Maybe my Dad is more of a Digital Native then I Thought

Last Saturday my family and I were in the car driving home from my cousin’s surprise party in Connecticut, during the about two hour car ride my Dad and I got consumed in a conversation starting with iPads and going through every opinion about Technology, digital media, email, talking about this class, and how he uses technology for work.

Surprisingly, my Dad and I were on the same page and agreed with each other on a lot. Most likely because both of us use the internet and technology a lot in our daily lives. He uses it for work as a real estate agent and I mainly use it for school and different organizations I am involved it. I honestly wish I could have recorded this conversation like an Interview to post on this blog and be able to truly show the conversation my Dad and I had because it was really intriguing to me.

First my Dad and I both want iPads. We know it will safe the amount of printing costs we both have between school and work. It is easily portable and the numerous applications available make it a great tool for a student and for a real estate agent, but mainly because of the printing expenses it would safe.

My Dad has to print up numerous contracts and legal documents daily; however, with the ability to access PDFs on the iPad and vendors now formatting iPads for the use in real estate my Dad would be able to have the contracts electronically signed and emailed to all the necessary parties. He said he spends at least one-hundred dollars a month on printing & faxing expenses. And I can believe it because this past year I spent close to one-hundred and fifty dollars on printing expenses for school between paper, ink, and printing in the on campus library.

Then the conversation turned to about email, phone calls, and texting. We talked about the appropriate time lines for people to return texts, emails, or phone calls and furthermore how some people want an instantaneous response. We agreed that texting should have an almost instant response back and that phone calls or emails should have a response within 24 hours. In today’s society I am truly surprised that there are people that do not check their email daily.

Overall, this conversation showed me that my Dad is more of a digital native and savy with technology then I thought. And it was great to see that we had a lot of common interests, uses, and opinions about technology and the way our society uses different tools. This showed me that the gap of technology knowledge or use between generations is slowly closing down because more people are using technology for work and personal reasons.

Everyone is Pointing Fingers At Who Should Take Charge with Cyberbullying…

A lot of people know that cyberbullying is happening, but not a lot of people are taking it into their own hands and dealing with it. Yes, there are people who do take a stand but it has not be substantial enough were incidents are becoming fewer. If parents, schools, and professionals who work with social networking sites teamed together in campaigns against cyberbullying users would see a consistent message on how it is wrong to treat others that way.

In the article from teacherweb.com, “How Should Facebook and Myspace Handle Cyberbullying,” author Emily Bazelon describes how false accusations of cyberberbullying changed an individual’s life. The accusations began when his Facebook page was reported for harassment; however, this individual didn’t even have a Facebook page.

Furthermore, Bazelon describes how the individual and parents were never given answers on who actually created this fake Facebook. This showed me how you really can never trust who the person is behind the Facebook page because anyone can upload pictures of someone, create a profile, and be acting like someone else on the Internet.

Throughout this article Bazelon compared how MySpace and Facebook each handle cyberbullying issues. After reading the article I am sort of confused why MySpace has the rep it does because it seemed like this website takes this bullying more serious and takes greater steps into action than Facebook.

Then Facebook doesn’t seem to be actually admitting what is actually going on with cyberbullying or abusive use on the web because once it is reported they complete a small investigation and then just delete the page. It seems like Facebook is sweeping the bug under the rug and forgetting about the situation.

Instead of schools, parents, and social networking sites pointing fingers in the opposite direction I think that all three areas need to work together to control the amount of cyberbullying happening and implementing punishments. Bazelon wrote good arguments on how situations are and are not being handled; furthermore, was being realistic about the internet and today’s generation of users.

Not So Mutual Facebook Friends

While scrolling around on the Web I found the article, “Facebook’s Privacy Trainwrek,” by Danah Boyd, which was published by Sage Publications in 2008. I agreed with everything Boyd stated about Facebook, News Feed, and the relationships we create or think we create on Facebook. Yes, I am a Facebook user and yes I say that I use Facebook to stay connected with friends. But, by “friends” I don’t mean the ones I accept on Facebook I mean the ones I was friends with before I was on Facebook.

First Boyd explains to readers that the Facebook News Feed is structured in the same structure of a blog with information being displayed in “reverse chronological order” or the newest information is posted at the top. Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook Creator) communicated to the users about the News Feed for Facebook through his blog. Similar coincidence that the Facebook creator uses a blog? I don’t think so.

Intrapersonal relationships can be created online and offline, but is it always a mutual friendship? I mean I surely have numerous Facebook Friends who I have hardly ever talked to, don’t keep up with offline, and don’t have their phone number.

In my Intro to Writing Arts class, one of my peers said that she only keeps Facebook Friends that she has their phone number to call them up or talk to them off of the internet, and I feel that is a great rule to follow when involving yourself online.

Boyd further describes how Facebook relationships are not always mutual, yet we may feel like we know one of our “Friends” really well because of their frequent posts and information from Facebook.

In one scenario Boyd describes how an individual follows their crush on Facebook and feels that they know things about them like interests, birthday, photos, who they are friends with, etc. When in fact the individual has just memorized their Facebook page and really has no relationship with their crush and may not even know they exist.

This is what users call Facebook Stalkers or as I have called them: Not so mutual friends.

In Boyd’s article he described different scenarios around the Facebook News Feed that came out on September 5th, 2006 (Boyd, 2). After the publication of the News Feed Facebook put out privacy settings because now the information users put on the Web 2.0 was popping up on everyone’s News Fed and the information was now far more assessable to Friends then before.

I have every Facebook privacy setting set because I don’t want users who aren’t my Friends to look at my information and I don’t want everyone who I am Friends with to see every picture, status, likes, wall post, or comment I make. Facebook tells too much information that not everyone wants to know, and there are those people that you feel you know or keep in touch with because of their activity on Facebook.

Most of my Facebook friends are friends offline and online with mutual relationships, and if they aren’t a mutual friend I have been slowly working on deleting those not so mutual Facebook Friends.

The Continued Conversation Piece, or What I Have to Say about the Future:

After reading the SciVerse article about what speakers at the 2011 Computers and Writing Conference thought about the future, I began to think about what the future of Rowan University may be with Writing and Technology and within Writing Arts. Within the article Kristen Blair quotes from Because Digital Writing Matters (2010), saying that,

Students are doing an immense amount of writing—they’re blogging, they’re text messaging; they’re emailing, they’re updating their status messages, profile information, and live feeds on social networking and other sites; and others are “tweeting”. . . Perhaps most interesting in the midst of all this writing students are doing is that they don’t often call it “writing.” (p. 19)

As students are doing more on the Internet, classes are going to become more asynchronous through syncing on digital media devices like the iPads and computers.

Our discourse communities as students are going to be forming around the applications, programs, and the uses of our technology or digital media. Professors and college educators are realizing that technology needs to be embraced within the classroom during this generation of college students.

In the article, “iPads Could Hinder Teaching” from online journal The Chronicle, author Ben Wider says that, “Across the country, institutions had grabbed headlines for adopting Apple’s tablet computing devices,” because not only are they interactive but students are “craving” for these devices (Wieder, 1). And its true, students like my peers and myself want these products because they are the latest pieces of technology being developed and advanced yearly.

The iPad does more and more every day with software updates, the latest instant download of applications, and new models that can be used at the tip of the user’s fingers. This article really intrigued and educated me on both the pros and cons of using an iPad in the classroom. This article is slightly outdated because since it was published in 2011 there have been two new models of the iPad released; therefore, some of the cons like the “slow finger-typing” has been changed for better efficiency.

The initial con of having an iPad is the initial cost of at least five hundred dollars. Yes, the iPad costs a pretty penny. However, the long term uses and costs that can be saved will be beneficial. For example, printing expenses. As a student there are numerous classes in which we must use a lot of paper and ink for articles, drafts, and readings. With the iPad all of those documents can be accessed and referenced efficiently without the expense or time printing them. During the past school year I spent over one hundred dollars on ink, paper, and printing at the on campus library.

With an endless amount of Applications available and software updates to be downloaded the iPad can serve any purpose the users wish and change with the changes of technology.The application iAnnotate allows users to download PDFs and highlight and mark within them without printing the physical article. This is a major benefit for students who continually have to read lengthy articles for classes because they will no longer have to print these articles or keep a box of them under their bed. Instead students can have endless folders and files on their iPads.

Since I am currently saving to invest in an iPad this article has showed me the realistic uses and reality of the technology. Furthermore, reading about students and the future of writing has shown me that I don’t realize how much I actually do write on a daily basis because of the influence of technology in my life.

Sources:

Because Digital Writing Matters (2010), Dánielle DeVoss, Eideman-Aadahl, & Hicks (2010)

“IPads Could Hinder Teaching, Professors Say” (2011) The Chronicla, Ben Weider

Computers and Composition 20/20: A Conversation Piece, or What Some Very Smart People Have to Say about the Future (2011), SciVerse  ScienceDirect