You're Invited!

The invitation phenomenon on Facebook is an ever growing trend with all generations. I realized that this week when I received an invitation in the mail to a baby shower that I had already responded to a month before via Facebook invite. It was interesting because I received the snail mail invite 2 days before the shower and on the day that the RSVP's were due. You could respond to the rsvp by phone, email, or Facebook. Another case of major Facebook invites is for weddings. I know of two different couples who have made Facebook events for their weddings. This made it possible to keep their guests updated and to make sure that they had the right addresses for everyone they wanted to invite. Maybe Facebook really is taking over the world...

The future of imaginations…

The popular Discovery Channel show “Mythbusters” is known for its entertaining ways of testing stories that are incredibly popular to see if they are in fact true. A common component of the show is a special guest who is a folklorist. She comes on and explains what the myth is, where is possibly comes from, and as much background is known on the subject. Recently, the Mythbusters took on the challenge of trying to duplicate a Youtube video about pulling a table cloth out from under a full table setting by using a motorcycle. As many can guess, this video was faked and they proved that the people who made it faked it, but it made me start thinking about the future of Folklore.

In the past everything was done by word of mouth and eventually things started to be written down. Now, however, it is really common to get an email with a story and that seems to be the way things are passed. It seems though that there is a shift again from just the email age to posting more on Facebook or Youtube. The interesting part about these things, I think, is that it seems as though stories could be more traceable so the mystery of an old folk story is somewhat lost. The internet has made it so that we can easily find out where the story comes from and if it is true or not. Beyond that, even if people do not know if it is true then someone like the Mythbusters comes along to test it. Is Folklore a thing of the past or is there a new version for the future. Is all of our new media doing away with something that has been around for centuries?

An interesting point to consider is the idea of taking folklore or fairy tales for what they are versus needing the truth. I teach 7 and 8 year olds during the summer and we were talking about fairy tales and fables and how people used to not know how things happened so they came up with their own explanations and turned them into stories. We then invited the kids to make up their own stories about how something may have happened or how something was made. Some of the kids had a great time explaining why the sun was only out during the day, or how a snake lost its legs, but one little girl said she could not do it because she did not want to make up a story when she could know the truth. If she had a question like these then she would go online and look it up. It was something that I had not considered and it surprised me. There was no more need for imagination and made up stories when you could just know the truth. Magic is not cool, it is just a trick. Technology has definitely pushed us to another way of thinking, but what happens to the past? No more just day dreaming when you can make your own world by just going on the computer. If it is so easy to make our fantasies a “real” thing, then the imagination of the future is going to be a very interesting thing to see develop.

Facebook obession gone too far...

I've heard of people saying they are addicted to facebook or to certain applications on the site, but this is way over the top. A baby died due to Farmville....seriously?

Obligation to an audience

I have several friends who have their own personal blogs. They each keep it for different reasons, but several of them use it mainly for updating people on their life, telling interesting stories, or sharing new discoveries or deal offers. Depending on the person depends on how often they blog or how long their blogs are, but it seems that people become dependent on these blogs. One of my friends is a regular blogger and usually updates her page at least once a week, if not more. She is a really good writer and a great photographer. She shares stories and pictures that are awesome and tend to brighten my day a bit when I see or read them. Recently, she had not posted anything for a long length of time and I had started to wonder what was going on. Then, after an almost month long absence, she returned with a very simple post that was just a few short sentences, a beautiful picture of her daughter, and the title “I’m not dead”. There were several comments on this post that included many people saying how much they missed her. One comment included someone saying how excited they were to see her back and was expecting a long post with a full explanation about what had happened to her, and she was disappointed that there was not more to the post.

This whole thing made me start to wonder about the obligation that a blogger had to their audience. Blogging tends to be a very informal way of sharing stories or ideas, but I had not thought about them as being of any importance. To me, blogging has just been a way that any joe-shmo can put their thoughts out there for the rest of the world to see; it’s another way that people who want to be heard can yell some more. However, after considering this experience and numerous discussions about blogs, I can see that there can be much more to it. Just something interesting to think about I guess…

Whoops! Didn't think that one through...

Facebook decided to revamp things once again. They did a couple things that could be considered useful, but they made one major change that they do not seem to have completely thought through. They added a feature where people could create groups and add their friends too them without the friends ever knowing they were added to it. It was meant to be a way to make networking easier, but it backfired. As soon as this feature was added a "friend" of both Zuckerberg and the founder of Mahalo were added to a NAMBLA group without their knowing. This caused a huge media storm and a lot of questioning about the security and appropriateness of the new feature. The most alarming part about it is that there is no way for a person to opt out of the feature. People are now pointing out that this is very unlike Facebook, who usually gives you options, and they are wondering why. Many critics are wondering about the security of the new feature. They have pointed out that this means that other people can now be in charge of a part of someone else's page, and the person would not know that they were added to this page unless they specifically looked for it. I'll be very interested to see how Facebook handles the backlash and if they change the application or just leave it the same. I'm also interested to see if people actually use it or whether they just think it goes too far or not.

This Is JEOPARDY!

Have you watched Jeopardy recently? When I was younger Jeopardy always stood out because it was not the typical game show with all the lights and sequins and flashy products. It was kind of boring. It was really intellectual. It seemed like something for brainiacs. In my house, it usually came on right after the evening news, so if no one thought about changing the channel, we all ended up watching it. Well, I have not watched the show in a long time, but I came home to my sister watching it the other day. It had some of its usual categories, poetry and geography and so on, but then there was the category of Blogs and Bloggers. When did Blogs become the intellectual category that is at a level high enough to be on Jeopardy? When did Jeopardy become so “in the know”? I continued to watch and another category popped up that was based around popular song lyrics. These included things from Lady Ga-Ga and the Beastie Boys. Has Jeopardy really changed away from the boring intellectual or am I just older and now understand more?

I thought it was incredibly interesting to see how this kind of technology and media has changed and been influenced by the newer media. I guess I did not realize how important the blogging world had become that it would be included on Jeopardy. The whole category included specific excerpts from Blogs and the contestants had to name who wrote them or what Blog they were from. Or a Blog name was given and they had to name the Blogger. It kind of shocked me that people would know all these things. What was also interesting was that there were three of us watching this and none of us knew any of the blogs that were brought up, we were all clueless. It just goes to show that I guess Jeopardy is hip in its own special way.

Will you be my friend?

Blurry lines on Facebook are all too common now. I have now had several instances where I had to stop and really think before I accepted a friend request or posted something to Facebook. I work at a school with 5-12 year olds during the summer. This past summer we added some of our previous students as “junior counselors”. This meant that all of our helpers for the summer were technically old enough to be on Facebook. One girl, whom I’ve known since she was 5, wanted to friend me on Facebook. The hard part about this decision was that we had only ever had a student-teacher kind of relationship. I do not have anything bad on my Facebook that I mind her seeing, but I did not know if it crossed the line. It was strange to see that there were several other teachers at the school who had accepted her friend request, but still there were others that said that it crossed the line of an appropriate relationship with a student. I finally accepted her friend request but made it limited in the security settings.

It is interesting to see all the new controversies and things you have to think about when new technology and new media come out. I found one news article on this exact controversy. It was so popular that a New York news station picked up the story of what was happening in Utah. The school board in Utah was actually trying to ban student-teacher friendships on Facebook. The other interesting part of this news story was that it ended with them asking their viewers to contribute to a poll on the issue. News commenting on new media using new media…. O the world we live in…