Ning

At first I found Ning to be very confusing. After working with it for a few weeks, I feel like I am finally starting to get the hang of it. I think I will actually continue to use Ning at least a little. I am signed up as part of a "pet rats" group form Indiana, and I've found myself visiting that page in my free time. I think after finals are over I'll create my own Ning group for pet rats in Rhode Island. Ning might be a more effective way for me to share that passion than my blog, which hasn't really "taken off" like I wanted.

Post SNS

At first I was really apprehensive about this group project. I've never been one to like working in groups, and I've always had bad experiences. After a rough start though, this one turned out alright. I think everyone pretty much did their part and the setup of the project made that much easier than most group projects. This was a very well designed project and it helped me to see that working in a group isn't always a bad thing.

Comparing

According to Bennett, "digital natives largely do not participate in civic affairs out of a sense of duty or obligation but a sense of personal fulfillment." Bennett claims that society has changed dramatically from dutiful citizens to self-actualizing citizens. Therefore, the way of reaching these citizens must be different. "Schools should help students to develop their own public voices by using various digital media, allowing students to find their own means of engaging with and learning about issues, and forming peer-learning communities." If society no longer treats these new self-actualizing citizens "as if they are their grandparents" then society can break new grounds in getting this generation to become active citizens. Bennet thinks that if the mode of communication among citizens and their sense of duty has changed, then society must accept and work with that. There are still ways to get this generation to be active citizens even though there has been a "civi identity shift." "Schools should help students to develop their own public voices by using various digital media, allowing students to find their own means of engaging with and learning about issues, and forming peer-learning communities." Bennett thinks that we need to create or identify existing, informal learning environments within which this new generation can learn civic skills and practice citizenship.

Boyd's ideas are extremely opposite those of Bennett. Boyd claims that "typical SNS participants are more invested in adding glitter to pages and SuperPoking their “friends” than engaging in any form of civic-minded collective action." Boyd says that the scope of scale is what attracts "dreamers" like Bennett to the idea of using the internet for political action. However, people will only pay attention to what interests them, and so "gossiping is far more common and interesting to people than voting." Boyd thinks that SNSs have been the downfall of true networking- chats and bulletin boards used by strangers to connect about certain topics, which has been replaced by networks of "my and my friends" and created "cavernous echo chambers." "Rather than fantasizing about how social network sites will be a cultural and democratic panacea, perhaps we need to focus on the causes of alienation and disillusionment that stop people from partici- pating in communal and civic life."

These two articles stand in stark contrast to one another. In my opinion, Boyd is afraid of change and stuck in his ways. Society has changed, and it would be much more productive to accept that change than to try and stop or reverse it. I feel that Boyd is the kind of person Bennett addresses who is treating the new generation like they are their grandparents. Bennett has some revolutionary ideas, and Boyd simply refuses to acknowledge the fact that changing with society could accomplish the goals he so strongly desires.

Ning

I've signed up for Ning, and I'm trying to get myself oriented. Right now the site feels very foreign and hard to use. I'm not sure what it is exactly either. "Online platform for people to create their own social networks" is a bit confusing. According to Wikipedia, its for people who create their own social networks around specific interests with their own design, features and member data. I figured the best way for me to explore the site would be to find something that I am interested in, and so I joined a group called "Pet Rats Indiana" and started poking around. Apparently I have my own page within this group... so I'm thinking that "Pet Rats Indiana" is like Facebook and I'm creating my own profile... but I don't really understand what happens to Ning and where they come in. I think I'll have to find someone who uses it and have them explain it to me, because it's pretty confusing right now.

5 Issues/Causes

1. Zimbabwae /Elias Fund – I already have a website from years ago about this cause.
2. Ending the sale of live feeder animals at corporate stores (PetCo)
3. Recycling
4. The Orange Sticker (unconstitutional)
5.

SNS response

The first thing that I noticed about this article is how it says that people have integrated social networking sites into their "daily practices." I find this interesting because it is not something that I usually think about, but it is definitely true. Before the emergence of social networking sites, or SNSs, there wasn't anything really comparable in our daily routines. However, now they are so much a part of our daily lives that many people, myself included, would not know what to do without them. I've never thought to define a SNS before, but the definition the article provides seems extremely accurate to me. As for the history, I think it's interesting that the first SNS, sixdegrees.com (which I have never heard of), took two years for users to be able to surf the friends list and was the first SNS to have this function. It is amazing that the speed of SNSs went from two years for this change to the rate at which things change now. It is also weird to think that SixDegrees failed because it was "ahead of its time" in that most internet users did not have a network of friends that was online. Now, the one of the main ways of communication is online. i think that the concept of identity signals and public displays of connection are some of the most interesting parts of the article. The question of real or fake self-presentation on an SNS has always been intriguing to me.

Redesigning

As I am putting the finishing touches on my homepage, I am realizing that several other pages needed more revision. I have taken the initiative to go though our whole site and am trying to make sure everyone's pages follow design guidelines because it was clear to me that a couple group members hadn't done the reading and had little idea as to the concepts of this project. I'm not sure whether I should have left their pages alone or not, but I decided that it was more important to create a well-designed site than to worry about who did what. I'm also working on our proposal memo as I finish up the site, which I hope details all the changes we've made clearly and concisely (and nicely!). It is important to me that our site looks cohesive, follows important design principals, and is overall a better site than the original. Although I wish I had more time to work on this project, and more input from other members, I think that the redesign has come along pretty well despite our time constraints and setbacks.