final paper 2

In doing the research for this paper, I explored the idea of global population growth over the last century and how that has increased global consumption of goods worldwide.  Global population has exploded, due to technology progress to make living conditions globally better and advances in medicine and other things. This has allowed what were previously considered third world countries to make advances in their purchasing power and join our American ways of consuming and disposing of goods and contributed to the obsolescence of all things in their countries as well. This also contributed greatly to the amount of "garbage" that is not biodegradable in our planet. It makes me wonder if continued export of our way of life is the right way and how we can change things before they reach a point of no return. Interesting thoughts....how they will fit into my paper will be also interesting.

Facebook the end

Facebook is all over the place; television, news programs, Oprah. Mark Zuckerberg was interviewed on 60 minutes recently, which he used to make his official announcement that Facebook was changing the appearance of its profile page. Talk about being accepted into the older generation's world of power and greed! Now Zuckerberg has been named Time Magazine's Person of the Year, making him the youngest man ever to be bestowed that honor. This puts him into the company of people like Mohandas Gandhi, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler and more recently, Barack Obama and Ben Bernancke.  That is because they are recognizing him using the criteria "for better or for worse, ...has done the most to influence the events of the year".  I'm sure that there are many that are still scratching their heads at who Mark Zuckerberg is, but when this article is published, it will introduce him to a population who has never heard of facebook, much less created a profile page of their own. This may partly be due to a generation gap, but also people who are leery of sharing too much personal information on the web. There are many others who feel that although his work has created something that has changed the way that facebook users use the computer and look at social networking, there are still millions who don't have access to clean water everyday, much less a computer to update their statuses. So how could he be Person of the Year? Because he has changed the lives of 500 million people who share their pictures and status of how many cows and beans have been planted on their imaginary farms? Because now I can find out if my 2,000 "friends" are together, broken up or just hookin' up? I don't know if the phenomenon of facebook has truly influenced the events of this year but it has certainly has an effect on most people ages 25 and under.  So since many of the future movers and shakers of the world interact with him everyday, I guess Mark Zuckerberg is the Man.   

final paper

I've been ill recently and had promised to stay on top of the work required for class but sadly have overestimated my abilities. But I am trying to get caught up. I'm glad that one of the topics that we can choose to write on is Made to Break by Giles Slade due to my recent addition of technology into my life. I just had a pacemaker put into my chest and though it is a life choice, the battery has a life of only between 5-8 years, which means it needs to replace in that time. I plan on using our book and the research I gather to see how much of this obsolescence is true verses the companies suggested times for everything. It all seems to be a money game in the end.  But actual lives are in the balance every time an invasive procedure is done, and because not everyone has the basic benefit of health insurance, the costs are prohibitive. Anyway, that's a basic outline of what I plan to write on.  I hope it is relevant and interesting to you as well.

Facebook Effect Part 2

This second part of the book is exciting because it charts the way facebook becomes a "real" company. Through its rapid growth, it needed rapid infusions of major money. I find it incredible that so many people saw the potential of the idea that Zuckerberg had for them to offer to give young men control of millions of dollars. It has obviously paid off in spades and those who had the chance to invest early and didn't are kicking themselves throughly because of their lost millions. But who knew? The idea wasn't a new idea. Nor was it one that their team had any experience with. Nor did they have a track record of any sort that would inspire confidence or trust with massive amounts of money. But the confidence that Zuckerberg had in himself showed potential investors that he was the one that they were banking on. Without his somewhat geeky way of explaining, when he felt like it, Accel would have never bankrolled them to the extent they did. It is inspiring to see that there are success stories  involving kids and their ideas that can happen even when the sharks get involved.

But none of it would have happened without the leadership of Zuckerberg. He saw past the naysayers and followed his vision of what facebook could be in order to make it a success. Even with opposition from within his own circle, he continued to expand facebook to fit his vision. When he added the ability to add photographs to profiles, he expanded the use of facebook to be part of the culture of America. He recognized the social importance of seeing yourself, and the relationships that that represented way before anyone did. His definition for this phenomenon is  "..."social graph," meaning the web of relationships articulated inside Facebook as the result of users connecting with their friends."(157) This is so true. People want to share and want their friends to share as well. And share they do. Pictures are tagged, sometimes minutes after they have been posted. In fact, people who don't want their social lives out there are often caught unaware that pictures have been taken until they have been made public. This can be positive but also has negative effects. I personally know people who have been tagged in photos of them in compromising situations that have been the talk of the office, because they unwittingly let their boss be their "friend". Not smart for most jobs, especially ones in education. I know we have talked in class about having two profiles, one for partying and one for professional reasons, but sometimes they mix and the results can be ugly. Nothing has happen to these people I know, but it sure can make for an awkward conversation around the boss's office. So the lesson that facebook users must take away is that it is good to share but don't share everything. You never know who looking and making judgments based on a silly moment with your friends.

The Facebook Effect Part I

Was the movie screenplay The Social Network using this book as its blueprint because it mirrors it almost exactly? Or maybe it's because I saw the movie and I have the pictures so fresh in my mind. David Kirkpatrick seems to have unlimited access to Mark Zuckerberg and his machinations to create Thefacebook, and shows how a computer savvy yet socially awkward young man can create one of the world's highest valued and influential websites without having the goal of being a multimillionaire can happen.

The journey of how it begins is chronicled from the bowels of the Harvard dorm room to the formation of a real company requiring real financing. It also goes more in depth than the movie about the business end and how leveraging stock options gave them the money to explode the site so it wouldn't crash and fail. What was interesting was that they were able to pitch their idea to hardened businessmen and have them competing for the opportunity to be financial backers in a then still unproven site.  Although they had began the march across the college campuses of the country, there was no proof that it could make money. It was also interesting that Zuckerberg did not make Thefacebook his only focus and split his time on a website called Wirehog. Although it caused dissention in the ranks, Zuckerberg doggedly pursued the idea of Wirehog, but didn't let it take his mind away from Thefacebook enough to cause it to be any less successful. "Facebook seemed to be thriving, but Zuckerberg was thinking about Wirehog almost as much."(98) Parker, who was as influential as he could be, couldn't understand why he was hedging his bets and not totally believing in facebook but went along with it. This belief in Zuckerberg that had businessmen and partners on the same side proved itself to be correct.

But what I really liked about the book so far is that it begins with what impact facebook can have on real world events. Though it is most well known as a way for people to communicate with their "friends", it also has definitive impact on what common citizens can do to make real change on their governments. This is illustrated in the story of Oscar Morales and his frustration with how the Columbian government were handling  the guerrilla group FARC. By using facebook to coordinate a demonstration against FARC, regardless of the potential danger to himself, he informed and educated many that normally wouldn't get involved in something they felt they had little voice against. "He expected 50,000 to show up. In fact, 300,000 did, about 15% of the city's population.(5) He showed the best side of what facebook is and proved to the world that it is to be taken seriously as a networking tool that can change lives and determine new events. These types of spontaneous involvement in a normally ambivalent society reinforces the idea that Zuckerberg's creation that intimacy through the web can facilitate "efficient communication and cultivate familiarity" (12)  is one to reckon with and is here to stay.  Through the expansion from the original college students who were allowed to use the site to all populations, facebook reaches across barriers normally not easily overcome; generational, cultural, lingual and political affiliations. This site is indispensable in most people's lives today and will continue to grow. This will change American culture today and in days to come.

   

Audit for our midterm project

Scientology!  What a controversial and unknown topic we finally chose. After having several choices shot down by our esteemed professor, we settled on Scientology, (mainly because medical marijuana was already taken and we couldn't do a profile on a person). As we soon discovered, Scientology is a "religion" that is much disputed and has many core enthusiasts as well as many disbelievers.

We first looked at the site and discovered that there were 266 sources listed and we agreed to each take 50 to research individually and divide the remainder later. Although we didn't discuss in detail what each would do, we all basically did the same thing, which was to click on each source, follow the link, read what the source had to say, decide on validity and whether it was biased, and create a list to count how many came from each place. I was assigned # 200-250, which were mostly newspaper articles, some essays written by acknowledged followers of the religion, and journal entries found in the Marburg Journal of Religion. Several were foreign news reports, where Scientology gained some notoriety in other countries like Australia and England, but most were based here in the United States. We noticed that a disproportionate amount of newspapers were local to where Scientology had a large base, and were reporting on controversies that were local and sometimes took a very biased view against Scientology. There were also some news clips from the main networks affiliates, NBC, as well as online news like CNET, that reported on the questionable circumstances when a member died in the care of Scientologists and the court battle and undisclosed settlement reached after court had began. I also learned that Scientologists are not afraid to sue for any press that they feel in inflammatory or negative, and they seem to have buckets of money to support their litigations. We also looked at information that was omitted and tried to figure out why it was omitted.

The girls and I met at Livingston Campus Center on Saturday to compare and collate our independent research and do the PowerPoint presentation. During that meeting, we realize that our sources were limited, with only 24 main references of which 13 were unreliable due to the author's bias. We also discovered that there was a Wikiprojects page, which was created as a way to show Scientology in a positive light, and we felt that in itself made the whole entry biased towards Scientology. Also, the Scientology entry has restricted editing features but that could be due to vandalism as well as the desire of those people who choose to portray Scientology only positively.

All in all, we decided that the Scientology site on Wikipedia is a biased site based on the limited amount of prejudicial  primary sources. Although it was informative on the the basic overview and beliefs of the church, it minimized the negative aspects of some of those same beliefs. When investigated, sources that are not scholarly should not be anyone's primary source for their own research but can be used as a general overview of a topic. This entry in Wiki was clearly not a scholarly source but rather an opportunity for some members to present their information in a convincing way.

By doing this project, I am reminded that this has potential effects on the American way of researching and receiving information. Many students use Wikipedia as their primary source, often not going further to investigate the sources of the entry. The assumption of truthfulness and validity that encyclopedias inherently have is not the same for Wikipedia. Due to the very nature of Wikipedia, it is a source that should always be looked upon as suspect. It is the easiest research for students and is depended on because of its simplicity. Because technology has so infiltrated how research is done today, false or misleading articles can be cited as truth, and the bad information is confused with the good. I think that Wikipedia shouldn't be ever used as a primary source but can be a good place to start to learn about topics. Even using their sources offers potential good primary sources that can lead to a more true paper that would be respected as scholarly. 

Websites: good and Bad

In doing that little exercise during class, I realize that are many ways that the internet has infiltrated our lives, both good and bad. There are many people who say that it's negatively affecting our lives through loss of privacy, too much dependency, too much information to filter through. I believe that's true for those who let it be more than what it is, a tool to make our lives easier.

In brainstorming for different sites that have positive uses, we came up with a few for each category. For personal relationships, facebook is the clear winner. But for other segments of the population, eHarmony and match.com facilitate people meeting because of common interests and may develop real relationships that become life partnerships. I know some divorced people who have tried to find a new partner through these sites, and some have been successful. They tell me it's more safe than playing at the bar or club scene and more satisfying than waiting for someone to introduce you to a third party via blind dating. These sites provide a "preview" and hopefully the person, when met in person, has not been lying and it can lead to at least a pleasant evening.

For commerce, Amazon, ebay and craigslist are sites that are useful. Although every store has a website for purchasing goods, these offer the competitive power of having multiple vendors to choose from and if you trust reviews from previous customers, you can gauge whether that vendor is a trustworthy merchant. There are many textbook sites that I have used, valore.com, half.com and others, but I always go to amazon first to see if the price is better and because I've never had a problem with shipping or delivery.

For info sharing, what is better than getting all the news you could want or need from CNN or Google News. All newspapers have a online version so local news is just a click away as well. Local municipalities and towns have websites that updated fairly regularly, so you can find out if your town has a Halloween event or other special things without much search. I know my neighborhood group has a website which publicizes events that are for us only, as well as crime reports of petty vandalism or theft so we can all be aware.

For health, I think that webMD is a pretty good source. I have used it occasionally to try to self diagnose an illness and to research more of illnesses that friends have had. I used it recently to begin to learn about something I was just diagnosed with and it was helpful.

And for public good, there are a glut of websites. We can be as simple as Sparknotes for students who don't want to read or as complex as familywatchdog.us where sex offenders are listed based on proximity to the address you put in. I know that I have used that one before, especially before Halloween and we're about to trudge from house to house in search for free candy. It's good to know who your neighbors are, because they aren't advertising their proclivities.