Creativity and New Media

Have you ever wondered if Instagram is considered New Media as well? Well it is! This app is not just used to alter pictures and make photos look more aesthetically pleasing. It is also a great way to be creative and experiment with different elements of what some people call "iphoneography". Many people use this as a way to share photos with their family members who sometimes are far away from each other. This creative method is fun and allows people to see potential situations as art! 

I created a collage of some of my favorite Instgram photos I have taken

-I work on Wall Street

-I am obsessed with clouds and sunset so I was in LOVE with the image i took on the upper right

-My sister and my brother 

-Thats me!

-With my younger cousins

-Avicii @ Radio City Music Hall- one of the best concerts i have ever been !

-My brother

- The view of the city from a cruise around the city 

Creativity

Is there anything more amusing than watching Winnie the Pooh dancing to "Crank that Soulja Boy"? I think not!

As vast as the world of New Media has grown to become, there is never a limit to how creative one can be using these outlets. First off, it is much easier to express one's thoughts out to a wider range of public.

A great example of this viral exposure is Mash up Youtube videos. Users mash up different soundtracks to Disney movies to create one entertaining video. Crank That Soulja Boy was an example of one these soundtracks. As “Crank That” climbed the music charts over the summer — the song hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 this month — the videos started gaining in popularity and users edited together versions using characters owned by other big media companies. A version using clips taken from Nickelodeon’s “SpongeBob SquarePants” has been viewed more than seven million times" (Barnes). 

Additionally, all the resources and information is at our fingertips. Any idea that is sparked in our heads can be backed up by the vast information found in twitter posts, tumblr dashboards, Facebook newsfeed, and RSS feed.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

When I hear of "Virtual Worlds" I think of The Sims. You are able to construct your own reality, but inside a computer screen. I think it is a pretty decent way to explore creativity and essentially create your own utopistic society. 

Pros:

Connections 

Facilitate creativity

Endless opportunities

Cons:

not reality

no substitute for the real world

time consuming

misleading- and raises expectations. Unrealistic

These virtual worlds can be used to foster collaborative work. For example, it can be a mock graphic wiki page. Every user can contribute to this virtual world and create their space being whoever they want to be. For example, "virtual community Second Life is seeking to tap into that market by creating a new tool that allows businesses to have virtual meetings on their own computer networks" (Tutton). 

The virtual world provides borderless creativity within the online platform. Users are not bound my physical constraints (like needing to access physical information) due to the unlimited content available online.

Being unlimited ultimately leads to grander outcomes and stronger platforms
For example Ruth La Ferla, a journalist for New York TImes explains, "That little corner is expanding, suggested Tom Hale, the chief product officer for Second Life. Mr. Hale said that roughly 250,000 items are created daily by residents using a built-in modeling tool or outside graphics program to construct 3-D objects to sell in the virtual marketplace"(La Ferla).

However, one of the constraints of Virtual Worlds is that this increased ability for creativity might expand expectations so much that ultimately, reality might become displeasing.

People spend a large amount of time on these Virtual worlds and ignore the outside world because of this.

We must question what is the benefit of us investing our time on this outlet.

I believe that there will be a presence of Virtual Worlds in our future because so many people are dissatisfied with their current living situations. These outlets will allow them to express themselves and live virtually any life they wish to have.

Therefore, even though Virtual Worlds will flourish in the future, I cannot say that these will benefit people to be successful and flourish in the real world. 

Blog about Twitter

Question: How does a Twitter discussion compare to a BlackBoard Discussion? To an in-class discussion?

When I log onto twitter, I feel like the environment is much more different in facilitating a conversation. There is a limit to the amount we can type in our tweets, so it shapes how much we can express ourselves and our ideas. Also, on Twitter, hashtags are utilized to connect with other people that are interested in a similar topic. Blackboard discussions are different in that they are more structured in the way people post and respond to each other. 

I prefer class discussions over Blackboard and Twitter because the thoughts and emotions are real. We are not shielded by a computer screen and therefore, people might not want to share their thoughts. This may sound like a bad thing, but really I think the emotions that come out during a face-to-face discussion can enhance one's thoughts and want them to speak out even more. 

Through the internet, we cannot express ourselves like we can in person. Ultimately, i prefer human interaction and i flourish in conversations that allow me to display emotion and passion for that subject. 

Social Networking Sites

Myspace

As a child, I remember Myspace to be very basic. A basic color scheme, with space for improvement if you were familiar with HTML coding. The website was for interacting with friends, sharing pictures, and posting fun little surveys for lack of anything better to do at that age. But Myspace has really transformed as a website, and perhaps because of their great loss of popularity. Musicians now use to to debut their music and hope to increase their international fan base. Random up and coming Musicians would request to be my friend and let me know about their music. There was not much room for posting on "Walls" or having lengthy conversations like that of the Facebook website.

Facebook

A great website for networking with people I have met way back in Elementary school and now throughout college, Facebook has proven to really revolutionize the idea of maintaining relationships. We can create photo albums, tag friends in albums, post comments on walls and use instant messaging all on one outlet. Privacy becomes a big issue with this website. There is so much information available to us now; locations of our friends, the pictures other people have "liked". Many people do not want to be shown or do not want to even see that information about others on their timelines. So I heavily use the privacy settings to limit my information distribution and disable viewing other people's information that i have no use for as well.

Twitter

I really love Twitter. I love being able to express my opinions any time i please. This is something that is not really recognized on Facebook. If you post too much on FB, you are just blocked or unsubscribed from. But on Twitter, your posts can be endless (until Twitter jail comes in place of course). You can choose who to follow and what information you want on your timeline. It is a great and quick way to receive different news from everywhere. Lastly, you can utilize the privatization of your tweets, and control who receives the information you are putting out, keeping you in control.

Tumblr

This Social Network is really great for art, displaying, sharing, and creating. You basically follow a number of people and reblog or blog photos, music, text, or anything of that nature. I love that it brings out the creative side of people and its really simple to find people with similar likes as yourself. There is an issue of "stealing"art and claiming it as his or her own on Tumblr. But other than that hinderance, many people start out their art or fashion blogs through tumblr.

Social Networking

Over a very short period of time, Social networks underwent huge transformations, aesthetically and in their purposes to society. Lets take Facebook for example. What was created for College students to reconnect with each other, is now used to post pictures, track life events on timelines, and acts as online classrooms for teachers to post assignments and facilitate discussions between students.

However, Corporate Companies have managed to take this restructuring, and generate public opinions much quicker in order to improve their business practices offered to consumers. Chuck Hamilton,
New Media and Learning Leader for IBM’s 3D Internet Division talks more on how Social Networks allow IBM to reach all of their consumers. He says, "Social networks allow businesses to collaborate with all kinds of people, with diverse backgrounds and different levels of expertise, from locations all over the world. As we rapidly shift to a Global economy, businesses adapt to providing services to different cultures of consumers and different product needs. Thus, integration of Social networks allow this feedback from all over the world to be funneled onto one website.

Many people use Social networks to make up for their lack of Social life. Whether they are unpopular amongst the people surrounding them, or their are denounced "weird" based on societies standards, these networks are used to find commonalities between people and are bases for friendships. A parent notes in a New York Times article that, "Facebook has for the most part been beneficial to my sons,” Mr. Wilson said. “For Evan, the No. 1 reason is it’s helping him come out of his shell and develop social skills that he wasn’t learning because he’s so shy. I couldn’t just push him out of the house and say ‘Find someone"'. Thus, many are able to express themselves through writing better than they can through face to face conversations.


Nonetheless, everything that is not used in moderation can have a dark side. As we see, Social Networks have led to cyber bullying, suicides, and possible risk of incredible censorship in the future. Sometimes, when people give their opinions to an open network of billions of individuals, feelings are hurt and of course, disagreements occur. This ultimately leads to horrors to sensitive people and poses as an advantage to those that resort to bullying for attention.

I feel that in the future, Social Networks will greatly puncture the basis of real friendships and relationships. Married couples are divorcing over Facebook controversies and most no longer have to talk about their days because they tweet throughout the day anyway! I think this really is hurting our society. If we dont get up and off the internet, we will miss everything that is changing around us. Ignorance is not bliss. There should be a limit of sitting in front of the computer screen or looking at our phones. Moderation is key.