Blog Project. 10 things

Although new media today has many advantages the drawbacks to new media can be a deal breaker for many.

1.) False Information

The spread of false information over websites and things like twitter and instagram can be really concerning. People are very gullible when it comes to new media and will believe anything that they see or read. In an article posted by the Detroit Free Press, they talk about how rumors started to spread rapidly about super storm sandy back in 2012. 
 "The story of Hurricane Sandy unfolded quickly on social media: a poignant photo of soldiers standing guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a picture of a giant wave slamming into the Statue of Liberty, and TV reports that 3 feet of water flooded the New York Stock Exchange."  
None of this was true, according to Marisol Bello, writer of the article. This is only one example of the many that show how information that's not true can spread like wildfire. 

2.) Bullying

We all know too well the awful outcomes that bullying can have. Too many cases of suicides and kids dropping out or changing schools. Statistics from InternetSafety101.org say that 55% of social media using teens witness cyber bullying. It also says that 90% of the teens who witness the bullying ignore it. The internet and newer media like Facebook and askfm.com make bullying very easy and put thousands of kids and teens at risk for it. This is incentive enough to not let kids or teens use social media for some parents and should be something everyone is aware about before using social media.

3.) Children's access

Kids who go over to a friends house, have unsupervised access to the internet and social media or the biggest one, have a smartphone. They have access to anything their little minds can think of. Even by accident they can stumble upon websites that are very inappropriate for their age like pornography. Seven out of ten youth have accidentally come across pornography (InternetSafety101.org). Also from InternetSafety101.org is how they get to these sites. It can be anything from free teaser messages, misspelled words, free flash games and, cartoon characters and child icons. It isn't the child fault sometimes what they stumble upon when people have things like these all over the internet. An argument can be that parents should do a better job of preventing things like this by having things like parental blocks on computers and smartphones. Any parent will tell you that you can't keep track of what your child's doing every minute of every day.

4.) Predators

One of the most disturbing aspects to the internet and new new media is the ease of predators being able to come in such close contact to you or your loved ones. They can easily obtain things like school locations and even home address because of peoples profiles on social media. 65% of sex offenders use this as a means of contact and 26% use the social networking information to find out about the victims whereabouts at a specific time according to InternetSafety101.org. For example, if you have the location option set on your status update on Facebook or Twitter, depending on your security settings, anyone can see the exact place you were when you posted it.  

5.) Theft
Because of new new media, your identity can be stolen much easier. The ease of people pretending to be someone they're not has gotten to be too great. Robert Siciliano from the Huffington Post write about an example of this in his article "The Social Media Identity Theft of a school director via Twitter." An 18 year old student made a fake account with the name and picture of the school district director and tweeted things of "embarrassing nature and not appropriate for a school administrator." Although this may have just been an innocent prank, something like this can really hurt a persons reputation. Especially someone with much a high position but it can happen to anyone.

6.) People not being who they say they are

Although you may think I have already covered this, this is arguably one of the biggest issues on the internet and in new new media today. People claiming to be someone they're not can be both dangerous and deceitful. The best example I can think of for this is the scams that go all around the internet and flourish in new new media. There are countless examples of disasters happening and these "charitable organizations" asking for donations to help. These scams take advantage of peoples generosity at such times when its the greatest. “Tragedies inspire people to give, but tragedies – whether natural disasters or manmade catastrophes – also inspire scammers to take advantage of that generosity,” H. Art Taylor, president of the Better Business Bureau’s national charity monitoring arm, the Wise Giving Alliance, said a day after the Boston Marathon Bombings. -Forbes.com. Not all the charities you see are scams just be cautious who you're giving your money to.

7.) Problems

From the very start, the internet and everything that has grown off if it has had problems. Everything from computer crashes to software bugs. Most notably whenever the iPhone has an update there are bound to be bugs and glitches. The new software update for the iPhones have been the iOS 7 updates and those with iPhones will know them well. They aren't all bad but do take a while to update to and bugs are just bound to happen with them. Simon Hill from digitaltrends.com states 41 in his article. Everything from your camera not working to your app downloads stuck in the "waiting stage." The fact that he can name 41 is pretty impressive. They are very annoying to deal with and are incredibly frustrating at times if you do school work or any type of work off your computer or mobile device. 

8.) No internet connection when needed

With today's new new media, you'll always need internet connection for things like Twitter and Facebook and you'll need coverage to make calls. With most phone carriers you can get a decent amount of coverage for both. It's when you don't have the coverage or internet is when things start to get annoying. I can use my own example of my friends house. He lives in Charlton and if I want to make a call i'll have to go out to a certain spot on the front porch. That gets annoying and I don't have any internet service out there at all. As you can see from the picture below from imore.com, there is a lot of red. That means that there is a lot of connection across the U.S. but there is also a lot of white. Connection to the internet or even simple cell phone service isn't always a guarantee.

9.) Graphic videos

With websites like YouTube and Google, the spread of videos is very easy and anyone with internet access and a camera or even a cell phone can do it. This can be a good thing but, it can also be a bad thing. From the power points we saw in class, there are many good points as to when this could be a very negative thing. For example, Google took down the video "The innocence of Muslims" because it was blamed for sparking riots that ended in the death of four Americans. One being an ambassador in Benghazi, Libya. It's amazing that a video on the internet could have such a horrible outcome.

10.) Decline of physical libraries

With all of the information we could ever need right at our fingertips, who needs libraries? It's just so much smarter to look something up on your phone than it is to go find something in a book. Because of this, libraries have been slowly starting to see the effect of new media today. ala.org states that for the third year in a row, 40% of state libraries report decreased funding. This means the loss of jobs and honestly some hard work. Having to put in the effort to get find information helps you retain whatever you've looked up a lot better than finding in within seconds on your phone. I can still remember projects I did in elementary school because I had to do the work and look up information from books and encyclopedias.

Work Cited
Enough Is Enough, . "Internet Safety 101."internetsafety101.org. Enough Is Enough, n.d. Web. 30 Mar 2014.

Bello, Marisol. "freep.com." Detroit free press. Gannett, 30 october 2012. Web. 25 Mar 2014.

Siciliano, Robert. "Huff Post CRIME." huffingtonpost.com. Huffington Post, 28 January 2013. Web. 24 Mar 2014.

Mayor, Caroline. "The Best Ways to Donate to Help Disaster Victims." forbes.com. Forbes, 22 May 2013. Web. 23 Mar 2014.

Hill, Simon. "41 Problems with iOS 7.1, and How to Fix Them." digitaltrends.com. N.p., 19 Mar 2014. Web. 20 Mar 2014.

Cohen, Peter. "Best iPhone carrier in 2014." imore.com. Mobile Nations, 17 Mar 2014. Web. 30 Mar 2014.

American Library Association, . "Public Library Use." ala.org. ALA, n.d. Web. 30 Mar 2014.

Positives and Negatives of Facebook

There are many aspects to Facebook that make it appealing to some and an annoyance to others. I can see both sides.  According to Nick Barricella from hubpages.com, Facebook is a great tool to keep in touch with friends and family and to meet new people but on the other hand, it leaves you at the mercy of others when it comes to things like cyber-bullying and is also a big distraction.

Facebook has a lot of negatives that people can't seem to over look. One of the biggest aspects would be cyber-bullying. "On Facebook it is very easy for cyber bullies to thrive. They can harass and/or gang up on one person even easier than they could in a school environment. There aren't moderators that go around monitoring what people say to each other. Anything can be said." -Nick Barricella, hubpages.com. I couldn't agree more with nick. Facebook is an environment that is unmonitored. Anyone can say what they want whenever they feel like it. Facebook was big for me and my peers when we were in middle school and just starting high school. Luckily I was never a victim of cyber-bulling and I never really witnessed it first hand on social media like Facebook. Although it didn't need to be in my area for me to hear about it. We all know too well the awful cases of suicide and bullying that happen all throughout the country and even some worldwide. For example, the case involving Rebecca Sedwick. A 12 year old Florida girl who took her own life because of up to 15 girls were bullying her online and through texting (USA today article). It's events like this that make Facebook seem like the devils advocate. Facebook is also a big distraction when it comes to procrastinators like myself. Although I have grown out of Facebook, when I did use it I was blowing off homework or studying to go on. Whether to look at my news feed or post a status, I out Facebook before school work and my grades suffered because of things like that.

Although Facebook has negative aspects, there is also a good side to it. Facebook keeps you in touch with family and friends from down the road or across the world. Within seconds you can access their profile, see their pictures or message them. The messaging part is great for people with friends or family members who may not have cell phones. You can stay up to date on whats going on in their lives. Facebook even has video chat (Nick Barricella). This way you can see your loved one face to face. Personally I have family all around the world. I have cousins in England and Australia and I keep in touch with all of them through Facebook! It's a great tool to keep in touch with people. Along with friending people you know, you can also meet new people. This has a lot of criticism when it comes to safety. I never friend anyone I don't know. I agree that part is dangerous but, for example, I would friend rugby players from other teams because I knew we would be playing on the same team when All-Stars started at the end of the regular rugby season. That way we could keep in touch if say a practice was cancelled or someone needed a ride.

Depending on how you look at Facebook, it will be either a waste of time and a tool used for people with wrong intentions or it will look like another social media site that connects people to all around the world. Although in my opinion we can't blame Facebook entirely on that bad things that happen. It's the people behind the screen and the phones that cause the harm. Not the site itself. If everyone used Facebook for the good aspects it has, it wouldn't have such a bad reputation.




Work Cited:

Barricella, Nick. "The Positive and Negative Effects of Facebook." HubPages. N.p., 13 June 2012. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.

Stanglin, Doug, and William M. Welch. "Two girls arrested on bullying charges after suicide." USA TODAY: Latest World and US News - USATODAY.com. N.p., 16 Oct. 2013. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.

Blog Prompt #1

The internet is a controversial subject. Some say its nothing more than a distraction and is causing people today to become lazier. Other's say the internet is a great tool connecting minds from all around the world on all type of subjects. I see the internet as more of a good thing then a bad.

Although the internet is a great learning tool, there are many disadvantages to it. One is that it is a big distraction. Today smartphones run the cell phone industry and because of the internet smartphones have distracting features. Some of them are twitter, Facebook, and instagram. Pretty much anything you can think of because smartphones are tiny computers themselves. You see this distraction in the classrooms mainly with students not paying attention to the teacher because they are checking their twitter feed. Another disadvantage is that its just not safe. Today a lot of banking goes on online so in the "great wasteland", as people call it, there are pin numbers, social security numbers, and credit card numbers that are easily picked up by hackers. There are things like firewalls that are put in place to try to prevent these things but many people still have to deal with getting their account number stolen and loosing their money that they're not even spending. A third disadvantage is that having such easy access to the internet is causing people (mainly students) to retain less information then by say going to a library and looking it up in a book. With the information a person needs being only a fingertip away, people aren't remembering information as effectively.

Although the disadvantages may seem big, I believe the advantages are too great to shine such a dim light on the internet and all its become. The internet can give you access to information from all around the world within seconds. Data from internetworldstats.com says that the growth of internet users from around the world has grown 566.4%. Having that many minds to share ideas is amazing. Being able to connect professors and doctors in seconds. Even though not all people who use the internet retain the information they look up, it's a great way to get to the information you want. Weather it be in your pocket or on a computer. Any information you could possibly think of can be yours within a matter of minutes or even seconds. This connects students, teachers, doctors, and all type of people to the information they want and can use. Lastly the internet is one of the greatest learning tools we have today. Everything a student needs is right in front of them. Textbooks and videos are a click away. If a student is having trouble with say a math problem at home and doesn't know how to solve it, step by step instructions can be found online. Granted so can the answer but lets not put everyone under one umbrella. The internet does have its drawbacks but the good outweigh the bad in my opinion. Used correctly the internet can and is quickly advancing us in fields such as learning, technology, and medicine. The internet has made the world more accessible with the touch of a button.

My New Media Blog, due feb. 5th

In my blog I decided to make the background a personal picture instead of one of the sample ones. I felt like that would make it more unique to me. The picture is from the day I graduated high school. I'm with some of my closest friends. I couldn't figure out how to make the picture my entire background. What I hope to get out of creating these blogs is a better sense of new medias importance and a greater understanding of it. When I think of new media I think of the things I use such as Twitter and Instagram. Although they can be distracting, it annoys me when people who grew up without things like cell phones shine a negative light on my generation for always having our cell phones on us. It had just turned into a habit. I don't think of my cell phone of a distraction but, more of a tool. I use it for my academics, to keep in touch with my friends and family, and to stay up to date with what is going on in the world. Take today for instance, if I wanted to know what is going on around the world I would have to go out to get a newspaper. Instead, I can just grab my phone and be up-to-date within minutes. I really hope this class goes deeper into the things my generations uses more such as smartphones and tablets. I'm hoping knowing more information about today's media will show me more ways to which I can use it for my advantage besides sending a tweet or checking my feed on Instagram.