#virtualcommunities

During the nineteenth century according to Siapera (2012, p. 192) most people lived in small villages, knowing each other and each other’s entire family. These communities were traditional and relied on face to face contact. Siapera (2012, p.192) continues to explain that eventually people began to leave their villages and move to larger cities, looking for work in factories. Towns became cities, accommodating more and more people who were strangers, this was the arrival of the industrial revolution. Communities that were once groups of friends, neighbours, voluntary organisations and families formed around this organic natural will have moved forward and introduced a new way of becoming a community and that’s virtual. Flash forward to the 21st century, with the ever increasing population and use of the internet and social media Siapera (2012, p. 194) asserts virtual communities have become an easy way to come together and share information, ideas, feelings and desires and we do this through social media. According to Qualman (2013) if Facebook were a country it would be the fourth largest in the world.

Qualman (2013) states many facts in his video that show how social media is almost taking over our lives. In 2010 Gen Y would have apparently outnumbered the Baby Boomers and 96% of them have joined social media. With so many people on social media I believe people are more open and trusting to connecting and meeting people online. Qualman (2013) states that 1 out of 8 couples in the US met via social media and all the way back here in Australia that’s how I met my boyfriend. Social media allows you to use their virtual community to meet people who share the same interests who you usually wouldn’t talk to passing them on the street or even work with.

Most people now can’t live without their mobile phones. Qualman (2013) emphasizes that 80% of Twitter usage is on the mobile and makes an interesting point for what this means for bad customer experiences. Through Facebook and Twitter you can tell all your friends and followers how much of a good or bad experience you’ve had somewhere and tag the place you’ve been so everyone know exactly where you are talking about. We are able to use social media to select our interests according to Siapera (2012 p. 199) and evaluate services, products, films, books, food and sites. You can now jump onto big or small business Facebook page and share your experience which can be shared around the world. This is the reason people care more about what their social graph ranks products and services the how Google ranks them because 78% of people trust peer recommendation rather than advertisements (Qualman, 2013).

 References

Siapera, E, 2012, Understanding new media, SAGE, London, Viewed 13th April, 2018

Online gaming is something I have absolutely no idea about, so I was concerned when writing this blog entry. I had strong opinions when I commenced writing with little idea of what social gaming entailed. My son is an avid gamer. I am constantly at him to get off the Playstation and to get out and hang with his mates, only to be informed by him that they are all online as well! What the? Doesn’t anyone want to be social in the real world anymore? Apparently I am not the only parent with concerns. Watch the YouTube video below posted by MrW01FY. It is a slightly comedic video that speaks of his own parents concerns and his point of view (scary that his mother almost repeated me verbatim in her commentary to her son!).

Video Source: Youtube / MrW01FY 2017

From my opening paragraph, you can clearly see the opinion I had formed on social gaming. I had the opinion that social gaming was breeding a culture of anti-socialism. Well, you can imagine my surprise to discover after starting the week ten readings for this unit, that I was, at one point, an avid social gamer myself! Once again, what the? Yep, you guessed it, Candy Crush and Words With Friends. They were my own private addictions that lasted for many months until I was able to finally wean myself away from it. 

Candy Crush Image source: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/candy-crush-live-action-game-939165

My son plays MMORPG’s (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games). MMORPG’s create an environment in which millions of users interact on a daily basis. It is believed, from research conducted, that the game play within these types of games is more beneficial to the player because they are also able to use them as avenues to explore new relationships, new places, and themselves. A survey found that approximately 75% of both the males and females surveyed has made friends within these online gaming communities (Cole & Griffiths 2007). Further to this, Smyth (2007) found that MMORPG’s players were more likely to experience less engagement with ‘real-life’ friends and interference with their schooling after one month of continual game playing.

These statistics did very little to alleviate my concerns. If anything, they actually re-enforced my opinion. I can accept the concept that social gamers are collaborating and socialising within these virtual communities and are creating strong social ties. However, balance is needed. According to this article, It is just as important to maintain healthy, physical relationships in the ‘real-world’. They need to be able to talk and socialise with friends and family outside of the virtual communities that they are participating in to minimise the risk of losing these physical relationships.

The only truly shocking discovery to come out of the learning materials in week ten was my own participation in anti-social behaviour. My opinion, however, remains unchanged. Whodathunk it? I was a social gamer without realising it!

REFERENCES:

The article “Open systems and glass ceilings. The disappearing woman and life on the internet” by Astra Taylor was published in 2010. In this article Taylor reports a general view and examples of gender discrimination. She covers briefly what is going on both, the virtual realm as well as in real life. Taylor mentions several discrimination issues taking place on different spaces of the Internet, such as blogs and social media platforms. She argues that Internet is not an equal ground for men and women nor for racial diversity. Her stronger points are how women are victim of harassment usually by men and that this behavior is not taken seriously just because it’s happening online. And if gender is  linked to race then the situation turns to the worse for women. In the real life realm, Taylor is critical toward companies that take too long to hire women in executive positions. She also mentions, based on a study by another researcher a decreased interest by women on technological careers as low as 18% by 2008. It leaves the readers to wonder if there is a correlated issue taking place: women are discouraged in making tech careers decisions because they are not taken into the technological labor market. Although, this author is very critical about technology, she also believes and encourages all to engage in changing the negative dynamics taking place on Internet and the tech world.

The article “How the NYPD is using social media to put Harlem teens behind bars” by Ben Popper was published online in The Verge on December 10, 2014. It deals with the gang issues in Harlem in the city of New York. The author reports the use of social media information such as Facebook, Instagram, MySpace  and You tube by NYPD, New York Police Department as evidence for teenager’s participation in crime activities as well as, how this kind of usage turns into unlawful biased judicial treatment.  Ben Popper tells us the story of two brothers Asheem and Jelani Henry who grew up in Harlem and how as teenagers they got involved in gang activities.  The author also takes notice in his article of how authorities based their charges and handled the information gathered from social media platforms to hold it against both brothers.  This is both an interpretative  and ethical  article. As an interpretative article the author reports and quotes from the interviews he did to both brothers and their mother. As an ethical article the author poses the question about the wrongful maneuver that authorities made to build up the case against Asheem and Jelani Henry who although were involved in criminal activities, they still have the right  to be accountable for what they did and not for what they didn’t. The author might lead to some of us to reflect about how these actions might pollute the justice system and generate mistrust. Popper mentions in his article  the criminal justice system, police and prosecutors as  responsible for wrongful legal procedures and the family of the Henry brothers who are willing to fight through the innocence of Asheem and Jelani.

“Let them eat code” is an article written by Atossa Araxia Abrahamian and published online on Dissent Magazine during Spring 2014. This is an interpretative and ethical article that analyses the issue of homelessness in general and its relation to technology in United States. The author based her writings on interviews with entrepreneurs  from the tech world as well as a homeless person. The subject of discussion for her is how technology can contribute in effective ways to an overwhelming social problem such as homelessness. In this sense, she mentions as an example how the tech people decided to hire homeless as internet hot spots. Then the debate and critique about the ethical aspect of using the homeless as  work force began to rise. The author takes into account the homeless person statement and quotes him in terms that he didn’t see anything wrong with it, because “it is just a job”.  The author through this article allows us to rethink about our sensitivity about the human condition.