Beez Blog

The conclusions that I have made about virtual communication and virtual communities are that they are all unique. Joining virtual worlds were not always easy because they are all different. Trying to get accustomed to them took some time because having to figure out how to navigate through the world was important. Interacting with people was easy because the worlds used special groups to distinguish how people could find others similar to them. This course was really a fun course because learning about CMC and how often we use it in everyday life without even thinking about it was amazing. Knowing your differences between your real world identity and virtual world identity was an eye opener because it helped me determine how I wanted myself to be viewed virtually and in face-to-face interactions.

The differences between my virtual identity and real world identity are hard to separate because I try to be the same person on both platforms because I do not like to feel like I have to live up to a identity that is not 100% me. I do interact differently virtually than I would in real world and that is mainly because I don’t ideally use gifs or images in real life to communicate with people. Virtually I am more open because it is not easy to read somebody emotion or interest through a character but only through words and actions. When in person I can use nonverbal to distinguish if a person is interested in the convo.

My experiences in virtual worlds were all unique in their own way. Being in a Grand theft auto virtual world was way different than being in Second Life. Although I was used to video games of that nature it was easy to get adjusted to because I had been around it my whole life. My experiences in GTA were good and bad as expected. The good was being able to interact with people while trying to figure out who was a good person in the city opposed to somebody who would try to rob you or something of that sort. It was fun because it was kind of like real life because the server was created to make it as realistic as possible so people did not go around killing each other as they pleased unless it was a role play situation. These types of game are something i enjoy because interacting with people and having to stay in character is is something I enjoyed doing.

Learning that Second Life was more than just a place for people to interact but it was a place that you could learn about research and business things also. While in the world I was able to find areas that were topic or interest based so people could find others with similar interest. I like learning new things and different things to do so exploring the world was fun for me once I got the hang of it.

Growing up this generation I feel like it was required to be apart of the networks that I am. Playing online video games I became apart of gaming networks that included, leagues for money, better competition and overall different types of people who come together to play the same games. I have made countless friends through just playing video games online because once you meet somebody then they introduce you to your friends and there on. It seems like a revolving door in a way. These connections at easy to keep because there are many ways for us to stay in touch and most of us use CMC to do it. Discord is a good app we like to use because you can do voice calls, video calls with multiple people without it being too chaotic. Another network is social media. Meeting people through similar interest and being able to express them in different ways is a easy way to keep these connections strong. These connections keep getting stronger because throughout the time you feel you are building an interpersonal relationship without being face-to-face which ultimately when you meet in person it will be very interesting how different it is.

The difference between my virtual identity and my real identity is how I interact with people. In my real identity I feel as if it is easy for me to interact with people whether I know them or not because I am an outgoing person. I may over hear a convo about something that interest me and I will put my two cents in with out worrying about how another person will react because I know my values. I am a person who uses a lot of nonverbal cues to show that I am paying attention or interested and these are hard to read through a computer screen. When interacting through social media I tend to use gifs or memes or even just trying to be humorous because I like good vibes and these tend to generate the most for me. So in all the biggest difference in my identities is how I interact with other people.

Personally during the spring some my classes were by hybrids. We would meet in person one week and then the next week we would be online with assignments due in during the class time that we would be in class. Our text defines the social identity model of deindividuation effects ,or SIDE , as the tendency of people to identify strongly with a group, particularly in CMC, and to show a bias against those who are different in language use from that group (Postmes, Spears, & Lea, 1998; Tanis & Postmes, 2003). Through CMC it was easy to still communicate with my classmates because were had already met in person and I had a good idea of who they were as a person based of their core values that we talked about as a class. Online courses can make it hard to still get that interaction with people but if you know how to communicate it’s not all that bad !

From reading my classmates discussions post and blog post I can see that we all feel different but the same on most of the topics. Everybody really seems to be themselves when we are discussing things and that helps make it easier to understand each other. For me personally, reading blogs on classmates pages are fun because they are all different and have their own unique flare to it. Those who chose the same questions to answer seem to have similar responses but they were all achieved in different ways. It is cool to see how in an online course a class can still be in such sync. My impressions of my classmates is that everyone is open with how they are on social media although the online course can make it difficult to interact with each other we still find a way.

Have I used social media to get closer to someone ? Yes. How did I do it? Memes. Jk but that is only one way that I have gotten closer to someone on social media. Social media is fun because you can interact how you want with the other person without feeling that sense of weirdness when in person. I have a friend who I have never met in person but we always communicate over twitter. The way we laugh and interact on twitter people who come across it may think we know each other personally. Memes or funny tweets or just sending a gif can easily spark a conversation. Try having a conversation with just gifs or memes and see how well you interact with an individual because you can use your imagination to communicate along with a picture as well.

I have maintained and even started interpersonal relationships through social media. I am not the type of person to end interpersonal relationships over social media but depending on the relationship and situation I may end it over the phone. Social media has made it easier to build relationships with people because more than likely you met the person through similar interest that you both have engaged in. For me, Twitter has been a social media platform that I have made the most interpersonal relationships. I have a friend who I met through a Lakers tweet and I went to his profile and realized he was from the DMV area. We both shared interest in basketball and we even linked up to hoop together. Social media has affected my personal life with people in a positive way. It gives me an opportunity to build interpersonal relationships with people without having to necessarily be face-to-face. I try to be the same person on social media that I am in person.

Over the last two years I believe my communication skills have improved. Since covid started and we had to be in quarantine I feel like it gave me a chance to evolve in my communication skills because at the time, there were no face-to-face communication. For college, I had to learn to reach out to my professors and meet with them through zoom if I had questions because sending an email would work but I benefited off being in a class room and having that hands on help so being virtual it made me adapt. On social media, over the last two years I feel like I have improved how I react to certain post and how I communicate. On twitter, there are a lot of people who troll and you just have to be mindful of that. Since covid, Tiktok has been an app that has grown on me because in a sense it was different than what I was used to such as twitter, snapchat and instagram. Tiktok allowed you to express yourself and communicate in unique videos with different ways to edit them to your own liking. They even linked their videos with hashtags so you can easily search or have them pop up on your For You Page.

Growing up with social media you are able to really see the changes that the different apps have from one another or even how they have evolved with time. Most apps nowadays give you a chance to give feedback to certain post by having dislike buttons and like buttons for other users to give input on a post. In person it is easy to recieve feedback because you can seek clarification, show agreement and or contradict. On certain apps that I use such as Twitter and Facebook I feel as if I get good feedback because most of the time it is instant or from people familiar with the conversation or post. Posting on other apps such as tik tok I feel I get all my media richness in because of how fast it has been growing apart of the virtual community. It is good to get a break from so much media richness and be able to expand your mind to other things in life.

As a college student and even just trying to find a profession l, I knew it was important for me to learn the most appropriate way to communicate and the words to use while virtually communicating because it can be difficult understanding somebody through a computer screen.

Being isolated has been something for people to do as of recently because of covid. I personally never had to quarantine but I know people who have had to and for some of them it was a struggle and for some it benefited. The ones who said they struggled it was because when they were isolated if they were not in a good mental it was hard not having interactions with people. According to König, community is the basic form of social life. It is a complete whole, encompassing all social relationships, a pure totality of life. Traditional communities are common because a lot of people live in residential areas.

Hello class, My name is Albert Davis and I will be living in Leonardtown Maryland while taking a college course this summer. This is not my first online or hybrid class, since covid it has been something I have grown accustomed too. My expectation of this online course are to learn more about virtual communication, reality and community and how important it will be in the future. My hobbies include playing video games , listening to music , playing basketball or working on cars. Some future career goals involve becoming a coach or an athletic director at a school around where I plan to live at. I am somebody who enjoys social media because of the different types of communication there is in the world. Virtual communication is important because a lot of companies have meetings over zoom and different types of video communicating because covid has made it easier to adapt to online communication.