The Many Electronic Friends That We Have (Week 3)

There are many times that we are on Facebook/Twitter/Myspace/Tumblr and we decide to browse to the thousand of friends that we have on our social networking sites.. Okay, I jest. I only have around 400 friends on Facebook and I think it is already too much for me to handle. 

This is my Friend Network that I managed to get from a website that Com240 has directed me to in the previous semesters.

My network is not interesting, which is what I would like. I prefer a clean cut network, and this perhaps is the only thing that surprised me – that my networks are not as confusing as I thought them out to be – that most people in my networks are made up of strong ties, without much connectors to each group. My Facebook activities are rather mundane seeing as I have not many activities as compared to my peers, similar to realizing that my network is not interesting; I am surprised that my Facebook is so clean cut. There are instances that I would just log into Facebook to be a “lurker”, and perhaps my time spent as a “lurker” has made me forget the fact that I have not been as active – posting of statuses/photos/links – as I am active as a “lurker”.

Well. we all know that everyone needs social networking to interact with their friends or to create "bonds" - yes, however flimsy they are - to maintain future networking purposes. Coming from someone who only has that many friends on Facebook... I believe that social networking sites are good only if you are a believer of having many flimsy connections.

And I am unfortunately not a believer of having many acquaintances for the sake of having a pretty Facebook page. There are so many social problems to deal with when you expose more than what you are supposed to on social networking sites, its almost akin to placing yourself up on a platform where everyone is allowed to bitch about you.. and YOU WOULDN'T KNOW IT. Just look at the poor case of Canadian Teen Amanda Todd, a poor victimized girl of Facebook, who eventually committed suicide after posting up her story on YouTube (a popular video sharing site).

This is her original video, can you believe that people still continued to bully her on Facebook after this incident? Which had ultimately led to her cracking and committing suicide.





Is social networking really just about maintaining friendships and creating new bonds? Since by the social penetration theory. we all know that relationsla bonds do not acquire themselves immediately following the acceptance of a "Friend Request".

Kinda like this image, where there are hundreds of "friends" writing on your Facebook Wall wishing you something along the lines of  "happy birthday pretty! Have a good bithday!"  "Happy birthday! Have a good day and may your wishes come true." Seriously though, how many of those people actually remembered that it was your birthday if not for that niggling little notification at the top of their Facebook homepage?

Yes, you could be like that girl in that picture, and remove your birthday notification from Facebook. But I can honestly tell you that no one would remember your birthday, other than your family, boyfriend/girlfriend, and your best friend from when you were a kid.

Social networking is almost a farce, a facade where everyone gets to be "friends" with each other on the surface. When in reality, social networking really requires you to be able to sustain those relationships with real life interactions.

And everyone, let's not forget about the terrible social/psychological problems you might have due to the overuse of social networking sites. 

Week 2 Social Media

Girl: I saw you tweeting her!

Boy: I was just replying her out of politeness!!! 

Girl: Oh yeah?!? 

Boy: Yes!!

Girl: I saw you like her bikini pictures!

Boy: ....... 

We have all been using social media in our daily lives, so much so that it has integrated into our lives and has turned into a necessity so much so that we have forgotten how we had operated as living beings before that. 

I am guilty as charged. 

Although, I am pretty much people will call a lurker on Facebook ( I don't post anything, I just lurk around and stalk unsuspecting Facebook users *evil laugh*)  I do use other social media, such as the all important Instagram ( you post pictures of anything and everything), Twitter (those 140 characters are not to be looked down upon, I have managed to tell someone's life story from that 140 characters) Vine ( those short video clips are pretty entertaining, really.) Social media keeps me and everyone around very much entertained on a daily basis. 

“Social media is a bad idea – the rise of
social media has caused more and
more problems like Internet addiction,
social isolation, and invasion of privacy -
especially with the young generation!”

 Referring to a quote I remembered reading on COM125 PowerPoint slides (okay, I lied. I went back and copied and pasted this quote) strikes a cord with me. Sure, social media has granted people the ability to create communities of their own such as the blogging community - where there are businesses dedicated to managing bloggers, in Singapore we have Gushcloud.sg and Nuffnang -, online activist groups, event companies, and more than we can think of. Three years back, Google indexed 620 million Facebook groups, imagine all the communication within that many groups! 

That to be said, I agree wholeheartedly with that quote. 

Social Media is a bad idea. 

I have lost count of the countless times that I had deactivated my Facebook, for fear of the loss of privacy. Facebook is close to being like a stalker and gossip haven! And there has been so many meaningless "friendships" on Facebook, or the obligation to just click "like" on someone else's photo on Instagram just because that person "liked" your photos too many times for you not to return the favor. Social media, utilized by the young has seem to lost its value of connecting, but rather a race of popularity.  

Source

How meaningless can Social media get?

what really goes on behind those flawless pictures on Facebook

Nobody even really remembers the different versions of the web anymore, no one knows how "it" works on the most basic levels. Here is a very basic rundown of the difference  between Web 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0. 

• WEB 2.0 - The reading and participating web
• Begun in year 1999 
• LiveJournal (Launched in April, 1999) and Blogger (Launched in August, 1999) started the ball rolling
• Non-technical user can actively contribute and glean information from the web using different blogging platforms.
• Video-Streaming
• Twitter
• YouTube
• Flickr
• Instagram
• Facebook

• WEB 3.0 - The Semantic Executing Web
• Web 3.0 uses the Inernet to make connections with the information
• Web 3.0 interprets what you want
• For example, you want to et somewhere nice for dinner with your special someone, and you have a budget of maybe $200. You want somewhere romantic yet not too overly romantic, somewhere where there is nice aphrodisiac oysters and steak for main courses. Using the current tchnology you might have to do a lot of research to be able to get a close enough location for that dinner. You might have to compare pages and pages of websites and reviews to decide on what is available to you. However, with Web 3.0, you will be able to sit back and let the Web 3.0 do the job for you. You might key in something really specific like " I want ot bring my date out to somewhere romantic that is not too romantic. I will like the place to have oysters and steak too." This is possible because Web3.0 is able to interpret every keyword that you have typed and able to understand the context of the search. Web 3.0 knows no boundaries and opens up the whole semantic web for you. 

How the semantic web works is seen in the video below

And a last video, to lay out the growing nature from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0

Week 1 The Internet

There are so many things that we can think of when we need to do something, or when we desperately need new information for something urgent. In the past, everyone would have scrounged for left over books in second hand bookstores to look for perhaps that one sentence that would have sufficed the need for their new information... or maybe went to the library and teared their hair out in frustration hen they didn't get to the books first (haha, I can just imagine everyone with messy hair and desperation etched on their faces!!!)

YES. That is why the Internet is so amazing isn't it not? I mean everyone has Internet now. I could remember the times - just 12 years back, where everyone just started really having internet at home, albeit it being this whirring dialup connection that dragged the Internet speed down. Everyone was that amazed with it. I would call this Internet phenomena a watershed event. Something so amazing that begun so humbly..

When it was first developed (not as the 12 years ago as I said), way back in time - in the 1950s, the Internet wasn't as well recognized as it was mainly for the military to exploit explore and use to their advantages in the matter of war. After much development of the "internetworking", where the ARPANET led with much gusto, it created multiple separate networks that spanned together to be a network of networks (like inception somewhat!) 
After the expansion of the ASPANET in 1981, came the standardization of the Internet protocol suite which led to a world-wide network of interconnected TCP/IP networks! And then finally in the 1990s (yes, I skipped a major part of the Internet history, because I am pretty sure it will be long and majorly exhaustive on your eyes) the ARPANET was decommissioned  and commercialized for the use of the public when the NSFNET was decommisioned, and therefore removing the last remaining barrier on the use of the Internet to the commercial traffic. 

Taking the world by storm is the Internet, creating many new cultures and opportunities for the global audience. Email, instant messaging, VoIp, video calls, and our forums, blogs, social networking sites, and so much more. And I can only hope that it continue growing, because it has helped me in so many ways (yes, thank you Wikipedia) in my life, and helped me see the parts of the world that I have failed to see when I was 12 years old. 

I found these really cute pictures of the "internet" when I was browsing the internet =.= 

But I had to share! 
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Hilarious! Remember, the Internet gets everything you want, but you can't be too careful with what you are gaining access to! 

And look. Even cute little furballs are curious about the Internet!