Second Life

I was originally under the impression that Second Life was for very strange people who were unsatisfied with their lives. (It is not my intention to offend any of you Second Life users out there, so please don't give me the death glare when you see me on campus) but this article has shown me that there are other uses for it. The reason I found it to be so strange at first is based off a conversation I recently had with a coworker's sister. My colleague and I were heading out for a night in NYC. I asked her sister if she wanted to come along. She politely declined, saying she had plans to meet someone at a bar. She then logged into Second Life. Low and behold, there was the bar, and there was her gentleman friend waiting. Hmmm...

This article makes an interesting suggestion that Second Life can help teach life lessons. For example, Second Life has been used to help abused children learn social skills, relationship skills, team building, collaboration, etc. Other groups use Second Life to assist them with real world challenges without being judged. Second Life promoted unbiased interaction and many people appear to be using it for legitimately serious reasons.

How Obama Did It

The 2008 election has made history. Not only is President Obama our first black president, but 2008 marked the year of cyber campaigning. People across the nation logged online to see the candidates talk on YouTube, signed into Facebook and MySpace to join groups with fellow supporters, and Tweeted endlessly on Twitter with updates from the candidates (primarily Obama- McCain after all, does not use e-mail) Obama is part of the younger crowd who brought up the whole blackberry issue (who wouldn't want their blackberry taken away?) and claimed that McCain wasn't in touch with the new generation of Americans.

Obama took the election to a whole new level with the establishment of his website (MyBO) and created a database of contacts, support, donations, funding, outreach, and research. Obama took advantage of social networking technology and succeeded in reaching a whole diverse group of people across America (and throughout the world) to turn his campaign into a success. (It should be noted that Karl Rove went into America's churches during the Bush campaign- just sayin'...) Obama stepped it up a notch and dove into the world wide web, which is where the majority of us keep in touch and catch up on the news. MyBO was such a success because it allowed everyday ordinary people, to upload their personal contacts, and lead mini-campaigns of their own to get the word out to family, friends, and best of all, complete strangers.

Growing Up Online

PBS's Frontline: Growing Up Online discusses the issue of social networking and it's effect on today's youth. There is no doubt that today's youth is living the majority of their life on the internet. The internet is no longer just a helpful resource tool, it is an addiction. It is an addiction that the majority of the students on campus have fallen victim to, and I would be a hypocrite to say I haven't been sucked into the cyber world as well. In fact, the irony of this assignment is that we have to not only watch this documentary on the web, but must also read How Obama Did It and the segment about virtual communities. In the past hour and half that I have been working on this assignment, I've also intermittently checked my Facebook, instant messaged back and forth with a few friends, and e-mailed my mother. I can now also say that I am the newest member of the so-called "blogosphere" where my peers and I will pretend to be interested in what one another has to say on social networking. (Although a select few might take a genuine interest, in fact, Frontline makes a better documentary than anticipated)

While I can relate to this documentary in many ways, it also raised some alarming red flags. As a member of Facebook, I'm well aware that people can keep in touch with friends and keep others informed of what's occurring in every day life, but more and more people seem to be taking social networking to a new and scary level. When teens begin to change who they are, experiment with new personas, and live solely in a cyber world, it becomes NOT okay. The internet is also home to sexual predators, pedophiles, stalkers, and as it turns out, "cyberbullies". The fact is that teens go online and create space that is entirely "their own", free from the restraints of parental supervision and put themselves up for the world to see. More often than not, teenage girls are scantily dressed and use it as a form of rebellion against their parents who sadly, often have no idea what their children are doing online. One girl said it best, "If I was a parent and saw my children doing this online, I would probably cry."

In the case of Jessica, she took on a whole new persona to make herself feel beautiful when she was socially rejected by her peers in the real world. One girl, a teen with anorexia uses the internet to find support groups for her eating disorder. Let me clarify- these are no support groups that encourage anorexics to get healthy, but rather encourage it (Thin is Beautiful). Lastly, cyberbullying was disturbing to watch because it has in many cases led to suicide. The worst aspect of all three of these issues is the fact that parents are so out of touch and unaware with what goes on in their children's lives, because they are hardly living in the real world. They are living their lives in private on the internet, and it raised no flags that Jessica spent 24 hours a day in her room, or that this girl doesn't eat, and lastly, that Ryan Patrick Halligan was chatting with strangers about the best way to kill himself.

Now that I've gone off on a tangent, it is important to keep in check that when this documentary was made, there were 160 million members on Facebook and MySpace combined. (This was in 2008) In one year, this number has most likely multiplied, and will in fact keep growing. The internet is an ever growing addiction, that has not only sucked our generation into, but is now claiming our parents, grandparents, younger brothers and sisters, teachers, colleagues, etc.