Archive for the ‘communication’ Category

I remember the days where Internet browsers only had one “tab” for each website you viewed. Remember those? You had one page, one browser. If you had more than one page, or three, or eight – you had that many Internet browsers open. I feel as though it really helped in terms of keeping things sane on the PC desktop. As soon as the computer started to drone and move like molasses between tasks, I knew something had to be done in terms of choice and what I really needed open on my operating system.

I think three to five browsers were my limit; depending on what research project I was working on at the time.

Now, as I’ve just gotten back from lunch to a lovely article about multitasking and the horrors of doing your job poorly – I look up and began to count the amount of “tabs” I currently have open in my Google Chrome browser and it stands at nine. Nine (now ten after my Tweet Deck informed me that Emily Brydon of Canada will be skiing next in the Ladies Downhill competition and I proceeded to search for a live stream of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics …..).

It’s now twenty minutes later – I still haven’t been able to find anything that will play live on my computer; I haven’t continued writing anything on here and I’ve been trying to focus all afternoon. There’s something about today – this week, that’s made me uneasy. I don’t know how to explain it, but it has.

Maybe all this multitasking is catching up with me, and – like the article suggests, I’m doing more juggling than multitasking.

(article written February 17th – but too many things got in the way and it wasn’t posted – go figure.)

Social Media.

Two words, many, different enormous meanings. I’ve always been a fan the latest social media trend and always interested in the amazing ways it’s utilized within our society. I sporadically become fascinated with learning about them and figuring out how it changes the way people communicate with each other. It’s like I’m writing an essay every time I do this, but I can’t help it.

I used to be told this made me “creepy”. What was the point? What does it matter – you’re not living your life. Okay, so it never really got to intervention status, but my knowledge of computers, technology and love for social networking has definitely put me in hot water with friends, family and boyfriends in the past.

Recently, I’ve been in touch with so many people from my past, in my line of work, or just – random, interesting people. I find it invigorating. This connection I’m able to sustain with them when I don’t have time to breathe throughout the day. I’m busy. I’m working. I’m building websites. I’m researching businesses. I’m calling businesses. I’m calling people. I’m making PowerPoints. I’m grabbing my fifth coffee of the day – whatever. All the while communicating with all these people, the city I live in, the city I used to live in, potential clients, new clients, old friends, new friends, you get the idea.

I feel as though I’ve been awakened recently, however. As I discovered a world in which other people don’t find it creepy. In fact, if you were to use the term to describe their actions – they’d be ten hundred times creepier than I could ever hope to achieve! It’s great!

Where have I been, honestly, with fighting twitter for so long? Why did I bother? I know the answer to this; it was because I was told it was wrong. Weird. Impersonal. Secretly, I knew the answer – it’s not. It’s evolution of communication. I learned all about it. Personally, I’m kind of pissed off that I’m not in school while all of these changes are going on because I feel as though I’d rock it on my essays on communication in the new media world. I would rock them. Then again, I get to experience it now – and not feel guilty that I’m wasting my time on “useless” sites instead of studying for my upcoming exam.

I’ve been trained to feel guilty about these sites – that’s really it. It begins with the notion that social media is a waste of time, this notion that stems from people who are afraid of change. Afraid of these 24 year old kids bored on a Friday night getting these ridiculous ideas that work out and five years later have books written about them calling them “The Accidental Billionaires”.

Maybe social media is a waste of time for some people, but not for me. It’s bringing me back from a bit of a down spell and opening my eyes to all the different opportunities there are out there. All the people there are to meet. All the things there are to learn.

And who doesn’t love a twitter mention every now and again? It makes my heart flutter, just a tiny bit. So maybe that’s a bit creepy. I’m okay with that.

I have an addiction. It’s not to heroin, cocaine, alcohol or even cigarettes. It’s to the internet, no, actually, it’s to Facebook. This seemingly harmless website that was started three years ago by some Harvard university student who just wanted to connect people on his campus has barrelled into a mass community website for over 27 million people around the world – and 64% of those people log onto Facebook more than once a day – most of them visiting for hours at a time. I’m not judging, because I’m one of these people, and although a lot of my friends and I often joke about the amount of time spent on this website, calling each other stalkers and creeps, I’ve realized that it’s not that funny.

I’ve been noticing lately that there are a lot of people I can recognize on campus by their faces and wonder where I’ve seen them before. It’s not long before I realize I’ve seen them tagged in someone’s photograph listed on Facebook detailing the events of another Saturday night out with friends. I’ve been told, myself, that people know me based on my Facebook profile – which prompted me to change my privacy settings on the site to limited to those not on my “friends” list – but what was the difference, I noticed. Even with this limited profile setting, I still have 166 friends in my Windsor network, over 120 in my Toronto network and sporadic friends listed in networks at colleges and universities all over North America. I don’t talk to these people. I know them, or more accurately, I did know them – at one time. Maybe we spoke in high school, or even elementary school or had class with them in second year, second semester – regardless of the meeting, if they’re recognized somehow while surfing the site, you can bet the “add this person as a friend” link is pushed by many. I’m not saying that the entire website’s subscribers are addicted or have this obsession with searching for people they once knew – anyone they’ve ever come in contact with – but the random posting, searching, viewing, poking does occur by many – admit it. Even if it’s not yourself, chances are, one of your friends is on that site writing
on your wall, asking why you’re not on more often.

The thing is – the people I mostly “wall post” on Facebook are my friends, my actual physical “everyday” friends. I have these people on MSN, I have their phone numbers and most of them actually live less than a five minute walk away. Yet I’ll post on their wall before using any of the aforementioned actions to contact them.

When MSN became a phenomenon, and everyone began to have it and exchanging emails became the new exchanging phone numbers, a lot of people were concerned with the lack of physical communication people we were going to have with one another. Others argue that the internet actually expands our social networking within the community in which we live; saying that without this easy, comfortable, non-intrusive way to communicate with others, people would hide behind shy personalities and never exert their potential to become comfortable with communicating with others in the first place.

With these pros and cons going back and forth in regards to the communication via online or in person, comes Facebook – another alternate way to communicate. Facebook is “the new MSN”. It’s a statement that I’ve said, my friends have said and I’ve overheard. Why? Because of that fabulous feature on Facebook – the “comment wall”. A place where anyone listed in this extensive friends list can write you messages. It differs from MSN because you don’t have to reply right away without seeming rude – for your online “status” doesn’t tell anyone you’re online unless you change it to some catchy third person sentence – which doesn’t even apply to you actually being there (even though, chances are, we probably are). I’ll even admit – I spend most of my time in “busy” on MSN – because, I start my day off with a lot of things needing to be completed – and I don’t have time for conversations on MSN. Somehow, I find time for Facebook though. Why is that? I think it has something to do with the way we word our comments on people’s walls. Everyone can see what we write on people’s walls and what they write on ours. They are written for the receiver, but worded for those who read them – because anyone can. Let’s not forget that no one can see who actually messages us on MSN either.

Does Facebook make us cool? Does the amount of friends we have really matter, especially when we don’t even talk to more than half of them? All these questions, and so many more, I asked myself and realized now that I’d still now focused on my addiction to Facebook, whether for or against it, instead of doing my homework – it was still preventing me from living my life and doing what I needed to do.

So I made the decision to delete it – like a BandAid – because that was the only way I’d be able to rid myself of this addiction – quick and easy. Although, apparently, it’s not so easy. I know my way around the Facebook site so I clicked on “My Account” and amongst all the questions regarding my contact information; I see a heading and link to “deactivate my account”. Deactivate? – I think – that’s not deleting. Then I try and find an alternate link for actual deletion to no avail. I continue on with “deactivating my account” and I’m given choices by the site – they want to survey why I’m deactivating. Out of the eight options they ask, I find four of them to be based on behaviour patterns of a how the site is used.
I found it interesting because obviously even the creators of the site know that it’s being used by people with addictive personalities (option six: I spend too much time on the Facebook site) and perhaps not in the safest way (option seven: I don’t feel safe on the site) and there’s no point (option two: I don’t find Facebook useful) or even my personal favourite –option four: Facebook is resulting in social drama for me.

How are we supposed to get rid of this addiction, should we choose the quick and easy BandAid version? Facebook obviously doesn’t want us to – as underneath these survey options was the question to opt out of receiving emails from Facebook because even though you deactivate your account – your friends can still tag you in photos, invite you
to events or ask you to join groups. I was confused. None of that seemed like deleting my account – so now I was going to deactivate my access to my profile – but others could still see it? What is that?

Should you choose this approach to ridding yourself of this Facebook phenomenon, don’t worry if it’s a mistake in judgement one late evening – as Facebook makes sure to let you know that you can easily reactivate your account by simply entering your email and password in the login page.

Funny, isn’t that what we every day to sign in anyway?