Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual Worlds can be used in many different ways and can impact our society in more way thank imaginable. To begin with, virtual worlds can help those in the medical field practice their skills in scenarios that are realistic. Having the ability to do this can help them gain confidence in the area they specialize in. In the article titled "Avatar II: The Hospital" author Stephanie Simon states, "virtual training also typically costs less than a full-dress drill with hired actors. This would be one of the pros of virtual worlds because not only does it teach nurses/doctors how to react effectively to different scenarios, it is also cost efficient. However, with positives, there always comes negatives as well. One example would be how the creation of virtual worlds is limiting peoples social skills and causing them to spend more time on devices. Furthermore, another way it is negatively impacting people is because most users end up wanting to act the same way as their avatar and can get influenced by the negative characteristics. In the article titled, "Virtual world may impact real-world behaviour" the author states "consumers and practitioners should remember that powerful imitative effects can occur when people put on virtual masks." However, above all this virtual reality can still foster creativity in many ways. People are constantly adding touches to make avatars more like them and spend countless hours on getting it to seem more realistic. Technology is constantly evolving allowing people to be more creative. I think virtual reality will continue to become more popular and be utilized more in everyones lives.

Blog about Twitter

Although a Twitter discussion and a BlackBoard discussion serve the same purpose of being able to share responses with one another, it's done in different ways on both sites. On both of these websites, you can post your answers and comment on other users answers. However, on Twitter there is a word limit causing people to only be able to post short responses at a time, while on BlackBoard there isn't a limit. When having in-class discussions there are many factors that go into what is said and when it said. Compared to posting on BlackBoard or Twitter, many people often feel too shy to share their thoughts in person. This limits them from freely sharing how they feel. The similarity between in-class discussions, Twitter, and BlackBoard is the fact that everyone can reply to answers back and forth.

Social Networking sites

All the social networking sites that exist today have their own purposes and attract users in their unique way. While they all allow people to communicate with others, everyone has different preferences when it comes to social media sites. When logging into Facebook, the first thing that catches my eye is how there are so many tabs with information. The news feed is the section that opens up first and underneath can be found the messenger section. There even is a watchlist tab with the latest episodes of what users watched. I personally am not a fan of the layout of Facebook just because I feel like it's too cluttered and this is why I prefer not to use it. When I first created a Twitter account, I liked how there were far less tabs than Facebook but just didn't like how bland it was. I later realized that it was because I hadn't followed many people yet and that I also didn't customize my twitter page. One other thing I didn't like about Twitter when I first started using it was the fact that there was a word limit. I feel like once I start writing, there's so much I can go on to say but Twitter doesn't allow that to happen. Next, Instagram is one of my favorite social networking sites. I love being able to share pictures with captions that can be really long and also being able to see everyone else's pictures in a organized manner. I like that I could mute stories if someone ever has a super long one and I also really like that I could make my stories visible to only a certain amount of people. Personally, the layout of Instagram is one of my favorites, mainly because of how organized it is. Last but not least, Snapchat was one of my favorite social media networks but throughout the years, I've noticed myself liking Instagram more. When you first open up Snapchat, it goes straight to the camera and allows you to use different types of filters when taking pictures/videos. On the left side you have a chat section where you and your friends can communicate with one another and react to pictures/videos. The right side has stories posted by your friends and now recently news outlets have also been added, where they post highlights of what is going on around the world. Each of these social networking sites have a big impact on society today in their own way.

Social Networking

Social media has played a large role in society, increasingly throughout the years. It serves many different purposes often leading people to debate whether or not the positives outweigh the negatives. Social media allows people to connect without others in a much easier way as opposed to many years back. It gives users the platform to share their thoughts and ideas in creative ways. In our society today, social media can be used as an outlet to find jobs as well. In the article titled "Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting" author Frank Langfitt highlights the many ways recruiters now use social media sites, like Facebook or LinkedIn to find employees. Langfitt states how a recruiter named Maureen Crawford-Hentz "can scrape the entire network to dig out high-quality candidates that she can't find elsewhere" (1). Although it's clear that these social media websites can have a lot of positive impacts in society, it also comes with a "dark side." Using these various sites so often can lead people to wonder whether or not their privacy is being violated. People tend to share their everyday lives so openly with the public not realizing that this limits their sense of privacy. In the article titled "Leaving 'Friendprints': How Online Social Networks Are Redefining Privacy and Personal Security" it is stated that "Lance Hoffman, a George Washington University computer science professor who spoke at the Wharton conference, noted that by giving up such information as their name, birth date, and a list of their network of friends, users are revealing far more than they know." The information that is shared on these social networking sites can often be undermined but it's important to take a step back and analyze the impact it can have. I believe as the years go on and as technology advances there will be an even more lack in privacy. Although I am excited to see all these new additions, I'm even more scared to see how far users will go to realize it's limiting their privacy.

Blog v Wiki

There are many differences and similarities between blogs and wiki's. A blog is simply put as being a diary that is regularly updated where viewers can leave comments/suggestions on posts. A wiki on the other hand is a page that consists of several links leading to more webpages where various people can edit them. According to UNSW Sydney's article "Blog, Wiki, or Forum - which should you use?", one major difference between a blog and wiki is that on a blog, only the author can make changes while on a wiki, anyone that is given access to it can make changes. Due to the fact that new information is constantly surfacing, a wiki is always being changed and that causes dates to not mean as much, as opposed to a blog where dates play a crucial role. In today's networked world is really important to converge. There's always so many new ideas being presented around us and with all the advancements in technology to help spread these ideas, convergence is highly significant. Blogs can be used for collaboration by creating a blog list and including the blogs of other users and also through commenting on one another's posts. This allows the exchange of different thoughts and ideas, leading to more innovations. In NCBI's article titled "Wikis, blogs, and podcasts: a new generation of web-based tools for virtual collaborative clinical practice and education" it states "Because of their ease of use and rapidity of deployment, they offer the opportunity for powerful information sharing and ease of collaboration." I think one new way wiki can be used is by converging with different social media platforms like Twitter or Instagram. This will create an outlet that will make information more accessible.

References

Boulos, Maged N Kamel, et al. “Wikis, Blogs and Podcasts: a New Generation of Web-Based Tools for Virtual Collaborative Clinical Practice and Education.” BMC Medical Education, BioMed Central, 15 Aug. 2006, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1564136/.

“Blog, Wiki or Forum - Which Should You Use?” UNSW Teaching Staff Gateway, https://teaching.unsw.edu.au/assessment-blog-wiki-or-forum-which-should-you-use.

Analysis of The Usage of Instagram : Does It Positively or Negatively Effect Society?

         For my project, I have decided to analyze how the usage of Instagram impacts society. With the growing number of users everyday, it has effected the world around us in more ways than imaginable. Being a user myself for five years now, I have gotten the exposure to many different sides of Instagram. For my project, I intend on sharing the many ways it allows people to express themselves freely, how it's a tool in building relationships but also how it negatively impacts the way a person feels about themselves. I hope to cover specific examples in order to shed light on how big of a role it plays in society today. With almost everything in life that has benefits, there are disadvantages and I hope to touch on all the aspects in my project.