In Summary

First of all, I want to say that I've thoroughly enjoyed reading all of the different responses this quarter.  We've had some lively debates on the discussion board, too.

I've been online since 1994, when my ex-husband and I started playing computer games online through AOL.  I didn't grow up with the internet; by the time I went online, I was an adult with three children.  A lot of the experiences we covered in class were situations I've lived through, but it was interesting to learn about them from a more clinical standpoint.  

At the risk of sounding like a sycophant, I really enjoyed this class.  I do a lot of blogging on my own, and part of the reason I took this class was due to the blog assignments.  I enjoy writing and reading blog posts, and due to that, this class was a very good fit for me.  I really liked the fact that we were expected to read and respond to the blog posts of our classmates.  It was really fascinating to "meet" so many other people online.  I felt that I was able to know my classmates a little better through the blogs, especially when compared to the classes that only use the discussion board.  Plus, it was great seeing pictures on the blogs (I'm finally adding mine today: me and my oldest daughter at Notre Dame, where she had her baton-twirling competition last month).

The discussion board posts were valuable, as well.  It helped a lot to have specific questions to answer, to help me focus my thoughts on the reading material.  I also enjoyed responding to my classmates' posts, especially the fact that we had to respond to those posts covering the readings we didn't write about in our posts.  That kept me honest, so I couldn't just read my share of the readings.  I had to read everything that was assigned, despite the fact that it was tempting to take shortcuts.  :)

Without this class, I wouldn't have seen the video to Brad Paisley's "So Much Cooler Online."  What a cute video!  And so fitting for this class.  (From a twirler's mom's standpoint, the blonde really needed some work on her twirling technique!)

As far as weaknesses in the class, one of my classmates mentioned the grading on the blog posts.  I personally think that the readings are covered by the discussion posts, and it seems a little redundant to address them in the blogs, as well.  However, that's not a big deal, and I quickly learned to add references to the readings to my blog posts!  With that said, I enjoyed all of the blog prompts.  The questions were thought-provoking, and the prompts were timely and covered a lot of aspects of online communication.  

Both textbooks were valuable, with Postman's giving something of a bleak view of online communication, and Wood & Smith presenting a more clinical viewpoint.  I think that our society could definitely use more information on the impact that online communication has on our world today.

I really enjoyed this class, and I would love to take another class like it in the future.  I think the blogs added a lot of value to this class, simply because they were all so different and personalized.  I wish Blackboard would go to a different discussion board format, allowing students to have pictures attached to their posts.  That would make all of our distance classes nicer, because we could "see" our classmates for a change.

It was great communicating with all of you this quarter, and I wish all of you the very best!  :)

Wild Card!!!!

I've had one recent experience with communication on the internet that was made worse because it wasn't face-to-face.

As the oldest of my parents' children, I have been thrust into the role of surrogate parent to my brothers now that both of our parents have died.  Last year, I learned that my dad's maternal grandmother had a trust fund set up for her grandchildren, to be settled after all of Lillie's children passed away.  Unfortunately, the person handling the fund retired, and her successors didn't follow up on the settlement until last month (July).

I received a request from the bank for me to send copies of tax forms from my three brothers and myself to the new person at the bank.  It should have been a simple thing for all of them to do; print out a W-9 form, fill it out, sign it, and send it to me.  To protect my brothers, I made it a point to talk to them about the trust fund directly, just in case there were marital problems that would be made worse by an unexpected monetary windfall.  With my youngest two brothers, there weren't any problems.  I contacted them both, explained the situation, and received the paperwork within a week.   My oldest brother, Jim, who is four years younger than me, was hardest to reach.  His wife acted very angry towards me for not telling her why I needed to talk to my brother, and I had the feeling that she wasn't passing on my messages.  None of my e-mail messages seemed to be reaching him, either.  I finally had my second brother, who works for the same company (but in a different state), page Jim at work to have him call me.  

Jim finally called me, and although I explained to him the necessity of the forms and the reason for my caution about this subject, he seemed angry with me.  Weeks went by, and I finally sent him an e-mail to ask if he had gotten the form mailed yet.  He sent me a nasty reply, to which I simply responded "never mind."  It wasn't worth fighting over, and I was just going to tell the bank that I couldn't reach him.  After all, that was close to the truth, and his reply made me very angry.  I was doing the best I could to take care of his interests; if someone had told my ex-husband that I was about to get a trust fund during the worst of our marital problems, I would have been extremely angry at that person.  I didn't want to do that to any of my brothers, but I guess Jim didn't see it that way.  Jim sent me more negative e-mail messages that day, but I used my Macintosh Mail program's ability to "bounce back" the messages after I read them.  He finally sent me an e-mail to apologize for his "snarky" e-mails, saying that he had gotten less than four hours of sleep that night, and he was unusually tired and grumpy.  

He finally did send the form to me, but I haven't communicated with him since then.

This goes back to Wood & Smith chapter four, which covers the impersonal aspect of online communication.  If I had seen Jim in person (he lives in Portland, I live in Omaha), I would have known that he was extremely tired and irritable, and I wouldn't have taken his nasty comments as personally as I did.  Of course, this also extends to society at large, and how common it is for e-mail messages to be difficult to interpret in the absence of body language and tone of voice.  

I'll let my brother make the next move.

The Generation Gap

Like just about everything else in life, the internet affects different generations in different ways.  The oldest generation, 61+, has witnessed a huge transformation in our society's use of technology, while the youngest generation, 18-35, has grown up with computers.  The generation in between, 36-60, has probably been the driving force behind all of the technology.

For this assignment, I interviewed my aunt, Kris (in her early 60's--I didn't inquire about her exact age), my husband, Steve (age 40), and my oldest son, Alexander (age 21).  I thought about interviewing my second son, Aaron (age 19), for this assignment, but his internet usage has dropped off significantly since he left home and can no longer afford internet service.  He and Alex had similar internet habits before now.

Aunt Kris mostly uses the internet to keep up with her children, her other family members (like me, her half-brother's daughter), and her friends.  She and I keep in touch through e-mail, and she regularly reads my blog.  Other than that, she doesn't do a lot of web-surfing or online shopping.  The internet is not a huge part of her life.

Steve spends most of his day online.  While at work, he switches between two computers, receiving information from both the normal internet and the classified military intranet.  While at home, he enjoys spending time online.  His interests are widely varied, and he loves to find websites about history, aviation, science fiction, music, and hockey.  Steve and his best friends from high school use the internet to keep in touch, swapping e-mails regularly and chatting online when possible.  He is very comfortable being online, and he often buys things online rather than shopping in stores.  Steve absolutely loves eBay, and I would even go so far as to say he's addicted to it.  Anyone with over 1100 feedbacks as a buyer is an addict in my book!  (I tease him about it all of the time.)  The internet has probably contributed to Steve's lack of exercise, because he'd rather be online than work out, but all in all, he views the internet as a positive thing.

Alexander grew up with the internet, and he uses it as much as possible.  In addition to his MySpace page, he likes to chat online with his friends and his girlfriend.  Alex is a junior at the University of Washington this year, and he uses his laptop's wireless connection to go online between classes.  He enjoys "wiki-diving," downloading role-playing materials (Dungeons & Dragons, among others), and general web-surfing.  "Wiki-diving" is his word for all of the time he spends on Wikipedia, going from one entry to another, learning about everything under the sun.  Alex also uses the words, "social lubricant," to describe how being online makes things easier for him to communicate with other people, online and off.

My experience with this assignment agrees with my perception of how the internet is used by different generations.  I fall into the middle generation, and many of my friends use the internet the same way that I do.  My husband's birth father is similar to Aunt Kris, while my sons' peers often use the internet the same way that Alex does.  Obviously, society at large is widely varied, with some senior citizens being more net-savvy than some teenagers.  In general, I think the generations are fairly distinct in their usage of the internet.

According to Wood & Smith, computers and the internet are becoming very common in today's society.  Internet access can be found at coffee shops and fast food restaurants, as well as bookstores and libraries.  Even though Aaron can't afford to have full-time access in his apartment, he can take his laptop to other locations to connect to the internet when he's not working.  This illustrates that even people making minimum wage can find ways to get online, although it does require more of an effort than that needed by those of us with computers and internet access at home.  

When I first became a mother, there were debates about whether or not it's healthy for children to watch television.  Personally, I don't watch a lot of TV.  I enjoy a few series (like Life and Battlestar Galactica), and if there's an interesting show on the History Channel or the Discovery Channel, I'll watch that.  When I'm not actively watching a show, I prefer to have the TV off.  However, a point was made to me, way back when Alex was young, that a certain amount of television knowledge is important to kids.  To use a modern example, my eight-year-old daughter would be ridiculed by her peers if she didn't know about Hannah Montana.  As long as I don't let my children spend their entire day glued to the TV, they will be okay in the long run.  The same sort of thing is happening with the internet today.  My daughter's friends are very much into Webkins, which are stuffed animals that apparently come with a code allowing the kids to recreate their toy online.  Despite the fact that I think it's a waste of her time to do this, I need to be respectful of her desire to find common ground with her friends.  Rhiannon will be getting her first Webkin for her birthday next week, and I will be allowing her to go online, with supervision.

Our society has become very tied to the internet, and although there are differences between how the different generations use the internet, the internet is here to stay.