Week 10 - Face-to-face interaction

When I thought about and learned about livecasting so far this week, I couldn't help but think of the ever-decreasing face-to-face interaction in our society. I've never attended a webinar, but I started to think about what it would be like to attend one. I thought that I'd never be able to pay attention. I envisioned myself sitting at my desk in my apartment trying to watch this webinar on my computer screen while sitting in an uncomfortable chair, text messaging, and looking at Facebook. That's the problem with the internet. There are so many distractions. Even when I try to do my homework for this class, I get distracted by Facebook or YouTube or other sites. When I'm in class, though, I don't. Why? Because it's disrespectful to the teacher and other classmates, plus it's usually against the rules of the class. So, that got me thinking of how I could make my webinar experience more worthy of my time. If I ever have to attend one, all I have to do is go with other people and possibly get out of my familiar surroundings so I can concentrate more. Plus, I'd have to set up my computer to a TV screen so that I am not huddled around the computer.

Another problem I predicted with my webinar experience is not being able to talk to anybody about what I had experienced and learned (at least face-to-face). Actually attending a live seminar is much, much more appealing to me than attending a webinar.

Sometimes all I want to do is get off of the computer and go chat with someone face-to-face. I talk to my friends over text messaging and the internet more than I do in person it seems like. During our text messaging sessions, we usually just make plans or what not (not have actual lengthy in-depth conversations), but during instant messaging, I literally talk to my friends as if I were with them in person. That is something I've been doing since as long as I can remember. When I first used instant messaging, I thought that was so cool. Now, I wish it wasn't so prevalent in my life. I used to be in school for eight hours a day, most of them spent learning, but I was always around people doing some sort of live interaction. Now, I feel like I spend more time on the internet for college classes than anything else.

Mark Glaser talks about cell phones killing face-to-face interaction in his blog. He makes some interesting points and even told a story about having dinner with his friend and his friend's iPhone. I thougth that was interesting because I feel like everybody does that nowadays, including myself. Even though I'm complaining about the lack of face-to-face interaction I have in my life, I still text message while having lunch with my friends at the caf. I usually only text when someone texts me, but still...

It's also been said that social interaction is good for a person's health. Yesterday, I read about the Children's Health Magazine's 100 best places to raise a family. The article talked about why Lincoln Nebraska is such an ideal place:
"A key factor to a long, healthy life is a sense of belonging to your community," says John Scheer, Ph. D., an associate professor of nutrition and health sciences at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. In fact, one study found that older people with strong social ties were more likely to live 10 years longer than those who kept to themselves" (Colletti, J. & Weber, J.).

As I jump into career life (and an ever-growing online world), I will always do whatever I can to keep face-to-face interaction common in my life because nothing can replace it. What are your thoughts?

Week 9 - Globalization

When I was first introduced to the internet, I was told not to talk to people I didn't know. I wasn't supposed to go into chat rooms or add people to my instant messenger unless I knew them. As time went on and the internet became more interactive, I started to form relationships with people 0nline who I didn't actually know personally. I leave comments on YouTube videos I like, I reply to news stories and debate them with other commenters, I interact with classmates that I've never met in person, and I join Facebook groups and have discussions with other members. And the most amazing thing is that the people I'm interacting with are from all over the country--some even the world. We, as a society, are well on our way to globalization where we can interact with people from all over the world with modern technology. That made me think of how quickly news travels over the internet.

The term viral videos was new to me this week; although the idea of it was not. I actually think it's quite amazing how quickly videos spread on the web. It's been suggested that we can all be related through six degrees of separation, so it doesn't take much for a video to travel half way around the world in a short amount of time. Apparently there are websites devoted to accumulating the top viral videos. Check out these two: Top 10 Virals and ViralVideos.com. I saw a few familiar ones on there.

Viral videos got me thinking about viral news stories. It's also pretty amazing how quickly news spreads these days. For instance, the balloon boy saga swept through the nation faster than ever. I had friends on Facebook and Twitter writing updates as they arrived on the situation. News websites did the same, and there have been several follow-up stories heard and seen all over the web. People who didn't even know the boy were worried about the him. Now, people who don't know the family are debating whether they should get charged or not.

Even North Dakota is getting national news coverage. I went to Yahoo.com and saw the same article I had read on Inforum. It was about a dog in Casselton, ND. This dog was being measured for the Guinness Book of World Records as the biggest dog in the world. Not only was this dog featured in our local news, it made national news as well. The article and pictures of the famous dog drinking out of the kitchen sink can be found all over the web.

Because of our globalized world, I've decided it's time to start learning a foreign language. I chose Spanish, and I'm learning it this year. Maybe soon I'll be able to speak to an even broader group of people online.

Week 8 - Walmart

MSN's homepage today featured an article about Walmart and stated why we should love and why we should hate the franchise superstore. I had to read it because I shop at Walmart quite a bit. Walmart's been criticized for putting locally-owned small town businesses out of businesses by offering very cheap prices. They do this by, according to the article, bullying vendors into cutting profits to the bone and of course by ordering in bulk. I actually kind of liked reading this article because it concluded with this statement: "In short, Wal-Mart is one of the few corporate giants still standing using the same strategy upon which it was founded: It sells discount goods at a fair price" (Macke, 2009). A lot of people think that Walmart shouldn't be allowed in certain towns, such as Valley City, because it would put other businesses out of business. It probably would because Walmart is a corporation that knows how to do business and does it well. I'm not saying that I wouldn't shop at a locally-owned over-priced business before Walmart, but I think some shop owners can learn a valuable lesson from Walmart.

On the other hand, this article tells us why we should hate Walmart. I didn't necessarily agree with everything in this article. The author argues that she hates Walmart because it usually offers its employees poverty wages (which I'm assuming she means minimum wage because otherwise it would be illegal). What's wrong with that? I worked at a grocery store for two years making just above minimum wage. It was a low skill level job that didn't require enough work to be paid more than what I was making. Sure, I thought minimum wage was too low at the time, but I wasn't expecting to make the big bucks by stocking shelves and checking grocerices. She also argues that Walmart doesn't offer its employees health insurance. To me, Walmart doesn't seem like the type of company that would offer health insurance except for maybe to its managers. She also doesn't like that Walmart insists on lowering its prices. Their low prices are what makes them so popular! If other businesses are suffering because of this, maybe they should lower their prices or offer some sort of benefit.

I do have to argue, though, that small town locally-owned businesses can't just offer as low of prices as Walmart does. I understand that Walmart is a huge corporation with plenty of resources. But, in my opinion, local shops can do other things to attract business, like for instance, keeping their shelves stocked. I'm not trying to demean Pamida or anyone who works there, but it seems like every time I go in there for something, it's not there or it is ridiculously over-priced. I would shop there a lot more if they had something more to offer me because I really do believe in supporting my local economy. I also think local businesses have the huge opportunity of being able to be personable and friendly towards its customers.

That's just my opinion on Walmart; I'm curious to here yours! Do you love or hate Walmart? Should it be allowed in Valley City?

Week 7 - Photosharing

After reading about photosharing this week, I had to count the number of places I had my photos backed up. First, they're all on memory cards. I have about five memory cards, all filled with photos. I don't just delete photos after I upload them onto a computer; I just buy a new memory card when I need one. Secondly, they're all uploaded onto my laptop computer that I own. Third, they're all safely uploaded onto an external hardrive - My Passport. Fourth, they're all printed off and put into albums (I even have a shoebox full of some doubles of the photos I really like). And last, I have them all uploaded onto the internet (most of them are on Facebook). Needless to say, my photos are very important to me. It's also important to me that others get to see my photos, which is why I have them on display all over my apartment and on Facebook. Most of them are just candids of my friends and I out doing something fun. I usually take a picture to document something--like a fun camping trip or whatnot. Photos also capture a memory and keep it for me. I like to go back and look at them and feel the memory.

This week, I've considered taking advantage of photosharing sites. I use Photobucket to host my images that I want to put on my MySpace (because Photobucket automatically writes a code for them). I also put some other photos on there, but not many. I feel like Facebook is enough for me. It may not be an exclusive photosharing site, but it allows me to upload them into albums, and allow others to view and comment on them. One of the features I really like about some of the photosharing sites I've learned about this week is the editing tool featured on many of the sites. It would save the hassle of uploading photos to Photoshop then to the photosharing site. It is especially a nice feature for me in the summer, when I don't have a computer with Photoshop software. On the other hand, I don't really like the idea of sharing photos with people I don't even know. It just doesn't appeal to me, because why would someone care, especially considering a lot of my photos consist of people--probably people they don't know. So, I have thought about using photosharing more often, but do I really need another place to put my photos? The internet is the most secure place, in my opinion (referring to never losing them), and I might not always have a Facebook account, so I'm thinking about it...