The rest of you might have already thought of this but it just dawned on me a couple of days ago. All of us have been discussing the pros and cons of Web 2.0 technologies and how it has changed the way in which we communicated with each other. Think of how this technology has revolutionised communication within the deaf community. With video calling and instant messaging deaf people no longer have to be in the same room as each other to talk.
Thank you for your comment.
ReplyDeleteI agree but posting pictures of the birth of a child is taking it a bit too far but I have seen mums-to-be download pictures of their scans so that people can freely comment.
I’m afraid we are more and more under pressure to share our most intimate and personal experiences online and I agree as we consider the Pros and Cons of Web 2.0 for our professional practice it is up to us as individuals to monitor and control what we post, write and download as it may be seen by potential employers.
Nicolas posted a comment on one of my previous entries about how life is becoming one huge episode of ‘Big Brother’. Most of the friends we have on sites like Facebook and Twitter are not real friends but acquaintances and people we’ve never even met – complete randomers!
I checked out the site you sent me ‘Second Life’ – I can understand the attraction with the site, it looks interesting and good fun, making up your own fantasy life. It’s very similar to a computer game me and my peers used to play called The Sims – it was quite addictive and some became obsessed with the making of characters, buildings and lives. I believe this is the case with computer and internet games although they can be educational, fun and improve IT skills they can become an addiction and people are in danger of losing their social skills.
Like you, I seem to be highlighting and focussing on the negative points about Web 2.0 but they do just hit you in the face. As you say there are numerous positives but for us to learn and develop our skills to use them in professional practice we need to fully discuss the negatives as well as the positives. I’ve found out so much that I was never really aware of before but I’ve always considered myself a sensible social networker – setting up a Facebook account to stay in contact with friends whilst being in London at college for 3 years – but I was always aware of the positives as it’s a fantastic way of keeping in touch and up to date with friends although I never really considered the negatives until I started doing the course.
I too agree with you on your entry about the deaf community, it must have revolutionised the way they can communicate that is definitely a positive!
Look forward to the continued debate... =)
this is a fascinating debate and it is right at the heart of the dialogues and arguments about web 2.0. There is so much written about over-sharing between teenagers, internet addiction, cyber- bullying, baiting and the cases recently of schools using webcams to spy on students.
ReplyDeleteEmily: you make a good point about usage. There are a few interesting notions that impact on all our professional practice. are we able to made to do something? is peer pressure more than just what happens at school, but can happen in our workplaces and adult lives? Is social networking simply an instrument and way its used becomes both the benefit and curse of it?
Facebook has been both a benefit to people (keeping people in touch, I would be so unable to keep in contact with all my family and friends now I live in the UK) but can be curse (amount of time that I spend looking an random pics or compiling lists of my favourite Australian albums of all time). But here is the thing...500 million users, the largest archive of photos in history...people choose to use it, people invent words to describe the practices they use on FB to manage their interactions (defriending, friend cull, limited profile etc)
But the key here is choice. The freedom of choice (aside from being a cool song by Devo) is that these instruments are not the only way to maintain strong, tenuous or even random contacts, they are the mode we choose...a cool idea would be to take say a facebook list of friends and mapping them, how would I stay in contact (if at all) with them if facebook vanished tomorrow?
now, that's a project for winter :-)
I agree, a fascinating topic. I think what has become so aparrant in the last five years is how sign and communication within the deaf community has become an integration rather than an 'add on' like you say with the developments of the web and phone technology it has become an amazing development.
ReplyDeletenow all we need is to transfer this success into the mainstream arts and have communications like sign within performance as common as the stage itself.
a bit of free advertising; Chickenshed Theatre company are a pioneer for this sort of inclusion: www.chickenshed.org.uk