This blog is for students enrolled in CA317 Mass Media and Society at Cardinal Stritch University, Milwaukee, WI.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Questioning the Media
What was your first encounter with the Internet like? Now, think about the future...what possibilities of the Internet's future are you most excited about and why? What possibilities are most troubling and why?
My absolute first encounter with the internet I don’t exactly remember but something that I do remember is I was always downloading .wav files. I would download them for hours and put together funny “songs” to listen to. Another thing I did when I first got online was play sheep head on Yahoo! games. I was addicted to playing the card game online and to some extent I still am. The Internet’s future is as wide open as the sky. There’s no telling what could happen. If you asked me when I first started college what I thought it could be I would have never guessed facebook and google would blow up like they did. I’m excited to see what the next big thing is going to be. Is it going to be another thing like facebook? What’s next for social networking? How can we take the internet further than we already have? I think the next big thing will be additions to social networking and incorporating it into the workplace (even though it’s already happening). There are things that make we worried about the internet as well. We already have people stealing identities and hacking in to peoples computers and hurting children. I worry not only for my safety but what about when I have kids. What’s the internet going to be like then? How am I going to keep them from seeing things they shouldn’t and talking to people that they shouldn’t be? Only time will tell what happens with the Internet. The facebook creator had no idea he’d be a billionaire in a few short years. All it takes is one crazy idea that people buy into to make it on the internet!
I cannot give you a specific time and date of when my first actual encounter with the internet was. What I do remember, is when my parents first bought a computer and it was huge compared to what computers and lap tops are like today. The thing I remember most with the internet was DIAL-UP! I was always connecting online to AOL and I loved hearing “YOU’VE GOT MAIL” because I thought it was the coolest thing to hear and was fascinated by the computer talking. As a kid I was amazed with what I was able to do online. AIM was something I remember most, it was a new way for me to interact with my friends. Just thinking about how the internet is improving more and more each day is exciting in some ways. MySpace was something I loved when I was in high school and then Facebook came along. What’s next? What can top Facebook? It will be interesting to see what’s going to be the next best thing for the Internet. I wonder what new verb will be added to our vocabulary, if possible, other than “Google it”. However, because the internet is such a growing success, it worries me if technology will be too advanced. In the article posted on our blog on Facebook, about how “Places” was added to mobile phones for people to be tagged or tag themselves where they are currently located, scares me. It’s alarming to think what could be next. Our privacy I feel, is becoming less and less private as the Internet world is advancing. Also, I wonder if we are relying on the Internet/technology too much and will this affect us in the long run, especially if there ever was a system failure!! The possibilities are endless for the Internet and that is what is most troubling to me.
My first encounter with the internet that I can remember is my Dad setting up our first personal computer in our office and hearing the dial-up tone ring as it connected to AOL. I remember it taking forever and being so excited to hear “You’ve Got Mail!” from the AOL voice every time I signed in. It was the best feeling ever to know I had mail. It didn’t matter who it was from I was just excited to hear the voice. I admit my first encounter with the internet was pretty naïve. I went into chat-rooms, talked to strangers, and probably posted some much too personal stuff on my profile but that was before I really thought about the impact of the internet and how it could be used to for harm. Once we started learning more about the internet and I become a more avid user I learned what to do and not to do on the internet. As we move into the future I am most excited about how the internet will connect us to other parts of the world in terms of social networking. In the next 5 years will Facebook still be the “it” thing? Will my kids be using Facebook? I wonder how that will advance and progress in the next 10-20 years. Also on the other hand I find that a bit troubling as well because even now I see it in 2010 that face to face communication isn’t like it used to be and people find it more comfortable to communicate online. With that I wonder if all the advances with social networking will diminish the way humans interact completely. The day we cease to be able to hold a real conversation I wonder if we’ll even notice; or will the change have been so gradual we won’t even notice it. I guess only time will tell but I’m hoping society will be able to keep a good grip on reality and human contact with all the inevitable advances technology will encounter in the future.
I remember when my mom first got a computer when I was in grade school I was almost nervous to use it. At the same time I was almost instantly addicted to playing games, as lame as they seem now, like orgegon trail and number munchers. Then when I was a little older I was alowed to set up a hotmail account for email. I was so excited to have the ability to email, and I seemed to instantly understand the technology with no real training. Then my mind exploded when I set up an AOL instant messanger account. I was always on there, it was what everyone in our age group did before Facebook came along. Then I was hooked to downloading music on napster before you had to pay for it. When I went to college facebook was just blowing up and I never saw it becoming as big as it is today. I use email and facebook multiple times a day and feel like I would have a hard time functioning daily without either of them. Whats next? Like it was stated in the video we watched in class the internet is always growing and uprgrading, and can be overwhelming to try and keep up with. I think to keep myself from being overwhelmed I will keep a narrow focus on the using the utilities on the internet that I absolutely use in a productive fashion. I wont try and worry about keeping up with the more pointless things offered on the internet. What is exciting about the future of the internet is that it is getting faster and more people are gaining access to it everyday, allowing for the world to function and communicate in what is being called as a global village. I am amazed at how easy and affordable it is to talk to people all over the world through sites like skype. I am nervous however about the influence and power huge companies like Verizon, AT&T, etc, might gain in the future and how privacy will be maintained and monitered. Another thing that I am worried about is if the internet is taking away from peoples ability to write and properly communicate in the workplace. Hopefully the things that the internet makes easier for us aren't taken for granted. Also I hope that we dont become completely reliant on the internet.
My first encounter with the internet was when I was around 11 years old. I remember that the first thing I wanted to do was enter a chat room, because I saw my uncle teaching my mom how to use it and so I thought talking to people on the computer was cool. Of course they didn’t let me use the chat room because of my age and fear for predators, but looking at today’s society children are in chat rooms younger than the age that I have tried. Looking back today’s speed of the internet, I remember our internet connection back in the 90s was so slow that sometimes the computer stopped trying to connect to the internet after trying a list of numbers to dial. You could hear the computer dialing loudly as if you were on the telephone. In comparison to today’s internet world, everything about the internet and connectivity is extremely funny. It’s funny because I remember when that was the same internet connection that most people didn’t have or couldn’t afford and now dial-up is like the cheapest internet that you can buy. With the advances in technology and the internet in today’s society, I am glad that we have faster connection, instant messaging, web-cam, texting from computers to cell phones, Skype, and the all time favorites like search engines and social networking sites. All these things are crucial in today’s society because they are all tools that we use on an everyday basis. They are definitely tools that speed up communication a trillion times more than communication a few decades ago. The only troubling thing that I fear in the future of computers and the internet is that scammers, predators, and serial killers will abuse the use of technology as it continues to advance to use it as tools to drive the homicide rate up. There have been cases of people killing themselves because of cyber-bullies and people locating people through their IP address. Just yesterday, I was talking with someone on Skype and they began to act weird and then asked me why I was hiding my IP address from them after I transferred our conversations to Skype on my Blackberry. The whole thing creeped me out and I felt like I was talking to a real psycho. No one has ever cared or asked me about my IP address, weird as it was, it put a fear in me that creates worries for what will become of the internet in the future when our younger generation uses the internet.
I think the thing that intrigued me the most was how similar all our 1st encounters with the internet was. I didn't read anyone’s blog before I wrote mine and it I think it’s funny but also telling of the times that Brittany and I vividly remember the dial sound and hearing "You've Got Mail" and thinking it was the best thing ever. It's even funnier considering now a days we hardly use email anymore and probably not one of us can remember the last time we got excited over hearing "you've got mail". It just goes to show how things that were so big then could be such a thing of the past on a relatively few short years later. Also with Scott’s blog I agree with the safety issue of the future being one of the top concerns for the future. There’s so much now that we can’t control or monitor over the internet now so it freaks me out just how much more open and advanced the internet might be in the future. How are we going to be able to disconnect from it all and maintain a level of anonymity and privacy in a completely digital age that I’m sure is going to be inevitable in the future. It’s really something I’m going to have to give a watchful eye to so I won’t feel so blindsided when it comes.
I found it really funny that you remembered when the dial up would just give up trying to connect. I hated when that happened. I also found your comment about serial killers using technology to there advantage interesting. I never really think about people like that using the same internet I do but it is a scary fact that the internet could aid criminals with relative ease. I share many of the same concerns with you Alicia and hope that with the technology advancing so fast that security measures can keep up. I think it is important that we educate children on how to protect themselves at an earlier age than we are currently. My two sisters who are under the age of 10 both spend the same amount of time on the computer as I do if not longer. This worries and amazes me that they are so good with technology with no real training. I am worried that they may get sucked into a scam or be taken advantage of on the internet if they are not shown what to watch for.
When Joe mentioned playing Oregon Trail, it triggered some memories about my earlier encounters with the internet that I didn’t even remember, such as Oregon Trail. It was a game I was able to play in my grade school computer class! With the memory of that, I now can think that I was pretty addicted to video games on the computer as well. I would play games such as Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego, Lego Island, and The Sims. It’s funny to think that I couldn’t even remember playing those games, considering I used to play them all the time. But I realize now how big of an affect AIM and AOL was in my life. So big that I couldn’t even remember my first real encounter with the internet. What will I forget next? When Joe mentioned how easy and affordable it is to talk to people online, I 110% agree with him. I speak to friends and my boyfriends parents who are overseas often. Having the capability to talk to people basically face to face is fascinating and even better, FREE! I also agree with the privacy issue and I too hope we don’t rely completely on the internet because you never know if something was to go majorly wrong one day.
DIAL UP!!! I remember that annoying sound it used to make like your computer was about to take off into orbit. It used to take like 5 minutes for it to start working and web pages would take forever to start going. Now we get frustrated when it takes more than 10 seconds for a page to load. I think we all can agree that facebook has basically taken over the internet. No one knew what facebook was (since it hadn't been invented) when we all first experienced the internet. If you would have told me in high school that something called facebook would basically take over my online life I would have laughed at you. Also, AIM was really cool because like Brittany said you could talk to your friends while you were at home (since no one had cell phones when I was 15). The question was asked "what's next after facebook" and it will be interesting to see what someone can come up with to maybe "top" facebook.
My absolute first encounter with the internet I don’t exactly remember but something that I do remember is I was always downloading .wav files. I would download them for hours and put together funny “songs” to listen to. Another thing I did when I first got online was play sheep head on Yahoo! games. I was addicted to playing the card game online and to some extent I still am. The Internet’s future is as wide open as the sky. There’s no telling what could happen. If you asked me when I first started college what I thought it could be I would have never guessed facebook and google would blow up like they did. I’m excited to see what the next big thing is going to be. Is it going to be another thing like facebook? What’s next for social networking? How can we take the internet further than we already have? I think the next big thing will be additions to social networking and incorporating it into the workplace (even though it’s already happening). There are things that make we worried about the internet as well. We already have people stealing identities and hacking in to peoples computers and hurting children. I worry not only for my safety but what about when I have kids. What’s the internet going to be like then? How am I going to keep them from seeing things they shouldn’t and talking to people that they shouldn’t be?
ReplyDeleteOnly time will tell what happens with the Internet. The facebook creator had no idea he’d be a billionaire in a few short years. All it takes is one crazy idea that people buy into to make it on the internet!
I cannot give you a specific time and date of when my first actual encounter with the internet was. What I do remember, is when my parents first bought a computer and it was huge compared to what computers and lap tops are like today. The thing I remember most with the internet was DIAL-UP! I was always connecting online to AOL and I loved hearing “YOU’VE GOT MAIL” because I thought it was the coolest thing to hear and was fascinated by the computer talking. As a kid I was amazed with what I was able to do online. AIM was something I remember most, it was a new way for me to interact with my friends. Just thinking about how the internet is improving more and more each day is exciting in some ways. MySpace was something I loved when I was in high school and then Facebook came along. What’s next? What can top Facebook? It will be interesting to see what’s going to be the next best thing for the Internet. I wonder what new verb will be added to our vocabulary, if possible, other than “Google it”. However, because the internet is such a growing success, it worries me if technology will be too advanced. In the article posted on our blog on Facebook, about how “Places” was added to mobile phones for people to be tagged or tag themselves where they are currently located, scares me. It’s alarming to think what could be next. Our privacy I feel, is becoming less and less private as the Internet world is advancing. Also, I wonder if we are relying on the Internet/technology too much and will this affect us in the long run, especially if there ever was a system failure!! The possibilities are endless for the Internet and that is what is most troubling to me.
ReplyDeleteMy first encounter with the internet that I can remember is my Dad setting up our first personal computer in our office and hearing the dial-up tone ring as it connected to AOL. I remember it taking forever and being so excited to hear “You’ve Got Mail!” from the AOL voice every time I signed in. It was the best feeling ever to know I had mail. It didn’t matter who it was from I was just excited to hear the voice. I admit my first encounter with the internet was pretty naïve. I went into chat-rooms, talked to strangers, and probably posted some much too personal stuff on my profile but that was before I really thought about the impact of the internet and how it could be used to for harm. Once we started learning more about the internet and I become a more avid user I learned what to do and not to do on the internet. As we move into the future I am most excited about how the internet will connect us to other parts of the world in terms of social networking. In the next 5 years will Facebook still be the “it” thing? Will my kids be using Facebook? I wonder how that will advance and progress in the next 10-20 years. Also on the other hand I find that a bit troubling as well because even now I see it in 2010 that face to face communication isn’t like it used to be and people find it more comfortable to communicate online. With that I wonder if all the advances with social networking will diminish the way humans interact completely. The day we cease to be able to hold a real conversation I wonder if we’ll even notice; or will the change have been so gradual we won’t even notice it. I guess only time will tell but I’m hoping society will be able to keep a good grip on reality and human contact with all the inevitable advances technology will encounter in the future.
ReplyDeleteI remember when my mom first got a computer when I was in grade school I was almost nervous to use it. At the same time I was almost instantly addicted to playing games, as lame as they seem now, like orgegon trail and number munchers. Then when I was a little older I was alowed to set up a hotmail account for email. I was so excited to have the ability to email, and I seemed to instantly understand the technology with no real training. Then my mind exploded when I set up an AOL instant messanger account. I was always on there, it was what everyone in our age group did before Facebook came along. Then I was hooked to downloading music on napster before you had to pay for it. When I went to college facebook was just blowing up and I never saw it becoming as big as it is today. I use email and facebook multiple times a day and feel like I would have a hard time functioning daily without either of them. Whats next? Like it was stated in the video we watched in class the internet is always growing and uprgrading, and can be overwhelming to try and keep up with. I think to keep myself from being overwhelmed I will keep a narrow focus on the using the utilities on the internet that I absolutely use in a productive fashion. I wont try and worry about keeping up with the more pointless things offered on the internet. What is exciting about the future of the internet is that it is getting faster and more people are gaining access to it everyday, allowing for the world to function and communicate in what is being called as a global village. I am amazed at how easy and affordable it is to talk to people all over the world through sites like skype. I am nervous however about the influence and power huge companies like Verizon, AT&T, etc, might gain in the future and how privacy will be maintained and monitered. Another thing that I am worried about is if the internet is taking away from peoples ability to write and properly communicate in the workplace. Hopefully the things that the internet makes easier for us aren't taken for granted. Also I hope that we dont become completely reliant on the internet.
ReplyDeleteMy first encounter with the internet was when I was around 11 years old. I remember that the first thing I wanted to do was enter a chat room, because I saw my uncle teaching my mom how to use it and so I thought talking to people on the computer was cool. Of course they didn’t let me use the chat room because of my age and fear for predators, but looking at today’s society children are in chat rooms younger than the age that I have tried. Looking back today’s speed of the internet, I remember our internet connection back in the 90s was so slow that sometimes the computer stopped trying to connect to the internet after trying a list of numbers to dial. You could hear the computer dialing loudly as if you were on the telephone. In comparison to today’s internet world, everything about the internet and connectivity is extremely funny. It’s funny because I remember when that was the same internet connection that most people didn’t have or couldn’t afford and now dial-up is like the cheapest internet that you can buy. With the advances in technology and the internet in today’s society, I am glad that we have faster connection, instant messaging, web-cam, texting from computers to cell phones, Skype, and the all time favorites like search engines and social networking sites. All these things are crucial in today’s society because they are all tools that we use on an everyday basis. They are definitely tools that speed up communication a trillion times more than communication a few decades ago. The only troubling thing that I fear in the future of computers and the internet is that scammers, predators, and serial killers will abuse the use of technology as it continues to advance to use it as tools to drive the homicide rate up. There have been cases of people killing themselves because of cyber-bullies and people locating people through their IP address. Just yesterday, I was talking with someone on Skype and they began to act weird and then asked me why I was hiding my IP address from them after I transferred our conversations to Skype on my Blackberry. The whole thing creeped me out and I felt like I was talking to a real psycho. No one has ever cared or asked me about my IP address, weird as it was, it put a fear in me that creates worries for what will become of the internet in the future when our younger generation uses the internet.
ReplyDeleteLisa Lawrence response to Scott and Brittany
ReplyDeleteI think the thing that intrigued me the most was how similar all our 1st encounters with the internet was. I didn't read anyone’s blog before I wrote mine and it I think it’s funny but also telling of the times that Brittany and I vividly remember the dial sound and hearing "You've Got Mail" and thinking it was the best thing ever. It's even funnier considering now a days we hardly use email anymore and probably not one of us can remember the last time we got excited over hearing "you've got mail". It just goes to show how things that were so big then could be such a thing of the past on a relatively few short years later. Also with Scott’s blog I agree with the safety issue of the future being one of the top concerns for the future. There’s so much now that we can’t control or monitor over the internet now so it freaks me out just how much more open and advanced the internet might be in the future. How are we going to be able to disconnect from it all and maintain a level of anonymity and privacy in a completely digital age that I’m sure is going to be inevitable in the future. It’s really something I’m going to have to give a watchful eye to so I won’t feel so blindsided when it comes.
Joe O'Keeffe responding to Alicia Flowers
ReplyDeleteI found it really funny that you remembered when the dial up would just give up trying to connect. I hated when that happened. I also found your comment about serial killers using technology to there advantage interesting. I never really think about people like that using the same internet I do but it is a scary fact that the internet could aid criminals with relative ease. I share many of the same concerns with you Alicia and hope that with the technology advancing so fast that security measures can keep up. I think it is important that we educate children on how to protect themselves at an earlier age than we are currently. My two sisters who are under the age of 10 both spend the same amount of time on the computer as I do if not longer. This worries and amazes me that they are so good with technology with no real training. I am worried that they may get sucked into a scam or be taken advantage of on the internet if they are not shown what to watch for.
Brittney Daum responding to Joe O’Keeffe
ReplyDeleteWhen Joe mentioned playing Oregon Trail, it triggered some memories about my earlier encounters with the internet that I didn’t even remember, such as Oregon Trail. It was a game I was able to play in my grade school computer class! With the memory of that, I now can think that I was pretty addicted to video games on the computer as well. I would play games such as Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego, Lego Island, and The Sims. It’s funny to think that I couldn’t even remember playing those games, considering I used to play them all the time. But I realize now how big of an affect AIM and AOL was in my life. So big that I couldn’t even remember my first real encounter with the internet. What will I forget next? When Joe mentioned how easy and affordable it is to talk to people online, I 110% agree with him. I speak to friends and my boyfriends parents who are overseas often. Having the capability to talk to people basically face to face is fascinating and even better, FREE! I also agree with the privacy issue and I too hope we don’t rely completely on the internet because you never know if something was to go majorly wrong one day.
In response to Brittany
ReplyDeleteDIAL UP!!! I remember that annoying sound it used to make like your computer was about to take off into orbit. It used to take like 5 minutes for it to start working and web pages would take forever to start going. Now we get frustrated when it takes more than 10 seconds for a page to load.
I think we all can agree that facebook has basically taken over the internet. No one knew what facebook was (since it hadn't been invented) when we all first experienced the internet. If you would have told me in high school that something called facebook would basically take over my online life I would have laughed at you.
Also, AIM was really cool because like Brittany said you could talk to your friends while you were at home (since no one had cell phones when I was 15).
The question was asked "what's next after facebook" and it will be interesting to see what someone can come up with to maybe "top" facebook.