Creativity and New Media

New media has allowed me to be creative in ways that I normally would not be able to.

One of my hobbies is art. Before new media, all of my art was traditional - paper and pencil, etc. However, with new media, there's a variety of "new" ways that art can be drawn.

With a tablet, I can "draw" digitally, just as I would on paper with a pencil. It's incredibly intuitive, and there are many art-editing programs that I can utilize. There are essentially none of the limitations of traditional art. Mistakes can be undone instantly, and we have limitless types of brushes and styles we can utilize. We have so many options to take advantage of.

After I draw something, I typically upload it to deviantart.com, which is a site dedicated to sharing any kind of art creations, whether they're poems, or art etc, and to Facebook, in an album, more for myself to keep track of what I've done (like a portfolio), and for my friends to see and comment on, if they're interested.

Facebook album

Done digitally

Creativity

With new media, our ability to create and share user-generated content has increased drastically. We are able to share stories, art, music, for all the world to see. There are numerous platforms dedicated to the creation and sharing of UGC (user-generated content).

For example, in the musical world - before the introduction of video sharing sites such as YouTube, aspiring musicians did not have a platform to show off their skills. Now, there are many musicians that have become Internet-famous, and are able to make a successful living off creating music and sharing it on Youtube. Many have even gone on to sign labels and tour around the world, and have huge followings on Youtube and social media.

In addition, the distribution of music has changed. Digital is the new medium, and it is quick, cost-effective, and convenient. Recording music has gotten quite simpler - all you need is a mic, and a computer. Like Mark Vidler said, "You don't need a distributor, because your distribution is the Internet. You don’t need a record label, because it’s your bedroom, and you don’t need a recording studio, because that’s your computer. You do it all yourself." (Frere-Jones, 2005)

Essentially, while previous aspiring musicians may have needed large amounts of money to record and distribute their music, the arrival of new media has effectively cut the cost dramatically. There are an incredibly large amount of music existing in the digital world, created by users and shared globally.

Frere-Jones, Sasha. "1 + 1 + 1 = 1 - The New Math of Mashups." The New Yorker. The New Yorker, 10 Jan. 2005. Web. 30 Mar. 2015. <http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/01/10/1-1-1-1>.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds have slowly made their way into our lives, and with new technology, virtual worlds are poised to rise even higher in popularity.

Back then, the most famous virtual "world" was probably the game "Second Life", which allowed users to create avatars and dive into a customizable world.

However, virtual worlds have evolved in many ways and there are many uses that have been experimented with, and even more that haven't yet been developed.

The first aspect of virtual worlds is connectivity - it allows users from all over the world to connect and interact in a digital environment. This is an incredible thing, especially when it comes to learning and, surprisingly, children. Before virtual worlds were a thing, kids would play and learn with other kids on their block (Mehta, 2013). However, with the advent of these virtual worlds, kids can, and have been taking full advantage - they can connect, interact, learn, and most importantly, foster curiosity and explore. For example, it's not unlikely that not too far down the line kids can take a journey to Antarctica, the Amazon, any number of areas through virtual reality, and see and interact, and learn. This definitely beats reading a book.

Virtual worlds can also help with a number of social and developmental issues. For example, David Savill, whom has Asperger's Syndrome, created a virtual world he calls "Naughty Auties", where it is meant both as an information center and a relaxing environment, with the intention of coaxing users out of their "comfort zone" and get them to interact with others. This is therapeutic in a way, as the user is at home, in their own space, but they have the option to give it a try, in a virtual setting. It is well known that many with autism suffer from poor social skills - so this can give them a better chance of overcoming that issue. (Saidi, 2008)

However, virtual worlds are not always a good thing. There are various issues that can crop up with it. For example, since virtual worlds are online, anonymity comes along with it, and that can present dangerous situations. For example, for a game meant for kids it can be hard to verify user's age, and there is the ever present danger of online predatory activity.

In addition, cyberbullying has always been an issue, and can be traumatic, especially in a virtual world. Imagine a child that is bullied in real life uses virtual worlds as his escape - only to be bullied in the digital space as well.

Lastly, there is the danger of addiction. Online gaming addiction is a very real thing, and I believe virtual worlds may contribute to it. The more life-like and real it gets, the harder it may be for a user to break away from a virtual world. I can easily see health issues arise as a result, and maybe even mental issues.

Overall, virtual worlds can promote creativity to new levels. The ability to create, control, and modify a digital space to your liking, and promote connectivity can offer unparalleled communication. There are so many uses for it, and with VR technology improving vastly, with headsets like the Oculus Rift in development, I think virtual worlds will someday be a vital part of our lives.

Mehta, Diane. "After Second Life, Can Virtual Worlds Get a Reboot?" Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 30 Apr. 2013. Web. 23 Mar. 2015. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/dianemehta/2013/04/30/after-second-life-can-virtual-worlds-get-a-reboot/>.

Saidi, Nicole. "IReport: 'Naughty Auties' Battle Autism with Virtual Interaction." CNN. Cable News Network, 28 Mar. 2008. Web. 23 Mar. 2015. <http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/03/28/sl.autism.irpt/index.html#cnnSTCText>.

BLOG: SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

Comparison of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr.

Facebook is fairly well designed in my opinion. They've made several changes throughout the years so it does take time to adjust to it, but most of the content is displayed in an easy to understand manner.

There's the profile picture, cover photo (which takes up about 25% of the profile's page). There's a huge wealth of options where you can find information such as age, email, education, etc. You can also browse friends of the user. Posts are displayed in the middle, and aren't terribly hard to understand. There's no hard-cap on character limits.

Overall, there's lots to do on Facebook and it's core functionality works great. There are a ton of options that users can check out to customize their page to their liking, such as privacy and other information. Unfortunately there aren't any themes or design choices that we can change.

Twitter is much much simpler than Facebook and Tumblr. All you really need to know for Twitter is 1) tweeting, 2) replying, 3) retweeting/favoriting, 4) hashtags, and 5) following other users. None of these are difficult to understand and it's probably the easiest social network to get started in. User options are not as complex as Facebook, which is understandable.

Instagram is pretty much the photo-only barebones version of Facebook. I have the least experience with using Instagram, but from the short time I used it, it's fairly simple to put content onto it, and most of the features are self-explanatory. Overall it looks clean, and is intuitive to navigate and use.

Lastly, Tumblr is a more complex site than the above three. There's a ton of uses for Tumblr, and it can sometimes be a bit difficult to find what I want, and how to do it. You can blog on Tumblr, you can post pictures, and popularity of a post or picture is stated in how many notes it has, which is basically how many users liked/reblogged it. This is probably the least intuitive platform for me, but I can see the appeal. There's many communities of users here, from artists, to writers and bloggers etc.

Blog about Twitter

Twitter as a communication tool sets it apart from other conventional and more traditional ways of communicating.

For example, Twitter is unique in the way users can communicate with each other. Given only 140 characters, the user needs to be concise and to the point, so they can't go into heavy detail. This is different than Blackboard, which has no character limit and you can basically respond for as long as you'd like (although that's probably not a good idea.)

Twitter's advantage is that it forces users to consider what exactly they're writing, and it allows other users to favorite, reply, or retweet it for more visibility. Furthermore, with the # functionality, it allows for a larger degree of organization and the ability to sort posts by tags, which you can't do in Blackboard discussions.

Also, the Twitter interface is very easy to access and use, and you can follow classmates as well, whereas Blackboard's discussion interface can be confusing to navigate and even harder to use properly.

Twitter compared to an in-class discussion is slightly more similar and both are easier to manage than Blackboard. For example, in an in-class discussion, students can respond directly to each other and have a conversation. We can do this in Twitter as well, and other users can chime in their thoughts just the same, the only difference being the platform the discussion is held.

I'd say that Twitter is more similar to an in-class discussion than it is with Blackboard, which is more of a traditional forum type of platform.

Social Networking

Social networking is relatively new for many of us - but it has exploded into an all-important sphere of social information in most of our lives.

For many of us, the use of social networks via the internet has become second nature. We use it in the morning, during lunch, at work, and before we sleep - and we can't seem to get enough.

Social networks on paper are a great idea, as there are many different uses for one. It brings an unparalleled amount of connectivity, allowing people from all over the world to connect and interact.

It allows information, whether social or not to transfer almost instantaneously, and with the viral nature of social networks, we can see why social networking has taken the internet by storm.

In general, people use social networks for personal use. They connect on it, add friends, interact with lost friends, make new friends etc. It becomes a secondary source for them to discover up-to-date information and news about their friends in ways that would have been impossible without social networking. To that end, users can often find more information than they might have expected. Things such as location, emails, phone numbers, birthdays, all of that can be easily found if the user filled out their profile.

Furthermore, many companies have now taken advantage of social networks and it is almost mandatory for any new company hoping to gain customers to have a presence on these social networks. Corporations have it in their best interest to foster a good  relationship with their fans and consumers, and social networking is the definitive answer in doing that. By providing a direct line of contact to their consumers, social networking can become the two-way street needed for open, honest communication that haven't been present in most corporations and company priorities for some time.

However, with all this newfound connectivity, it also presents many issues. The first is that of privacy, and invasion of privacy. As we know, the internet is a great thing, and can be a great source of information - when used correctly. When used incorrectly, privacy can be hard to manage. For example: in 2012, one of the Zuckerberg family, Randi, posted a picture to her Facebook (and it was meant to be private, only viewable by friends). However, another user obtained the photo, and posted it to Twitter. We find out that while Randi specifically set the privacy settings to "friends only", the user unknowingly circumvented that because she was friends with another of the Zuckerberg family, which by association, meant "friends of friends only" were the same as "friends only". (Greenfield, 2012)

Issues like this crop up very so often, and while this particular issue was fixed quickly, there are other more serious issues with social networks.

In another example, scammers often target social networks and can be quite successful in doing so, running off with personal information (such as credit cards, SSIs, etc), and installing malware and other malicious tools on a user's computer.

Most of the time, these scams are pulled off by impersonating a person (using personal info available on their page) on social networks, and sending links to the person's friends. These links typically lead to phishing sites, where unsuspecting users can download malware or enter personal information that is promptly sent to the scammer. (Patterson, 2013)

As with all "good" technology, there are typically people that attempt to take advantage of it. These are a small portion of the "dark side" of social networks.

Greenfield, Rebecca. "Facebook Privacy Is So Confusing Even the Zuckerberg Family Photo Isn't Private." The Wire. The Wire, 26 Dec. 2012. Web. 06 Mar. 2015. <http://www.thewire.com/technology/2012/12/facebook-privacy-so-confusing-even-zuckerberg-family-photo-isnt-private/60313/>.

Patterson, Emily. "New Wave of Phishing Scams Uses Facebook Info for Personalized Spam." BBB Consumer News and Opinion Blog. BBB, 25 Jan. 2013. Web. 09 Mar. 2015. <http://www.bbb.org/blog/2013/01/new-wave-of-phishing-scams-uses-facebook-info-for-personalized-spam/>.

BLOG V WIKI

Blogs in general are typically more personal and opinion-based - many use blogs to relay their thoughts and feelings, as well as topics of particular interest to them. Some use it to showcase their stories, art, and there are specialized "blogs" that exist as well (foodies, games, etc). After a blog post, on the bottom are usually comment spaces for readers to comment on the blog, give feedback, offer advice etc. For example, the opinionated nature of such blogs were shown when an anonymous blogger blasted a model and gave her the "Skankiest in NYC" award, along with a host of derogatory comments. The model filed a defamation suit and won it, gaining access to the email and name of the anonymous blogger. (Dowd, 2009) However, that is not to say that bloggers can't be informational as well. There are many blogs that serve to inform, rather than offer opinions, and there are opportunities for collaboration as well. Some blogs are managed by multiple people and each can write and post blogs of their own.

Whereas a wiki is generally more of an factual information platform, and aren't based on blog posts but rather pages that are uniquely named. Wikis in general are more collaborative, in that more than one user can enter and edit the information found on the site. This is different from blogging (which is more personal) in that more than one person can collaborate on a page. Furthermore, there isn't a comment option on the page itself, and while it is possible to start a discussion it is more so like a forum than a blog comment. For example, there are many uses for wikis in business, schools, and an assortment of other subjects. For businesses, it can some times be a great idea to enter information and knowledge into a wiki as a collective pool of company practices etc, which may prove to be a great help for any employee. According to an article by CIO, the author states "By making it easier to gather and share information as well as record discussions about a subject, wikis (familiar as the software behind online encyclopedia Wikipedia) can help people improve their processes and get projects done faster." (Locher, 2008)

The convergence of media communication technologies have really ushered in a new era of connectivity and communication. Blogs hold immense influence on its readers, especially for topics such as shopping and technology. For example, readers now have a chance to research and find information for themselves when deciding on a purchase or investment, which was not so common before the "convergence". Furthermore, wikis hold so much valuable information that is easily dispensable to any with an internet connection, and this knowledge can easily be found to any curious internet users.

As for new uses for wikis, there is one in particular that I think would be useful - an archive of videos and other media (and I don't necessarily mean every video ever on YouTube etc, but more so videos of historical or other kind of importance. It is important to preserve such information)


Dowd, Maureen. "Stung by the Perfect Sting." The New York Times. 25th August 2009. Web. Accessed 2nd March 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/opinion/26dowd.html?_r=0

Locher, Margaret. "More on How to Build Your Own Wikipedia" CIO. 17th April 2008. Web. Accessed 2nd March 2015.
http://www.cio.com/article/2436789/time-management-productivity/more-on-how-to-build-your-own-wikipedia.html