New Media and Society

There have been a wide range of effects of the new media on society. The pros and cons can go on for days. As posted in my previous blog, privacy has been lost completely to new media. On the other hand we have been able to share and spread information at a rate that is mind boggling. Economy has improved drastically as well as social interactions amongst people all around the world. Creativity and growth are things that have developed due to new media. Society has quite possibly become more knowledgeable due to new media. Information is so accessible, you can read wikipedia to find out just about anything you need to know about, go shopping, read books, read newspapers, play games.. without even leaving your home. But on the downside people have become too dependent on computers and new media. People don't even need to leave their homes. This promotes laziness and not experiencing the beautiful world that is not the web.

Privacy and Confidentiality

Issues of privacy and confidentially are closely related to new media. These days all of our information is easily accessible. For a small fee we can practically find out a persons life story. New media has made this type of accessibility irreversible. We are definitely not as protected as we once were many years ago. Every time we log into a website it is being recorded. Sure we have all these privacy settings on social network sites but does this really give us "privacy"? There is a world wide web in which we don't actually live in, therefore we don't really see its limits. I think it's safe to say there is no privacy in today's world and we can thank technology for this.

The Next New thing

It's very difficult to come up with a type of "new media" that doesn't currently exist. Any ideas I have are pretty out there but the media now probably seemed out there decades ago. With the technology that exists anything is really possible. An idea would be that people don't have to type things or text things, they would simply be thought and their thought would be seen in text on whatever device they are using. This may be possible in the future with some type of chip implanted in our brains, who knows.

Advice to Brooklyn College

If i was hired to use new media to improve the college I would come up with a few different suggestions. I would establish blogs addressing different issues within the school. I would develop some kind of sharing information network or study guides amongst students in each class. Every class in the college would have a website in which every student can receive questions/ answers to homework or class related topics. Students can receive information via mass texts, emails and so forth. I think this system would help a lot of shy students perform better in class. Another suggestion would to have a social network just for brooklyn college students. Taking Facebook a little backwards, only members of the college can be apart of the social network. This is a way of students making friends as well as sharing ideas.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

These virtual worlds can be used in many different ways. According to a CNN article --"you're not going out into the real world meeting people, you're going meeting people online and in your own home, so you're perfectly relaxed. It's just a fantastic tool to use to bring people together." An sufferer from autism was able to use chat rooms and soon realized that people used symbols to express themselves: the smiley signs, the angry signs, hug signs, etc., to enhance the text. He went on to say that subconsciously his brain was learning about communication from these sessions of chat. On the more negative side the toy Webkinz has been criticized due to the fact of alienation of kids and their parents.  Positives include expanding medical training in the virtual world. Virtual worlds definitely foster creativity. You can be who ever you want to be behind your computer. If you're shy in person you can show your true side on a computer doing things you enjoy with people with similar interests to your own. I think that the future of virtual worlds will look extremely close to reality. The graphics will be impeccable and we will feel as if we not only have an avatar representing us, but it will actually be us.