel no matter what that reason is you need to be able to pull in your viewers and make them want to keep feeling the need to read. You need to be able to express your personality through the computer screen, and give that “spark” to readers. They need to feel that what they are reading they are able to connect to, or get a certain reaction from. We all have the right to our opinion and probably one of the best places to “voice” that opinion is the internet. The internet allows people to find others who may share that same opinion, or who may give us a different opinion than we originally expressed.

I felt pretty inspired when reading Kristensen’s take on blogging. She basically started off in her interview saying she had no idea what blogging was or what the purpose behind blogging is. I’ve honestly never kept a blog in my life until this course. Then again I began to think about Facebook, twitter, and any sites like that. Anyone who has posted a Facebook status needs to admit, whether they realize it or not, that anything they post is used to get a certain reaction or response. I guess in a sense I have blogged before.

As Trine-Maria got more into blogging she said “ People from all over the world, forming an open network right there in front of me, speaking to me—even listening to me if I had something intelligent to say. Wow! ”. Blogging is something that can possibly make a difference in the world. It connects people based on certain opinions or interest that they may share. One thing that I liked about Trine-Maria is that she blogs based on her own interest, she doesn’t just post about what others want to hear. You cannot blog about what others want to hear, because then you lose the ability to put your heart into it. She claims when she post a link, she always adds some sort of comment with it. I believe its also strong to post things that can spark a debate, or leave room for many different responses and opinions. I really think I can find a lot of interest in blogging. One thing I’d like to leave you guys with is this from Trine-Maria’s interview “ I truly believe that people can and will work together to change the world. ”

TGIF

It's the weekend