Idea for Reflective Essay Topic

Flashmobs were interesting to me because I liked the collective creativeness of it all. The process of organizing a massive group of people who were all united in their desire to play a game of freeze or ninjas versus pirates was intriguing. Ones of particular interest were the ones involving little to no communication prior to the event. This is interesting because it illustrates how similar the human mind can think within a collective. For example, if I send out a massive text message or email to a group of unknown strangers, and tell them the vaguest details for a flashmob game of ninjas versus pirates, such as person A will be a pirate and person B will be a ninja, and tell them to meet me at a location, and then watch as these people, who come from different backgrounds and are of individual mindsets, suddenly all respond identically to the same vague orders, creating a hive mind of sorts.

The focus of my paer will based off the hive mind and its connection to technology. In terms of articeles that I would be referencing I could use Rheingold’s piece on flashmobs, the produsage article, Friendgame, and remediation

- hive mind; how technology connects to it

-how concept of writing has changed

- technology creates more autonomous learning

- how course readings changed your understanding/use of technology

-how technology changes personal connections

-flashmobs

-cyberbullying

-impact of technology on print generation

-technology impact on print world and why

Free Blog

Gorillas, monkies, bananas, orangatangs, disco and neon....this is the organized misorder that is my mind

Throwing ThingsOn a Wall To See What Sticks: Hypertext Plans

In devloping my hypertext assignment, I have decided to focus on the topic of text messaging, specifically the reasons and societal effects of doing so. My idea isn't yet concrete, and is more a lump of coal than it is a diamond. The questions floating through my head that I intend to hopefully consolidate into a defined topic are:

Why do people text more than talk?

Are there societal reasons for this?

Is this generational? Are older people using this form of communication heavily as well?

How are the communication skills of texters? Are they social when the phone is removed from their hands?

Why is there a certain lingo?

What are the possible long term consequences of reliance on text messaging?

Some sub points that I wanted to focus on are the generational differences in text messaging usage. Younger people tend to text more so than older people, and I would like to explore the reasons behind this. I'd also like to focus on the possible societal effects of text messaging, in particular whether or not texting limits or amplifies people's other communicative/social skills.

My Wii Wiki World of Wonder(tongue twister)

My experience on wikipedia was a rocky one. I decided to do my project on the health/psychical benefits of playing WiiSports. I researched about 3 sites that provided links to studies on the physical effects of playing the game. Two of the studies were conducted at accretied colleges by big time professors and reserachers, while one study was conducted by a regular blue collar worker in England. Unsurprisingly, the university studies were kept and the one conducted by the blue collar worker was ommited when a user edited my entry. I noticed that entires that provide links from popular accredited research institutes are retained while lesser known ones are not. Even though the study conducted by the british blue collar worker had coverage from several major media outlets such as FOX and NBC, and was a comprehensive study that included day by day and week by results both annotated as well as visual progress, it is still considered, at least in the eyes of the secret society of upper echelon wikipedia editors, as not being legit enough. I struck up a brief conversation with one of the major power players of the wii wikipedia world(try saying that tongue twister 3 times fast) and he told me that while my info was good, that he along with many of the editors on the site tend to side with research studies done by institutions of pedigree rather than personal ones. He wasn't necessarily disputing that the study of the blue collar worker was bad, but simply not credible enough. I appreciated his honesty, but I feel that part should have been retained. I am not mad that they basically re worded and shortened my entire entry, Im not the best when it comes to structure so it probably warranted an edit, but I felt that all of info should have been retained. Other than that I actually found my experience on wikipedia to be a simple and smooth, albeit bias, experience