Hello Psych Class

Facebook to Prevent Bullying

Facebook, states set bullying, predator safeguards
By STEPHANIE REITZ (Associated Press Writer)

From Associated PressMay 08, 2008 1:36 PM EDT

HARTFORD, Conn. - Facebook, the world's second-largest social networking Web site, is adding more than 40 new safeguards to protect young users from sexual predators and cyberbullies, attorneys general from several states said Thursday.
The changes include banning convicted sex offenders from the site, limiting older users' ability to search online for subscribers under 18 and joining an existing task force seeking ways to better verify users' ages and identities.
"The agreement marks another watershed step toward social networking safety, protecting kids from online predators and inappropriate content," said Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who announced the agreement Thursday with his counterparts in several other states.

Officials from Washington, D.C., and 49 states have signed on.
Facebook, which has more than 70 million active users worldwide, already has enacted many of the changes and others are in the works, its officials said Thursday.
"Building a safe and trusted online experience has been part of Facebook from its outset," said Chris Kelly, Facebook's chief privacy officer. "The attorneys general have shown great leadership in helping to address the critical issue of Internet safety, and we commend them for continuing to set high standards for all players in the online arena."
Texas has not endorsed this agreement or a similar one reached in January among the other states, the District of Columbia and MySpace. Texas officials have said they want faster action on verifying users' ages and identities.
The attorneys general have been negotiating for months for tighter controls with Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook and MySpace, the world's largest online social network with 200 million users around the world.
"Social networks that encourage kids to come to their sites have a responsibility to keep those kids safe," North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said. "We've now gotten the two largest social networking sites to agree to take significant steps to protect children from predators and pornography."
MySpace, Facebook and other online networks have created a new venue for sexual predators, who often lie about their age to lure young victims to chat, share images and sometimes meet in person. It also has spawned cyberbullies, who have sent threatening and anonymous messages to classmates, acquaintances and other users.
Among other changes, Facebook has agreed to:

- Ensure companies offering services on its site comply with its safety and privacy guidelines.
- Keep tobacco and alcohol ads from users too young to purchase those products.
- Remove groups whose comments or images suggest they may involve incest, pedophilia, bullying or other inappropriate content.
- Send warning messages when a child is in danger of giving personal information to an adult.
- Review users' profiles when they ask to change their age, ensuring the update is legitimate and not intended to let adults masquerade as children.
The protections included in the MySpace and Facebook pacts could be expanded to smaller services such as Friendster and Bebo, Blumenthal said.
"We're entering a new era in social networking safety," Blumenthal said. "This agreement is open-ended in envisioning advances in technology that will permit even stronger steps in the future toward protecting kids' safety."

Online Bridesmaids?

I know classes are over, but I thought this was a pretty interesting article. The NY Times wrote an article about wedding-related community boards. I find it interesting though, because so these people meet over common bonds of wedding planning and progress (usually quickly) into ftf meetings and eventually become wedding guests.

I just read a post this morning about one woman having extra seats at her upcoming wedding, so she posted a public invite on the forum. Seems risky to me. In my opinion, that bond must be pretty strong to invite them to something as personal as a wedding.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/fashion/weddings/04FIELD.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=cyber+bridesmaid&st=nyt&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Somewhat Relevant....

haha oops

I forgot to add the link...and I cant figure out how to edit my post. Sorry!! here is the link.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24161656/

Verrrry Interesting!!

So I was bored (at work) and "cyber loafing" when I came across a very interesting article in regards to MySpace and how it can bring shy people out of their shells to meet new people on-line and raise their self esteem off-line! I thought the article was quite interesting...seeming how MySpace usually gets a pretty bad rap.

what do you think?

Update on my car

So today was an interesting day I would have to say! Yes it was my car that got broken into this morning! Who would have thought?? Thats just my luck...I only come to school on Tues and Thurs and three days before my last day, something goes wrong. I guess I can be greatful that I was not in the car and did not get harmed! Although my passenger side window did get busted in and they tooke my stereo (which was also a DVD touch screen). They did not get my speakers in the back or the amp that goes along with those....thanks to a friendly school goer. Its almost hard to believe when you get taken out of class for something like this....but it is very real when you get up to where you parked your car only an hour before. After dealing with the police I took my car to a dealership so it could be kept safe from the rain and hopefully from other intruders. I was able to get myself a rental. I hope everyone else's presentations went well today...and sorry for the interruption during our class time.

Turkers

As we all know, computers can be depended on for most tasks, but certain things - decision making, facial recognition, all these higher level cognitive tasks - humans are always better at. This is a problem that software developers and researchers in artificial intelligence face.

Well, Amazon has came out with artificial artificial intelligence. They have a service called Mechanical Turk, which I just heard about a few days ago. It is the weirdest thing.

Basically, people pay for "Turkers" to do tasks. They include things like identifying if a picture has text or not text and describing the picture in simple words. Another example would be picking out pictures in a group that do not belong. Other people pay people to read their blog and post on a topic.

It sounds cool so far, but people are only making $.01 to $.10 for each task. I read an article that called it a "virtual sweatshop."

Here is a recent article

Right now, researchers are looking at how valid some of the Turkers' work is and how to increase quality, etc. I know that some HCI people are really interested in using Mechanical Turk for research participants.

And what I want to know is... what keeps people on Turk? These people aren't making much money! Much less than minimum wage.

Completely New Health VC

This story, of patients sharing very personal information, amazes me. It is a completely different health virtual community than what we've talked about before. I'd even argue that it is a combination of the objective "scientific" medical web sites and a supportive one. Truly, we cannot anticipate the ways the internet is going to change the way we interact with each other. I had to get (too) extreme, but I think the internet is going to change the way established groups in society fundamentally interact.

New Uses of the Internet

The first story is inevitable; people are going to blog about their divorces and the non-blogging partner is going to be upset.

The second one is more frightening and is part of what (I believe) the police were afraid of with the stolen car story: internet vigilantes, particularly when "we" might not believe the vigilantes have the right story/perspective/person.

What do you think of both of these stories?

The Kindness of Online Strangers

To counteract that troll story from last week, I found this story in which friends and strangers help find a stolen car. Nice change from causing people physical harm.

See you all Tuesday!

Top 5 Sexiest Video Game Characters

While browsing the internet I found where MSNBC has named the "Top 5 Sexiest Video Game Characters". Very interesting. I never realized video game characters could be 'sexy', nor did I realize how realistic some look. There's even an article titled, "Video games' hottest couples". It's almost as if its another 'real' world.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23990546&GT1=40006?pg=1#games_top5_080406_SexiestCharacters

Virtual Communities

Continuing its habit of publishing articles related to this week's topic, the NY Times Magazine had a special article on virtual communities, in this case, for friends and family of prisoners. One of the arugments I found interesting in this article is that niche communities thrive where general ones do not. (One must admit that this is a pretty niche group!) At the end of the article, you can also see an animal role playing community; it's not my cat group, but it sure sounds interesting!! :-)

What do you think of this, particularly the potential for the prisoner virtual community members to become exploited? Do you think this is one of the reasons that while facebook is so popular, it's not necessarily a community because it is so broadly appealing?

Walther (SIP/ Virtual Team)

I enjoyed this article. As Erin said, some parts were a little bit repetitive...however, I am glad we discussed more on SIP and attribution error. I think SIP is really important to note because the end result is the same as face to face. Some people may think online interactions don't work as well as face to face...but they just develop more slowly. I also think it is important to note the SIP rules we went over. I think those are all very important rules to use, but there are many more ways to go about communication online. If a virtual team were to be built, those rules would be very helpful in beginning a solid online communication team. I believe in the years to come virtual teams will become more and more common. This will be leading to more interactions and trust being built online.

Walther Article

This article discusses the differences between virtual groups communication and ftf in regards to trust, liking and performance. In cmc, trust and liking of members are established when the members communicate frequently and perform the assigned tasks of the group. The more one participate and contribute to the group, the more the group will trust and like the contributor. This has proven to be true when participating in a class assignment. People will be drawn more to the person who stays focus and complete her/his share of the work. In ftf, trust and liking are more the result of how a person is perceived socially.

Walther Article

Postmes et al. article

The method used in this article was to have college students participate in an online statistics course called "Dr. Stat." No grade was given for this voluntary course. This maybe why out of 268 students who signed up, only 87 completed the course. I personally struggled through statistics because it was required. There's no way I would have even signed up voluntarily. The students' email messages were analyzed to find out how norms were used and developed through CMC. Over time members conformed to the norms of the group and social factors helped to shape the message content and form. When people become part of a group, their identity seems to change according to the norms of that group. The group becomes his/her identity in that the person will think and communicate according to the norms and rules of the group.

Online Deviance to the Nth Degree

Sometimes, stories are just too shocking, like this one where trolls caused real physical harm to epilepsy patients.

The Networking Never Ends....

I think I started this semester saying that the next big Internet app is the social networking sites like Facebook. I believe this because it challenges some of my earlier work and suggests it's time for new theorizing. (Sort of like how we've been arguing that the SIDE model best applies to synchronous chat in one-time groups)

Well, here is another networking site for people with serious illnesses in their family. Care Pages helps link people together with illnesses. Caring Bridges is another one I've used to keep up with friends who have family members who are dying.

The "facebook" type applications never end.

And as we talked about last week, Facebook's privacy features are changing. Here is an article that explains why old folks might find that more attractive than young folks do.

Want to Make Money Doing What You Like to Do?

Start a blog! If it's funny enough and/or gets enough hits, you'll end up with a lucrative deal.

One of the first blogs I've studied, the Julie/Julia project, was first made into a book and is now being made into a movie. Meryl Streep is playing Julia Child and Amy Adams is playing Julie Powell.

Nice work if you can get it!

Politics and Youth

This is the first campaign season with YouTube, and it is apparently attracting the attention of younger and younger voters. Are you finding yourself more involved in this campaign?

Anti-Social networking sites

Continuing in the vein of the gossip sites, there are these "anti-social" networking sites:

• EnemyBook--which allows you to manage your "enemies" on facebook.
• Hatebook.com--apparently, facebook for haters.
• Snubster.com--Another enemy application for facebook.

What do you think?

Online High School

Following on our discussion on Saturday, this is an interesting article. Students could have the option of attending school completely online from K through 12. Will these students have an advantage as more college courses go online? More importantly, will they have a disadvantage when they attend FtF college classes---if they've never really "practiced" discussing issues in class or asking/answering questions?

Dooce Redux

We mentined DOOCE at the beginning of the semester, but you may have forgotten about her. Dooce was the first person fired from her job for blogging, and hence, has become a verb as in "to be dooced." She has also been ranked one of the top 5 most influential bloggers in the world today.

However, I still don't think I've impressed upon you just how entertaining she is. This entry from Tuesday might help. She could even help us talk about Twittering, the new way of blogging from your cell phone. At the very least, she has done a great deal to destigmatize depression.

Social Identity Article

One of the points is this article is that children will learn through online communication once their identification within the group is established. This statement goes along with the older material that we have discussed concerning the fact that people will develop a sense of belonging and will open up and feel free to share in the topics or assignments online. The desire to share information could also be contributed to the fact that everyone will have equality and no one will should feel left out. Once a person is in a group, they tend to take on the identity of the group which can lead to deindividuation. The person will communicate using plural pronouns such as "we" instead of singular pronouns. They identify with the group and somewhat lose themselves along the way. This would be easy for someone to do if she/he feels lonely or don't fit into any off line groups. Online groups gives them the social identity they always wanted so when they finally achieve social status, they totally become part of the group.

RateMyCop.com

This was sent to me and after reading it I thought about this class esp. since the last two post were about similar sites with the same concept! Here is the site ... hope it works!

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/03/godaddy-silence.html

hurray for easter. hurray for blogs.

So, it's Easter weekend..Hurray! I am about to head to the Lake (fun times) but realized I've yet to leave a blog for this week. I missed class on Tuesday :( but I really enjoyed class on Thursday and the discussions we got into. I have been thinking about Common Identity and Common Bonds in ftf groups and online groups, and trying to think which I have more of. I definitely think they are both important groups, and one needs to have both in their life. When you are dealing with the common identity, it is easier for one to open up about their interest (of that particular group) or their struggles (of that particular group i.e- addictions). However, I think the common bonds group is something that you can get an overall satisfaction. In a bond group you may not be as prone to open up fully about your obsession with cheese, addiction with coffee (that's mine), weight issues, etc... but I think it is an overall satisfaction of yourself. These are the people you interact best with and enjoy spending time with, and from the article you are more attracted to. Again, I think it is a positive to keep both common identity groups and common bond groups in one's life!
Happy Easter :)

New Campus Based Applications

First, how much do you really want to know about your professors? Does it help you as a student to have more connections to your professors? What happens when the "backstage" starts moving closer to the "frontstage" in college? I'd argue that students' lives are already moving from the back to the front. This story is about the professors' lives moving from the back to the front!

Second, Wow! This game, GoCrossCampus, essentially Risk applied to the Internet, sounds like a completely new way of playing games on the internet. It's more social and relies much more heavily on FtF interactions. They are even thinking of applying this to work to help team building in organizations!! Who knows? I always doubt that technologies spread the way we think they are going to! But this is really interesting!

Your thoughts?

Online Gossip Sites

Yikes!!!

This is the evil cousin of facebook, a site in which people can anonymously gossip about their peers.

What do you think of it!?

Internet Addiction Poll Part 1

Please explain why you thought someone could be addicted to the internet before you read these articles. (Essentially this is your “layperson” perspective)

more at twiigs.com...

Internet “Addiction”

There are a couple of distinctions to be made about internet “addiction”.

· First, clinical psychologists don’t like the term “addiction”. Other words like abuse or dependence are more in favored.
· Second, internet abuse is a behavioral problem and not a physiological dependence. Therefore, more like pathological gambling than alcohol or cocaine dependence.

However, the popular media and the average “layperson” doe not make this sort of distinction. How does that affect the way psychologists study internet addiction and more importantly, how they present their results to the public?

Loneliness

Hello loneliness as a reason for CMC behavior! We’ve missed you over the last week or two! At least identity/true self isn’t as much in the forefront here.

OK! So Morahan-Martin says that there are two alternative hypotheses: 1) loneliness leads to IA and 2) IA leads to loneliness.

How would you study which one of this would be the “correct” hypothesis? Is it possible that there are certain individual characteristics that might make one hypothesis valid for a certain group of people versus others? What might those characteristics be?

Generalized or Specific Internet Abuse

There is some criticism that when researchers discuss Internet Abuse (or addiction), they are referring to every application on the internet (generalized internet abuse) or abuse of a specific application (e.g., online gambling or gaming referred to as specific internet abuse). Some argue that specific internet abuse should be considered as “technologically enabled variants of other pathologies” such as pathological gambling or sexual compulsivity whereas generalized internet abuse is using the internet as a whole in ways that disrupt the person’s life and social relationships.

The issue here, as I see it, is that most researchers do not distinguish between these two very different forms of internet addiction. If researchers do NOT distinguish between these two forms of internet addiction, how might that affect how good their research findings are? Research is supposed to get at the “truth” of a relationship. But if they are not even studying the same “problem,” how might that affect the results of their studies. You might want to start by defining for yourself what Specific vs. Generalized Internet Abuse is and how the “abusers” could be different.

Adolescents and Internet Abuse

Why are adolescents so vulnerable to internet addiction or abuse? Should we have policies in place that limit the use of particular forms of the CMC/ICT to certain age groups? That is, like alcohol use, should we limit the use of online gaming and chatrooms to people over the age of 21?

Factor Analysis

We quickly talked about factor analysis in class. Let me review using the salad spinner analogy. Factor analysis allows us to understand how different groups of variables “hang together” (that is, people respond similarly) to explain some construct, in this case, internet addiction versus high internet engagement. Essentially, we put all the survey items in a big salad bowl and we spin them around. We believe that the contents of our salad spinner have similar shapes (like marbles or cubes) and if we spin them around, all the marbles will go down a marble shaped tube and the cubes will go down the cube shaped tube. Then after we’ve finished spinning, we can see which items “hang together” and thus, which behaviors/cognitions people report as being very similar.

In the Charlton and Danforth study, the internet addiction items and the high internet engagement items went “down different tubes.” This means that they reflect different psychological constructs. Thus, internet addiction and high engagement are not the same thing (according to this paper). They are related (there was a correlation between the two of .38), but they are not the same thing. (Note: they actually measured “low” engagement so the correlation is -.38, but we are interested in the relationship between high engagement and addiction, so I reversed the correlation sign.)

This seems pretty interesting to me! I’d love for us to have a good chat about this article tomorrow, so be sure and read this article!

Testing the Use of Polls

In preparation for this week's class, I'm testing out polls. How does this one work?

more at twiigs.com...

Internet Addiction

You'd think the NY Times was following my syllabus with how these stories keep coming up just in time.

A little background on the author, Mark Bittman is a very respected cookbook writer and food columnist for the NY Times. I think this story is so interesting because it's not about some pasty faced loser who can't stop gaming. It's about a real person with a real job and a real life that is trying to figure out how to break free from his electronic ties. CMC and ICT are like chains. They connect us, free us, and tie us down.

It's only going to get worse for your generation!! Trust me, we are not at the end of the beginning of ICT at work.

New Ways to Goof Off at Work

As we've discussed, Facebook is becoming more common at work. And in many ways this is a good thing as people increase their social network ties.

However, Facebook isn't all "networking" as you well know. There are tons of applications on there and some of them are really catching on. Superpoke was the first one to get attention, and make the creators freaky rich. Now Scrabulous is getting a lot of attention---with 700,000 players a day!!! Personally, I love Scrabulous but have to limit myself to one move a day or it eats into work time. (OK, I *try* to limit myself).

The issues I see with Scrabulous is that we really don't know when technology is going to take off, we just can see when it has. We have a poor ability to predict the future. Second, who knew it would become such an active game/problem for employees! That's well beyond the educational group. Finally, how are traditional media supposed to deal with Facebook applications? Should the Hasbro shut down the site for copyright infringement? Or should they try to tap into the $25,000 A MONTH the game is bringing in. I, like one of the people in the story, actually bought a Scrabble game for my husband and me to play at home.

Your thoughts??

Spring Break

For my spring break I am going to Atlanta for part of break to see a friend who just a had baby. While the other part of my break I'll be in Charlotte cleaning up my house after the grease fire we had this week that tried to burn down our kitchen. I hope everyone else has a good Vacation and for everyone who is going some where travel safe!

Google Scholar

If you're on campus, using Google Scholar requires no extra steps - you just go to http://scholar.google.com

Otherwise, to use it off campus, you must be logged in for remote access.

This should provide you with an easy walkthrough.
Scholar.pdf

Media Representations and Trust

In chapter 5, there were several studies about team cooperation using certain media. Between video, audio, photos, and text media, the video applications resulted in the highest rate of cooperation compared to the others reasearched. Audio-only interactions resulted in lower levels of cooperation than video but higher than with text-only interactions. Researchers also found a positive effect on cooperation with the use of photo media. Text-only media had the lowest levels of cooperation.

So what does this mean?

I find it very interesting that many people felt the most trust and cooperation when dealing with video media. Is this because it simulates face-to-face reactions more realistically than audio only, photos, and text? I assume that since video features allow people to see nonverbal gestures, hear the person's voice, and observe them speaking, many people feel more open and trusting to this form of communication. There is less to hide behind in video communication than the other forms used in the research.

Chapter 4

I really liked how this Chapter focused on relationships, trust that started online and the development of trust. The risk part interested me, as well as the conversation in class. The risk when individuals follow advice online that could possibly be false. I think it is important fow individuals who build relationships soley online to focus on the risk factors. When we are meeting someone for the first time online, we need to be aware of the "nobody knows you're a dog" saying, and also the knowledge being given. I enjoyed these trust chapters because it didn't "bash" the internet and online dating, it only set out awareness. I myself can be totally naive to certain issues online, and knowing if it is truth or just one's opinion....

Death of a Charlotte Blogger

Recently, a local blogger died after a 4 day bout with lung cancer. In fact, her death was so quick, she died before the diagnosis was actually made.

Her friends and family were overwhelmed with the support they received from the "strangers" who got to know her through her 12 weeks of posting. This blog is a bit different in that not only was it about her personal life as a working mother, she also shared a lot of her wit and wisdom about Charlotte parenting.

It's an interesting example of that overlap in networking between FtF and CMC that we've been talking about in class. Also, could this be an example of how social capital moves back and forth between online and FtF? What do you think?

Cybergrrrls

The NY Times this week had an article discussing that girls are responsible for most of the content on the web now. In addition, these girls are also developing a substantial number web applications, more so than boys. This seems pretty exciting because women have lagged behind men in computer science fields. Could this be the dawn of a new era in gender opportunity and equality in technical careers?

Some people argue no. They say that what these girls are doing isn't "real" computer science or technology development. Is there perspective true or is the internet really going to challenge the way we compute and these adults just don't get it?

Facebook Study

At the beginning of the course, I think Dr. Blanchard mentioned a research project on Facebook privacy that was being conducted in the Computer Science department by PhD student Andrew Besmer.

He has wrapped up his focus groups, but he has created an online survey to go along with his photo application prototype.

It would be really awesome if you guys could take the time to complete the survey. It will only take a few minutes, and Andrew would really appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

Here's the link: HCI Photo Application

- Erin

Henderson/Gilding Article

The thing that stood out for me in this article was the definition of trust: it is a bet about the future contingent actions of others. It also mentioned that when we place trust, we are acting as if we knew the future. I never thought of trust in these terms. This was an eye opener for me or as Oprah calls it, a light bulb moment. When we trust someone, we are really anticipating that person to act a certain way in the future. That's simply what love is, a bet that a person will be honest and true within the life of the relationship. With the current divorce rate, apparently that's a bet that many people are losing. Even with sharing secrets with friends we are only hoping and wishing that the person won't betray our trust and continue to share the information with others. I am going to take a gamble and trust that my classmates will in the near future read and post a comment.

Kaycee Nicole

When I read Ch. 4 a few days ago, I scratched down a note to pull up any articles on the Kaycee Nicole situation. It appears to have happened almost 7 years ago, but somehow I never heard about it.

If your interested in reading the article...

What's horrible is that Kaycee's "mother" - or rather, the creator of Kaycee - mentions in the article how she wanted an online journal, and she wanted it to be positive. I'm not sure how creating a daughter that is dying of leukemia is positive! I'm just so disgusted after reading this article and to think that she kept it up for two years!

Online Networks for Work

With your familiarity with Facebook, social networking may be an excellent way for you to get your career going. Check out this article on the Observer and then, you may consider joining Linkedin (essentially, a form of Facebook for the working world).

romance.

Chapter 3- "Cyberspace can potentially provide a space for individuals to be more private and have their activities far less monitored than they would be in more traditional spaces."

These readings opened my eyes to the variety of romance, dating and views on internet romance. As I said in class, more and more I am thinking positive of the internet, including dating online. As our world continues to change, dating changes with it... and online dating just seems a step into today's times. One of the problems with online dating is online dating is still new. When something new comes about, there are always kinks to be worked out. More and more people are beginning to have a better understanding of how to represent themselves online, or at least figuring out how they want to be portrayed. It will be very exciting to see where online romance goes in the years to come!

Hotel California...or Facebook?

Earlier this week, the NY Times reported that it was very difficult to leave Facebook. To erase one's data from the site, you had to contact customer service and delete your profile information line by line.

On Tuesday, Facebook responded to the uproar and will now make it a lot easier to both check out and leave Facebook when you are done with using the service.

Your thoughts?

Ellison and Gibbs Article

This study was conducted to investigate the "self presentation strategies" of online daters, and how they present themselves in order to find a romantic partner. I think this is a very interesting study, when you are portraying yourself online, are you being honest about the real you that is trying to find a romantic partner. The findings are that the participants where in fact honest about who they were online.

Important to note, there are a lot of limitations on this study, and it sends up a red flag. These are again participants that choose to be apart of the study. They are all from a specific region, and the site that they used to study from is not like most dating sites today. You look through and find someone instead of being matched with "most compatible" daters.

Online Romance

Apparently, as we approach Valentine's day, the print media are starting to publish stories about online romance. Since most of the ones we hear about tend to be very flashy, I thought I'd link you to two stories that I think are much more typical (and interesting!) about folks finding love online.

The first story is about rural singles using online dating services for companionship and marriage. My take on this is that if you think it's hard to date in the city with a zillion people to choose from, imagine dating in the country.

I also read this article on an older couple finding each other online and thought it must be much, much more typical of how most people use these services to find love. Remember, dear students, that although your age group makes up the majority of people on facebook (and the majority of students in my class!) :-), you are not the majority of people online. Old folks like me are the most populous group!

Finally, would you like to share your generation's experience of love online? The NY Times Modern Love column wants you to tell us what love is like now.

McKenna et al

This article continues to discuss internet relationships in reference to one's inner or true self. It was interesting that these authors went a step further to create the structural equation model. This model shows how people continue to carry out their relationships beyond the internet. I was surprised to see that a small percentage continue to communicate through letters. This model also showed that people sometimes become engaged or simply have an affair after they connect with each other's inner self. This article does include the fact that most internet users suffer from social anxieties and loneliness, but it also shows how the relationships can continue to grow.

Just a rant

Reading some of the articles last week has really frustrated me. It's unfortunate that so much Internet research focuses on shyness, social anxiety, loneliness, and depression - basically, it reminds me of a Cymbalta commercial.

Otherwise, we seem to associate the Internet and technology with geekiness. Whatever happened to innovation, intellect, and individuality? Everyone seems to forget about this - especially females!

Here's something interesting my professor in the CS department has on her site:
"As a female and a mother, I aim to show that Computer Science is for everyone. It is NOT geeky. CS is creative, and it allows me to contribute to the design of products that can be used by diverse populations."

So while social relationships and Internet usage may have initially revolved around more introverted personalities, I think this has drastically changed in the last five years, as technology continues to become more ubiquitous. Sadly, the established stigmas seem to prevail....

Creative technology on campus...

Virtual Environments for Use in the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders

Can Immersive Virtual Humans Teach Social Conversation Protocols?

Some other stuff..

McKenna & Bargh

I really enjoyed the McKenna and Bargh article, as well as our class discussion yesterday. Dr. Blanchard made a really good point on how so many people look at the small percentage of pedophilia and things relating to those issues, and not on the bigger picture of the internet. I tend to perceive a lot of internet chat sites as "sketchy" sites. However, this article really opened my eyes to the positive sides of the internet, now I know there are still many chat rooms and websites that still support these addictions and illegal things, but there are so many positives. "Not only do people form strong relationships with others on the Internet, but they are then motivated to make these relationships a social reality." Also, the talks on "coming out" and how they feel encouraged on bringing that "real self" out into the real world made me have a better understanding of the need for internet support to bring real life support. This article just gave me more information on what good the internet brings to certain groups of people.

McKenna and Bargh

McKenna and Bargh describe how people prefer the internet to other facets of the media due to it's accesibility and "up-to-the minute accurate" information. People are also using the internet as a form of communication, though--which is now it's number one use. The article focuses on what causes people to communicate online, what happens during social interaction, and the consequences of Internet interactions. People communicate online for a variety of reasons. Many want to simply conceal their identity, while some with a certain stigma feel they can share their feelings with others with the same problem (ex. health issues, relationship probems, ect.). People have a need to show their true self, but often feel they cannot do this in person and feel more comfortable online.

Heisler and Crabill Article

This article discussed perceptions that are generated from an email username. This was an interesting article because I usually don't give much attention to an username. I am curious sometimes are to why or how some people choose their names. Some names that contains numbers raise questions about their significance to the user. Creative usernames are viewed as either funny or simply entertaining. The article stated that creative names, when participating in a group project, could alter how others in the group will perceive that individual. I guess I wouldn't want to work or depend on someone with the username of sober4alilbit. Most people, like myself, simply use portions of their names to generate an username. Maybe I need to change my username in order to be perceived as being more creative and edgy.

Second Life

This is an introduction to Second Life and this is the article that talks about people working on Second life. Both of these should give you a bit of an introduction to Second Life before our class on Tuesday.



See you then!!!

Impression Management in Facebook

Some of the researchers you're reading about (or going to read about!) have some new research on Facebook and impression management in a recent NY Times article.

What do you think about it?

Psych Club and Psi Chi Meeting

The first meeting of the semester is

When: Monday, January 28th
Where: Colvard 3120
Time: at 4 o’clock

Come Join us for Pizza and Fun!!

Collecting Data from Facebook

This recent article in the NY Times discusses how academic researchers are studying behavior on Facebook.

What do you think of this article? Is it fair for people to be studied when they don't know it? How does this differ from the APA Ethics code for observing people in their day-to-day environments? How can we balance what we learn from the risks we take? (You may need to look up the APA ethics code to answer some of these questions!)

You may need to register for the NY Times the first time you read an article. I recommend that you do because 1) it's free and 2) we're going to be using them as a source quite a bit throughout the semester.

Site Meter

I've added Site Meter to the bottom of our blog so we can see how many people find us and hit this blog looking for other info. I think it will be a good way to decide whether we should go private or not!

Click on the button below and see what info you can find out!

Welcome to the Class Blog!

Welcome to our class blog! We'll all be posting thoughts and links to topics about the topics we're covering in class.

In addition, we'll be talking about our experiences of reading and posting to the blog and how we see the discussions developing on this blog...or not! :-)

One of our first decisions will be to decide whether this is a public blog or not!

I think this is going to be a really fun semester!