Proof of Learning Week 2

This week of class was all about online dating sites and how people interact with in these communities. Dating Sites, which have been in the mainstream for a while now, are something that I haven’t really thought about a lot, but it was interesting to analyze them and learn more about why humans feel the need for these sites.  The discussions in the class were very eye opening and hearing every one’s opinions and thoughts about online dating helped me understand why people go to these sites to find someone to have a romantic relationship with. It wasn’t so much the information we talked about that I cared about learning but it was the broad relationship to human interaction and how I should use the way we learned about this subject and apply it to other things that I have a view on.

I think what I learned most about this week was taking a subject that you don’t know a lot about and by discussing it and thinking critically (asking those ‘Why do we need this’ questions) your views of a subject can change from your initial reactions. I had one view of online dating but once thinking more about it and understanding it I changed my views. This whole class has been doing that to me a lot and has taught me to really give subjects a second look and take a little more time to understand things before thinking of your stance on the subject.  After realizing that once you learn about something and understand it you can have a more open mind comments like Ryan Wriggly’s started to bother me. He said “The leaders with these online dating companies do a fantastic job of marketing their products. People are suckers and will usually buy into something if people appear passionate or supportive. This article serves as the support to a certain degree.” Makes me a little frustrated because he doesn’t seem to understand the point of these discussions is to rethink things where we think our minds are made up.

I have no preference whether or not someone wants to date online, it is their decision, and I did not find our classmates debate on whether or not online dating is good very informative. But, what I connected with in general is how people have taken something so broad like the Internet and used it to develop subcultures on VC’s as well as dating sites such as eHarmony. The article on Wednesday really helped me come to understand this broader concept when it talked about the difference between VC’s and DS’s, and the different users that go along with these sites.  This classes subject have really become a study on human interaction in general and since humans are such social people and we desire the need to feel loved and accepted it is very interesting that we have developed all different and new ways of accomplishing these connections over the internet. What got me thinking about this was Anthony Martini’s comment, “This kind of innate human tendency to distort information (both provided and received) highlights the need to appropriately gauge the role of online dating as one that provides the initial steps of the relationship -- bringing two people together -- and is not a substitute for personal interaction and development of the relationship offline” was the main comment that got me thinking about why sites like eHarmony even exist. It is so interesting to me to study human interaction and even adaption. (adapting to how to communicate on the internet) We have this need to be loved and understood and that is why these communities have come about on the internet so people who need to be accepted that are seeking some love, can find it over the web.

So on the topic, I am pro dating sites and think they are a good resource to use to meet new people and to take a relationship from online to personal. I think they let people meet new faces that they would not meet in person. I am slowly learning how to develop my thoughts and put them into writing in the discussion and have started to be more critical of my fellow classmates posts, I don’t want to just agree with what they are saying but I want to read and understand and then develop my own thoughts on the subject we are studying. I also liked the comparison between the different generations again with the use of technology but also how they view the world in general and I think this type of topic would be very interesting to use in my research for the final project.

Week One Proof of Learning Report

This week was at first a confusing week, but as the week went on I started to be very interested in the class discussions. Jumping into an online class is always confusing at first because of the lack of face-to-face communication. Ironically this is what most of our class discussions were about this week. Talking about social online communities, the class discussed the advantages and disadvantages of having online relationships vs. having personal / physical relationships. The most informative part of the week was the first day of class. Watching those videos and learning about all the amazing types of technology that are out there was eye opening and it really got me thinking about the huge part technology plays in our everyday lives, in everything we do.  In the first PBS video the use of magic to help discover how the brain functions was very interesting and something I had never thought about before. Using illusions to stimulate different parts of the brain was an amazing discovery and this could help in future research on the brain, which would be positive to the medical industry.

The reading about Reputation Management was also something that impacted me during the week. I am one to keep close tabs on my Facebook and because of this it was interesting to learn about the different dynamics that older vs. younger generations have on their security of their Facebooks’.

Before watching the PBS video, I had little to know knowledge of how people were learning about the brain. I knew that this piece of tissue was a powerful organ but I had no idea just how powerful. When the doctors decide to work with magicians to study attention and awareness of the brain I was skeptical about scientificness of using magic, but once I watched I realized that it is not about the magic itself but it is about our perceptions of the tricks that the doctors were studying. This helped me realize that you can take one thing that seems to be fun, and by studying human interaction with it you can learn about people itself. This concept can be brought into any aspect of human life, such as technology. How we interact with this technology as humans can teach people about human nature in itself and that to me is very eye opening.

In the class discussions about Reputation Management I learned that many different people have different opinions on who should be allowed to monitor your reputation. This can be seen when we were talking about if companies had the right to tell you how to run your Facebook. To me, I think that companies have no right to control your personal life but many other students had a different idea of how they would like companies to control their social networking online. Sara Ownes opinion was very different from mine when she stated, “I actually disagree. If you are making this information public for anyone to see, then I believe it is reasonable for employers to be concerned with what you are making public.” So it can be seen that on some topics we have different opinions but, most of us did agree with the subject of the article.  The article stated that, “When compared with older users, young adults are more likely to restrict what they share and whom they share it with.” Since the majority of the people in this class are from one generation (the younger one) I think it was easier for all of us to agree on this subject. The article also talks about “Young adults are the most active online reputation managers in several dimensions. When compared with older users, they more often customize what they share and whom they share it with.” Again, all most of the students said that they agreed that instead of just not putting up typical “college photos” they change their settings so certain people cannot see it. I also do this, but didn’t really know why until I analyzed it in this class. I hide my photos from certain people because I want to share my life with my friends, but I also want to create a professional facade in front of my boss or my parents.

I am excited for the next 3 weeks of this class. The subjects we have talked about this week are interesting and they really are something we should be talking about as college students because online communities affect us everyday and in the “real world” after we graduate we should understand how to navigate them successfully. I also scarred to start my research project that is coming up and have a lot of open-ended questions about the specifics of it. I think at a later date in class this will be talked about and I think I am going to enjoy putting the concepts we have learned this first week, and continue to learn into practice for the research project and for life.