Growing Up Online

The Frontline documentary was interesting, to say the least. I did not like how it seemed to propose such a negative view to the internet world, making those who use it regularly seem like they would be basically useless without it. Perhaps this is true, but I feel like a lot of the documentary was a bit "sensational" at times.

1) Before Facebook and MySpace, how do you think 'social networking' differed from today?

I am not sure the exact definition of "social networking," but it seems to me to act like a social web which we use to interact with one another, where the actual medium of the web varies. I think before Facebook and MySpace, social networking probably took place between much smaller groups of people. With the internet, it is extremely simple to be able to communicate with a large number of people at once. Before the internet, it was surely not so easy to be able to connect with such a large number.

2) In your own words, how would you describe something like Facebook to:
a) your friends (pretend they've never seen it!)
b) your parents
c) a grandparent
d) a teenager living in 1950

This is an interesting question. I feel like for a, b, and c I would give a similar answer; that Facebook provides a way to communicate and interact over the internet. Given that all three of the groups know how to use the internet (they actually use facebook, too), I don't think this would be too difficult to comprehend. As for the 50's teenager, I am not sure how I would describe it. I guess I would try to relate a computer to a television, but rather one that you control. Facebook then, would be a means to communicate with other friends' "televisions."



3)Find a random person on facebok.
I found Jack P.
I think thing to note about this guy is that he hasn't given out a whole lot of information about himself. He doesn't give his full name or any photos of himself. He does, however, give his birthday, where he goes to school, and his hometown. He listens to mostly rock and likes video games. It's interesting that his only two pictures are on that says "Jack" and another of a chloroform bottle.

The design of the page is pretty basic and doesn't do much to reveal anything about Jack P. I wouldn't really want to add this person as a friend or find more info on him. It doesn't seem like we have a lot in common and he doesn't seem like a terribly interesting person.



4)Does Facebook compartmentalize?

I think that Facebook definitely compartmentalizes the way we broadcast our info, but I don't necessarily think that this is a bad thing.

5)The medium is the message.

With facebook, we seem to be saying that we need to be in constant communication with one another, and also that privacy is not a big deal (or maybe that we don't quite understand it). While our entire lives might not be contained within facebook, we certainly give enough information about ourselves for strangers to find out things about us that we probably shouldn't want them to know, but apparently we don't care too much.