Reading Response 6/4

To the White extreme
Question:
Aren't these games just an accurate representation of the feelings of society on sports and athletes?

Just because something is in a video game it does not mean you as the player have to agree with it. It seems like this author just takes a very broad view on video games and that they give the players the worst views of the sport or location things take place when that is really not the case, it is just the reality of the times. There are assumptions and stereotypes in sports that are not that nice and can be viewed as insulting to some people. Video games do not need to ignore these assumptions and make the perfect world, video games are just a representation of the real world and that should not be a crime. Stereotypes will always be around and you can choose to ignore them or just not get offended by them. But video games should not have to work around these to make their game family friendly or appropriate. The author makes claims that lead me to believe that he is blaming video games for letting this continue. All video games are trying to do is be as realistic as possible so the player can feel like they are there. And if the player gets offended that that is their issue and not the game makers to deal with.

Reading Response 6/3

Women and Games
Question:
Is it really fair to only analyze women gamers? it seemed to me like the categories they put them in could be the same categories for males who play games, from intense gamers to non gamers?

This article was interesting to me and at first i thought their argument was going to focus mostly on the stigma of women gamers and their reactions to being a part of a male dominated hobby. It surprised me that they did not focus on these topics nearly as much as they could have and I think that weakened their argument. Instead of focusing soley on how women feel about playing games with male protagonists and the women being very sexual, they decided to focus on just why women play video games. The angle they took in this article is not an original angle that really gets to the core of women playing video games and why it is interesting. The frequency and reasons women play video games that they found could be the same reasoning for men which made this argument pretty much mean nothing to me as a reader. I was expecting a fresh view on women in gaming, but what i read was an angle and topic that could be addressed about why males play video games just as easily as why women play .

Reading Response 5/31

race gender and sex on the net-semantic
Question:
Is the idea of going on vacation to have sex a form of identity tourism that can be disconnected from your real life? Or do these actions on the internet effect the way a person lives their real life?

This article made me really think of if you can really be one person on the internet and then a whole different kind of person in real life. The ability to go on vacation and receive sexual favors from random women and then go home to your wife and kids like nothing happened seems to not be possible, but when reading this article i started to think that is the stance they were taking. This article focused a lot on the ability to do whatever you want on the internet or vacation and then go home and go on with your regular life. I don't think that is the truth, any action, whether it is on the internet or in real life effect they way a person acts and lives from that point forward. Sex and traveling should not be looked at as a seperate personality or lifestyle on the internet. The actions that people take follow them wherever they go, even if those actions were internet or travel based.

Reading Response 5/29

Question:
Is it fair for companies to use your information in ways they did not directly say they would?

This article brought up a lot of questions in my head of how information is being shared and how easy it is now a days to get taken advantage of. Everything is so fast paced that it is easy to lose track of what you do and what you sign up for. Before you know it your information can be used in ways you never imagined. This article talks about the fact that information like your race and age and gender is being used by agencies to figure out demographics of particular areas. The use of this type of information is not fair to use in order to put them into groups and stereotypes. The fact that information can be used in ways that people did not expect when giving blood or other things like that is not fair and it would seem to me to not be legal either. Just because you can do something does not mean that you should do it. Technology has made a lot of progress but we should not let that progress cloud our judgement as humans and make us do illegal things like use information in questionable ways.

Reading Response 5/28

5/28

Hypes, hopes and actualities

Question:
Will there ever be a time where the hypes and hopes take over? and reality is no longer really real?

This article focused a lot on the hypes and hopes of the internet and what is possible. When you get into this realm it is easy to get carried away and forget about the limitations that reality puts on these possibilities. The hypes and hopes were mostly about the ability for someone to make a different virtual life where they can be any kind of person they want to be. This can be done and some people can get carried away and live in a virtual world but how realistic is all of this? I was pleasantly surprised that at the end of this article the author really brings it back to the here and now and reality and makes sure the reader understands that these ideas are still pretty far fetched. You can be a different person in a virtual world, but the idea that you can then just disconnect that from your real life is not very realistic. This author does a good job of showing you the possibilities if there were not limits and not human effect while still keeping it in perspective that there is a real world that everyone has to live in as well.

Reading Response 5/21

Question:
When you are making a stance on the internet is it more important to just get your words out there or actually be heard?

After reading this article I have more questions about if the internet has helped or hurt people who really want to make a change? This article focused a lot on just having the ability to get your words on a web page and not caring about who is really reading, but I think it should be the opposite. It is the idea of quality over quantity. is it more important to have more views or readers? Or is it more important to have less readers but make a bigger impact on that reader? I think this article ignored the fact that once you get your words out there on the internet it is important to have people take them seriously and learn from them. This article just praised the internet for being an outlet for anyone to use. This is true but it needs to be used correctly and effectively to really make an impact on your readers.

Reading Response 5/30

Question:
Is it fair for the author to make such big assumptions about George Lucas and his intentions when directing star wars when he can't stand up for himself and defend his actions?

It seems like the author of the article about Star Wars and farming introduced the topic in a way in which he would make parallels with George Lucas' life growing up on a farm and how those principles are present in the movie Star Wars. I was surprised when this quickly changed to the author making assumptions about the characters present in Star Wars. While these assumptions can be made in certain settings this article did not introduce the topic very well for my liking. I felt like the author just bashed the stereotypes that were present in the star wars movies and the characters. You can look into anything and find something bad about it and i feel like that is what this author did. He was too critical for my liking and it did not seem like the author respected George Lucas and his artistic freedoms he took in star wars. I don't think George Lucas had these intentions in his characters and they were too critically looked at by the author of this article.

Women in Gaming word cloud

<a href="http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/6792675/Women_in_Gaming" 
          title="Wordle: Women in Gaming"><img
          src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/6792675/Women_in_Gaming"
          alt="Wordle: Women in Gaming"
          style="padding:4px;border:1px solid #ddd"></a>

Reading Response 5/29

5/29

If you were not an avid star wars fan and knew the movies really well would you be able to understand the connections he is making in this article to the star wars movies?

As a person who just watches star wars for fun and do not have the whole series memorized, this article was hard to follow. All of the analyzing that was done in the article focused on such small details and moments that it was hard to take this article seriously if you could not follow along. I felt like the author was making assumptions about George Lucas and the intentions he had when writing and directing this movie, and to me that is not fair. He focused so much on his life and how it corresponds to the movie and the social issues it brings up that I don't know how this is not an analyzation of George Lucas's intentions. If the author would have focused on more concrete facts and more obvious social issues I would have liked this article more and respected his opinion and writing.

word cloud

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/6746957/voice_on_the_internet

here is the link to my word cloud.

Reading Response 5/16

5/16

After reading this article by Federica Casalegno about memory and digital space I have more questions about memory than I had before I read this article. The use of the word memory made me think of facts, knowledge and smarts. But that is not how this was approached, which surprised me. I understand that memories are formed in a community and that the idea of community is changing, so therefor memory has to change as well. This article did a good job of laying that out and I agree with many of their opinions. One question I have is: Is technology affecting our ability to memorize facts and knowledge? This article talked a little bit about this question but pushed it to the side because it was too much of an extreme stance or question to be posing. The way in which they stated it was, but I believe there is a middle ground that could be researched more. I have this question because that is what I was expecting to read about from the title. I don't think that the question of how technology is affecting our memory of facts is too extreme to address, but for some reason people think it is. You hear all the time about how technology is affecting our memory and that we are stupider than ever before, but there is never any research to back that up. I want to learn more about this aspect of memory because that is what will affect the next generation of leaders and thinkers in this world.

Reading Response 5/15

5/15

When reading the article "Asphalt Games" I got excited about what social media and internet has done for communities. I think this is a great idea that gets people out of their homes and off their computer, to do something active and fun. At first I did not have a grasp on the whole idea but the article laid out the concept very well. A question that I came up with to bring this into current times is, if this were implemented onto smart phones with GPS tracking, would the issue of photo shopping and not being at the actual location go away because they could tag where they were when they took the photo? If this were an app that you could take pictures through then the issue of cheating the system and not taking a picture at the exact location would go away. This would free up the stress of the users and make it feel like they were not getting cheated by other players. Another aspect that was not talked about in the article was the idea of having a video aspect of the task as well. If players were able to upload a video of them doing the task this would make the game much more interactive for all the users. The players could click on any location on the map and see a photo or video of the task that has been done. Videos are on the rise and this would be a great new aspect to add to the Asphalt Games to make it more interactive and entertaining for all users.

Reading Response 5/9

5/9

After reading the article "The Database" by Lev Manovich I had a better understanding of what the first steps of the internet and technology were. The internet just started as a database for people to go to for information. The internet was full of algorithms and data and did not have much of an interactive aspect for the user to experience. A question that came to me while reading was, did people expect the internet to become so interactive and be a narrative of a persons life? This article focused so much on the database that it seemed like the author thought this was the only way the internet could be used. But as we know now, the internet has expanded and become much more interactive for the user. The internet is now a way for people to reach each other and stay connected. The ability for people to stay connected through social media is something that I don't think anyone saw in the future. What started as just a database for looking up information and punching out equations has now evolved into a whole new way of interacting and living. I do not think the inventors and users of the database saw this in the future at all; which makes the progress and expansion of the internet that much more exciting.

Reading Response 5/10

5/10

After reading the article "Racism is a technology: Six links in a chain" I was a bit confused about what the main argument was from the author. When reading the title of the article I did not know what to expect, because I did not think racism and technology would relate to each other at all. After reading this article I have a better understanding of how your race and economic class does effect your accessibility to technology. The one question I had about this article is the credibility of the sources that were used when making the argument that Caucasian people use the internet differently than Chacinos and African Americans. This argument seemed weak and just kind of thrown into the article to make a point. I would think a lot of people would have to be interviewed and watched in order to make the claims that were made about the way the technology such as internet was used by different races. I do agree that there is different accessibility depending on where you live and what race you are, but the way in which the technology is used is questionable to me. I did not quite understand why he made the argument that different races use technology differently. I feel like this was an argument that was added to the end to try to make the reader believe the author more. If he would have just stuck with the accessibility issue and difference I would have believed his argument more. Some of his points were still very valid and made me think about accessibility issues to technology that I had never thought of before.

Reading Response 5/13

5/13

After reading this article I had one major question about the mobility of work. For me, the mobility would just add to my stress level at work and I am not sure if I would be able to get as much done. Working in the office helps some people focus and get work done and be productive. Does this mobility really help with productivity? Or do workers take advantage of the mobility and not get work done at a good rate? You would think the ability to take your work with you wherever you go, from the coffee shop to the park would be helpful and for some people it may be, but not for everyone. The mobility the internet has added to work makes you have to be connected to work at all times. This can help some workers because it will make them feel like they have control of their schedule and be able to do their work when it is best for them. But for other workers this could stress them out and make them feel overworked. Not all employees can manage their time when they get home, other things will pull them away form their work and the expectation to do work at home might be too much to handle. Mobility can lead to better or worse productivity at the end of the day, and as long as you know how your employees work, or you work then you should be able to still be productive in this mobile world.

Reading response 5/14

5/14 

The article "The end of geography or the explosion of place" was the most difficult for me to get a grasp on out of the articles we have read so far. The author posed 3 ways technology was being used and how it effected society as a whole. Overall, what I took away from all 3 arguments was that technology was going to take over and the physical world would not be the same. Something that I thought was ignored was the human factor of the world. Technology has made advances and will continue to make advances but at the end of the day I believe humans will have the final say on how much the technology affects their life. The question that I posed to myself after reading this is: Is technology making us lose our human instincts and nature? If so will we be wholly satisfied by technology one day? To me this is questioning what I brought up earlier, is technology taking over our human nature? I don't believe that technology will take over the world and space to the extant to which the author outlines in this article. I believe man kind and technology will co-evolve like the author talks about, and one or the other will not take over, but they will work together to forge a better future. This article brought up too many extremes in my mind to really seem feasible and realistic. Technology is evolving quickly but so is man kind. Humans are the ones making the technology so I believe they will be able to keep control of the world and not get overrun by their own technology, but live with it.

Digital Diverstiy

This is a link to my Pinterest board about Digital Diversity. This board focuses on how technology has changed the attitudes of people over time. It questions what is good technological advancement; and what advances have really held individuals back.

Digital Diversity Board

1. Old and new windmills
This picture shows a true juxstaposition between old and new technology that are both doing a good thing. The old windmill was used to produce energy, and so are the new windmills in the background. People usually question technological advances but this is a case in which technology has helped. This is a new way to still help the environment and produce your own energy.

2. I love my computer picture
This picture shows the addiciton that people now a days have to their technology and computer. Instead of making friends face to face, this picture shows that people only have friends through social media. This is a topic that is in question, this picture exaggerates the idea that people only talk to people over the internet but it is a fair argument to make.

3. Einsteins Prediction
This pin shows that Einstein's prediction of how people will act in the future has come true. His prediction is that technology will surpass human interaction and the pictures above his prediction are pictures of this happening. The use of cell phones has overtaken personal interaction and his prediction is true. The fact that people spend more time on their phones than speaking in person may lead to less and less personal interaction and connectivity.