MODELING REALITY WITH VIRTUAL WORLDS

Virtual worlds, such as the popular Second Life, are a significant part of new media. They can be used just for entertainment (i.e.: video game), they can be used to meet new people, or another way of interacting with friends you already have. Virtual worlds can also be used to teach, that is, people with shared interests can have a meeting area in which actual lessons ranging from a variety of topics can be taught at a specified time. It can help people improve on their social skills, especially if they are shy or have trouble communicating. Virtual worlds can be used by business organizations to conduct meetings, which is particularly useful if you want to communicate with team members who are spread around the country or world. Businesses can also use virtual worlds to conduct orientations and training sessions. An example of this comes from the article. “IBM Learning Programs Get a ‘Second Life.” The article states, “New IBM employees separated by thousands of miles will be able to mingle, interact and share ideas in the virtual world before their first day on the job.” “They can learn real-life working skills such as signing up for benefits, developing code as part of a global team, and ramping up sales skills before they meet with IBM clients.”

Virtual world technology is beneficial to society in that it provides convenience, ease, innovation, and even help. If a school or business wants to host a class, or training, it would be convenient to just turn on your computer and be connected without having to travel. Since virtual worlds provide an innovative way to socialize or train/learn, they appeal to large groups of people because people are attracted to the unconventional methods used. And as for help, virtual worlds can make people with low self esteem feel better because they aren’t judged, they can help those with serious socializing problems learn to deal, they can give people who are unable to move or function completely the chance to do so via the virtual world, they can provide language assistance, and the list goes on. An example of one of the ways virtual worlds provide help is shown through the article, “iReport: 'Naughty Auties' battle autism with virtual interaction." It states, “For people with autism, we've found it's a very nice way of setting up situations they might come across in their everyday lives," Bignell [a psychology researcher] said. "For people who have social, emotional, communicational problems ... we can get them familiar with an environment before they actually try it out in real life."

The dark side of virtual worlds would have to be, when used for more serious or professional reasons, there’s a limit as to what can be done. Everything in the virtual world is simulated, which can hinder actual real life performance. You may learn to deal with certain situations but not everything can be truly learned through the virtual world.

I think virtual worlds will continue to grow while technology grows. As more and more of our society become technologically advanced, things like virtual worlds may become the norm. And it will lead to some new, unique technology being developed.

SOCIAL NETWORKING

Social Networking can be used for keeping in contact with friends and family and it allows you to meet new people through mutual friends or shared interests. You can interact with people who have shared music, movies, interests in organizations, or activities, etc. Social networking can also be used on a corporate level as a new way of advertisement, or gaining more public interest. It can also be a method of recruiting, or gaining information on potential employees.

The benefits of social networking are convenience and ease of contact. You don’t have to wait for an in person visit in order to catch up with a friend. From a corporate aspect, social networking can really aid in the recruiting process. According to Maureen Crawford-Hentz, a recruiter for Osram Sylvania, “Social networking technology is absolutely the best thing to happen to recruiting -- ever.” It allows recruiters to find talent that they probably wouldn’t find otherwise.

But along with benefits, there are downsides with social networking. It doesn’t always replace face to face contact and communication. Social networking can also work against you when it comes to companies. If you have inappropriate information or pictures, it may cost you an opportunity. So, social networking should be used with haste and caution.

MY NEW MEDIA CLASS - SO FAR

New Media needs technology in order to exist. New Media is used by people to connect with other people in a faster, more efficient way. Technology allows this to be done. You can submit information through wikis, blogs, etc. and other people can edit, comment, and share even more information right away through the technologies. You can connect with your friends/family across the country with a Facebook wall comment, and he or she can write back practically right away if they are on. There are also sites such as YouTube, FlickR, Secondlife that are New Media technologies- any site that allows you to connect with people from all over, directly, can pretty much be a part of New Media. An example of the rapid response in New Media technologies comes from the article "Clive Thompson on How YouTube Changes the Way We Think" A member, MadV, who created a video had inspired 2,000 replies which made it the "most-responded-to video in YouTube's history."

Internet is very important to New Media. It's what permits the connection between people using the various New Media Technologies. It permits ease, and provides efficient, and speedy results. It also is the factor which allows you to connect to people not generally in your circle. According to the article "Eight business technology trends to watch,"

"The Internet and related technologies give companies radical new ways to harvest the talents of innovators working outside corporate boundaries."

New Media is enhancing old media because everything is faster, and reaches out to more people. People provide news and information on various sites, versus getting a daily newspaper. Word of mouth and new facts pertaining to news can be updated throughout the day. Having to schedule meetings and visits are changed through online meeting rooms and or instant chat services. For those people you know who live far away, you can easily stay in contact through social networking sites. New Media is the upgrade to old media, it makes things a lot easier and faster to stay connected with the world.

Some Social Networking Sites

At some point in time I have been a member of Friendster, Myspace, Facebook, and Xanga. I pretty much fell off of Friendster, and Xanga. Myspace I sign into maybe once every couple of months... maybe. I believe Xanga was my first taste of social networking. It's another blogging community site, and I had subsriptions to my cousins' and friends' xangas. We all tend to migrate to these social networking sites together. At the time, it was fun to be on. My layouts changed, I wrote about what's going on in my life, and I read about the goings on in other people's lives. I "connected" with people I never knew before. Comments were a big thing- you would log into your site the read the comments left on your new entry. Eventually, comments stop coming, and the writing of new entries got boring (unless there was something really interesting to talk about). That was the end of Xanga.

Friendster was my next stepping stone. It was cool for the fact that now we can upload and share pics. Eventually I did get tired of it too. Mostly because the layout was unchangeable and it just always looked the same. The comment feature was okay, but the interaction between me and my "friends" was limited. It was more effort to go leave a comment for some reason. Eventually Friendster faded out of the picture too.

Myspace is one of the most popular social networking sites out there. And of course I joined. My family and friends were on it, and I got to meet a good set of new cool people. One of the cooler features I thought Myspace has is the "top 8" friends (although I used a higher setting because I didn't want anyone feeling bad). Another cool feature is the billboard where friends can post updates and interesting tidbits, etc. I love the fact that we can put songs onto our pages and layouts were customizable. Myspace is still a fun site to use, I just fell off of it because I find it to be similar to Facebook and I couldn't keep up between the two sites. All the uploads I would do on one, I felt had to be done on the other. So eventually I focused practically all my time into Facebook.

Facebook I first appreciated because it was for college students. Then it opened its doors to the public. I minded at first, but not so much now. I was able to connect to even more family members, like my brother and sister in law from Georgia. I found people from years ago I never thought I would hear from again. The wall feature, the "notes" feature, and all the new applications that come out for Facebook keeps it interesting. I love the "events" option because I can see what's going on, and I can host my own event too. I like the fact that you can comment and tag people in your photos. And you can see the new pics your friends post without having to go to each person's page. The updates in your friends lives are on that first home page. So all in all, Myspace and Facebook are my top social networking sites- but Facebook is my number 1 (for now).