jour 4551 Lemke

I thought MTV True Life was a really interesting documentary about three girls living a completely different life online. To quote Professor Shayla Thiel Stern in “Instant Identity: Adolescent Girls and the World of Instant Messaging”, on the teenage girls use of technology, its important “to adolescents that they maintain a sense of power in their uses of new media technology” (56). The three girls in the MTV documentary all used new media to empower them whether it be to get over stage fright, body image or social anxiety. I wonder if new technology is making it impossible to get over fears that one is presented with in the real world. Perhaps that new media is used too often as a scapegoat to real life issues that people actual regress more than they would if they didn’t have access to technology. Maybe the answer to these three girls problems is to take away or limit there computer usage, forcing them to participate more in the real world.

The girls in the documentary were Judy—who experiences social anxiety, Amy—who experiences stage freight, and Malarie—who has social anxiety and body image issues. Judy created a site that has pornographic images of herself, some of which the user has to pay her to see. Judy has one close friend in life but rarely hangs out with him in public and around other people she doesn’t know. Judy is convinced to go bowling with him and his friends and completely freaks out. Her social anxiety creates a personality that comes off as very rude. She can’t even bowl without being embarrassed so she just leaves. I felt really bad for her and I feel like she uses the Internet as a scapegoat to avoid going out in public. She gets positive attention online and why would she ever what to try to live in the real world. The real world takes away her power and puts her at risk to negative social experiences.

Amy, a talented musician, experiences stage freight in real life but is a music celebrity on Second Life, the only place she will perform. When she attempts to perform in public her fear gets the best of her and she feels nauseous and panics. I think Amy realizes more than Judy that she can’t keep relying on Second Life if she wants to continue following her dream of being a musician. However, Amy needs friendly support in order to become comfortable in a public sphere. For instance it would be helpful if she performed a concert just for her family, then slowly introduce friends at future performances and then friends of friends.

Malarie also experiences social anxiety as well as body image issues. Her new media scapegoat is IM where she is able to sexually interact with males in a comfortable and safe environment. Malarie is able to control her identity and mold it to make her desirable to the other chatter. She will only show her face or her breasts but nothing else to let on that she is overweight. When Malarie told her friend about her online activities, her friend was very upset and concerned. Unless Malarie gets off the computer and starts meeting guys in real life she won’t improve. She won’t become comfortable. Maybe it would help if she got a hobby or activity that could be done with a group of people. Or, just go out with her girl friends. I mean I know her friends tried to take her out and it was hard for her but they have to keep doing that to get her off the computer.

I was shocked after watching this documentary and felt really bad for the girls. I have experienced a shyness and felt vulnerable in social situations but the more you are forced to interact in social situations the more comfortable you feel. You have to force yourself and feel awkward and afraid before you get comfortable. These girls are addicted to their fake life and identity that only exists online and they will keep using technology as a scapegoat unless they are forced out of it. I know it won’t be easy for them to escape this addiction, it could even be impossible (I have no idea), but if I knew these girls in real life I would be extremely worried and concerned about their reliance on new media. I hope they are able to get help.

Posted by Carol Lemke at 9:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After reading the book, Instant Identity: Adolescent Girls and the World of Instant Messaging, I thought about my IM usage when I was that age (middle school age). My parents never told me the password to sign on to the internet so when I did use the computer, I always had to ask someone to log me in and I usually didn’t have the time or the privacy to talk on IM. However, I was pretty close with my cousin so I would always be at her house and quite often we would go on AIM. We would always use her IM name, which didn’t matter because we never chatted with anyone we knew anyways. We would look for guys in online chat rooms and pretend to be one person. When we didn’t get IMed first we would look for a random name to start up a conversation. The first thing that was asked was always a/s/l (age, sex, location). If it was a guy that was about our age or older we chatted if not we just ignored the person.

The identity my cousin and I made up on line was an older hot chick. All we did was flirt with people we didn’t know. We would just mess with them and I’m not sure why but it was fun. It was fun to experiment with fictional identities. Similar to some of the girls in the book, we would use IM to create a new identity that was attractive, single and desirable to younger males. On the other hand, unlike the girls in the book we didn’t know the people we chatted to or meet up with them, didn’t talk to girls, swore but weren’t hostel towards the other chatter, and only used it to flirt. We didn’t talk about homework or anything that happened that day. The flirting consisted of describing your looks, body and what you were wearing. It was sexually empowering but we never let it become too provocative. The worst that was written was your cup size, which we made huge. Other than that if the guy wanted to ‘cyber’ (IM sex) or meet up we said no and just blocked him.

When I look back at it now, I just think that wow I was too young to be doing that. When I read the book, I was surprised what these young girls were discussing on IM but I guess I did a similar thing. I got sucked in to the idea of creating a new identity that followed the dominant notions of femininity—sexiness and perfection. However, like most technology, I got hooked but then it got old. It was fun while it lasted but now I would never do that. I have no desire to flirt with an unknown guy online and create this stereotypical ideal woman.

Posted by Carol Lemke at 8:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I definitely believe that Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) is a real thing. IAD was brought up in the articles: “Internet Addiction Disorder by Marcia Duran” (AllPsych Journal, 2003) and“Increasingly Wired China, Rehab for Internet Addicts“ (Christian Science Monitor, 2009). Both these articles said that there are very few believers of IAD but for those who do believe, treatment is few and far between. One treatment center was mentioned, which is located in China. From what the reading described, it sounded like some sort of physical boot camp. Another method mentioned was to form a group oriented treatment program (not online) to supplement more comfortable socializing and community that don’t rely on the Internet.

I think that a physical boot camp would be successful because it forces a person to use muscles in their body that a computer ignores (aka using more than your fingers and wrists). Physical exercise releases endorphins, which increase your mood and energy. With positive results such as these, I feel people would rather turn to exercise than go online or at least use the computer less because they won’t want to sit down in one place for so long. I know personally I get antsy from sitting at the computer too long and would rather exercise or at least get up and walk around. However, I’m sure that unless people whom are addicted get an exercise routine or recognize the personal benefits of exercising, they will still rather be on the computer. So if the plan of replacing time on the computer with a more active lifestyle is a treatment option, one would definitely benefit more if there is a support group to motivate them.

Along with the idea of a boot camp, a group oriented treatment program would also provide a way to treat IAD. This, like the boot camp, would expose IAD patients to others that share their common problem. They can interact and share treatment tips with each other. Group members would support one another and on top of that, there would be physician that would be able to guide them through the steps of recovery. A down side is that since IAD is such an unrecognized disorder, there are few hospitals that provide treatment and addict support. This might cause a need to have monitored online treatment to help treat the disorder—which kind of contradicts the (possible) seriousness of IAD. Also, group treatment may be difficult because not everyone uses the Internet for the same purposes.

The article, “Internet Addiction Disorder by Marcia Duran”, discuss Internet addiction and the three stages that occur. At the end of the three stages, addiction will likely disperse.

1. Stage one: obsession, which can lead to addictive behavior. Effects new comers or an existing user that finds a new activity (Dr. Grohol, 2003, par. 20).
2. Stage two, disillusionment. Individual becomes uninterested from using too often. (Dr. Grohol, 2003, par. 20).
3. Stage three, balance. Normalized usage of the Internet. Phases can be repeated if the individual finds another interesting new activity (Dr. Grohol, 2003, par. 20).

I think a majority of Internet users that are addicted to the Internet will consistently loop through these phases. I know I have starting with AOL chat, then Facebook, now StumbleUpon.com. Each time I have found a new Internet activity I spend way too much time on it. However there is a point when I get sick of it. The activity looses its ‘coolness’ and I realize my eyes hurt from staring at the screen for too long and it’s not worth it. However, my roommate on the other hand still spends way too much time on Facebook. The difference between her and me is that I use the computer for work anywhere between 4-10 hours a day and she works with elementary kids. My theory is that since I am forced to use the computer for work, I don’t have as great of a desire to use it for out of work activities. Force of use has taken the fun out of online activities.

Posted by Carol Lemke at 4:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I thought the article; “Is This Man Cheating on His Wife” was extremely interesting and a little creepy. The article basically is about a man who is married in real life, just seven months ago, and who is also married to a woman on Secondlife. The man, Ric Hoogestraat, claims that his Secondlife wife doesn’t affect his real life and shouldn’t threaten his relationship with his real life wife. I think this is absurd because although Secondlife is a virtual world, a person still acts themselves and perhaps maybe more so than they would in real life because of a certain amount of anonymity. Secondlife provides a false consciousness and therefore can be considered more real life than real life depending on the amount of resources a person puts in.

Because the interaction on Secondlife isn’t face-to-face people are more comfortable opening up who they are to other members of the network community. The comfort comes from the amount of anonymity that the site offers. When a person joins, they create a new identity for themselves choosing a virtual name, style and body image. This information doesn’t have to coincide with who they are in real life.

This is just what Ric Hoogestraat did when he created his identity known as the avatar Dutch Hoorenbeek. As Dutch, Ric was able to make himself appear more attractive and young. With his hot new identity, Dutch became a profitable entrepreneur on Secondlife with a net worth of about 1.5million. He owns a mall, private beach club, dance club and strip club. 25 other players are employed by him and paid with the sites currency.

““Here, you’re in total control”, he said”.

Not only did Dutch find success, he found an attractive Secondlife wife named Tenja Jackalope. Why did they marry? Well they connected. Dutch said he could tell her his deepest secrets—or wait, should I say Ric— information that even his real life wife didn’t know. Ric spends many hours a day on Secondlife as Dutch with his Secondlife wife Tenja instead of his own wife. And he claims this isn’t cheating? It may not be physical cheating but emotionally, yes. Instead of confining in his real wife and opening himself up to her, Ric is tuning to Tenja. And I’m sorry, if you are allowed to do almost anything on Secondlife (from making real money to committing a murder) I am sure they have had virtual sex or at least mentioned trying it, seeing as the guy owns a strip club and sells lingerie and bikinis. What is the point of a real wife if you only want to give yourself fully to your Secondlife wife?

Ric is obsessed and addicted to his successful life on Secondlife that he chooses to spend more time looking at a virtual world than living in the real world. Since one can have anything they ever dreamed in Secondlife, why wouldn’t this virtual life be considered more real. It’s real enough to cause problems with real world relationships. It’s real enough to make a person money. And it’s real enough so that a person can escape real world problems.

Posted by Carol Lemke at 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

During class one day, a student said that he had a friend ruin his chance at getting a job because the interviewer made him log into his Facebook page. It sounded like the majority of the images his friend had posted were of him under the influence of alcohol (or possible other drugs?). What probably happened was the interviewer concluded from the images that the friend had a drinking problem and exhibited reckless behavior and relied on drinking in social situations.

The question this presented in lecture was, “Is Facebook a reliable source of information?” and “Is this fair?”

To answer the first question, I don’t believe that Facebook is a reliable source of information” You have limited control of what pictures you are tagged in and the images on Facebook create a biased outlook of how one lives their life. A person is able to upload whatever images they like to Facebook and then tag all of their Facebook friends in the image. However, if a person untaggs themselves from an inappropriate photo, the image still lives on Facebook. You can still look at what album it is in or see it on your friends page. You would have to have your friend personally take it down and sometimes that’s hard to do depending how well you are aquatinted with that person. Facebook also creates a biased outlook on your life because for the most part there is always a camera at social events but rarely a camera in a lecture. Some people may put up images of there family but this is rare to see as well because I know my family members prefer not to have there pictures up all over Facebook. You are left with a lot of late night social engagements that more often than not involve drinking.

I don’t believe that what the interviewer did was fair. I think if a person has put their privacy settings to the max, that’s all the interviewer should see. Yes, people can control to an extent what is on their profile but when you can’t, that is what privacy settings are for. Since Facebook really isn’t a reliable source either, it’s not far that an interviewer get personal access to it and judge a person on what themselves or their friends post. Now if a person doesn’t set their privacy levels to a high enough level then its more fair game to look at someone’s profile and judge. Judge to the extent that maybe they should have taken more precaution and took a little more care on how they want to be perceived.

Posted by Carol Lemke at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I thought the “Cult of the Amateur” by Andrew Keen gave an interesting take on new media technologies. Keen really took a negative viewpoint on new media and was successful at getting people, at least myself, to start thinking about the effects of new technologies. I think he put it as he wanted to “start a conversation”. I was really drawn to Keen’s take on public wikis, in particular Wikipedia. Keen has a negative viewpoint on Wikipedia because he believes that the information on the public wiki can often be biased, incorrect and misleading but since the information is free and easily accessible, Wikipedia will replace encyclopedias that aren’t free but are fact checked.

One example of incorrect information being recorded on Wikipedia, which I either heard in class or it was in the reading…I can’t remember, was that someone had a “premature obituary” on their wiki page. The person’s page said that he/she was dead but in fact the person was still alive. I apologize that I can’t remember the details of the incident but I did find a page about
premature obituaries on yours truly…Wikipedia (haha).

Anyways, I think Keen is correct that experts are more knowledgeable on a topic than a crowd of amateurs. They deserve respect and people should pay to read what experts have put time and resources in to research. However, Wikipedia is so popular because of its convenient free information that it doesn’t seem to matter to most people that the information they are looking up may not be entirely true. Our generation is one that is used to and relies on quick, assessable service and it just so happens that Wikipedia fulfills the need for quick information more so than anything you would have to seek out and pay for. The truth of a Wikipedia entry is found by the crowd of amateurs and the more popular viewpoint tends to win rather than simply reporting the truth creating an often biased entry.

I do admit, I use Wikipedia to look up quick information but the information I look up is more of a starting point in research so I can decide on a direction. I can get access to general information about a topic and then from there, branch out to more reliable sources. So I don’t believe Wikipedia is entirely horrible like Keen but I do agree it isn’t quality information and therefore an unreliable source.

Posted by Carol Lemke at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)