![]() It's that time of the year. That magical part of the school year. Midterm time. I've already had two this week and I'm going to finish out the week with my third on Friday in my interpersonal media class, the reason I started this blog in the first place. So my mind and my time has been occupied with tests all week. So instead of a compelling topic about media and society, I'm going to talk about studying because well, I've been doing a lot these past few days. There are two ways to study, one is to review the material you are learning in class little by little each day and then look it all over again right before the test. There other way is to cram the night and morning before the test and scramble to memorize key terms and overarching concepts. I tend to do the latter more often when I study. Part of that is because I'm a student athlete, I simply don't have the time on a day to day basis to study for all my classes. I feel I definitely feel I learn material better when I start studying well before the test. However, I also learn pretty well cramming, probably because I've done it so much over my life. I'm able to learn the information and remember it so I can do well on the test. Except of course I've been studying for this interpersonal media test for weeks, of course I'm not just going to cram (In case Daena is reading haha). This brings me to a question that we talked about in class a few weeks ago. What is the better way to study, using a computer or pen and paper. It really depends on the person, there are benefits for both but for me, it's pen and paper. Re-writing my notes or writing out answers to questions on a study guide really help me learn the material. Something about me physically writing out topics on a paper helps cement it in my mind and remember it. I don't get that same benefit from typing notes on my laptop. It's unfortunate because using a computer is a great and easy way to take and organize your notes. I wish I could take more notes on my laptop, and I'm going to start trying to, but I don't learn the information well enough using a laptop. Well wish my luck this Friday, it's been a long week already but we're almost to the end. I'll be back next week with another interesting topic hopefully... ...but I'm not a blogger.
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![]() Video games have been one of the fastest growing industries in the past five to ten years. Video games are no longer just for children and nerdy thirty year-olds in their parent's basement. Now they are something for all ages, races, genders and most socio-economic classes. You don't need a fancy, thousand dollar gaming PC or even an expensive gaming console anymore. We are all gaming on our cell phones now. From Candy Crush to words Words with Friends to more classic "games" like Infinity Blade, we are all playing games. Along with the expansion of the mobile gaming platform, the console gaming platform has blown up as well. When I was a kid, we all went over to the house of whoever had a gaming console, they were the cool kids (or just had rich parents). But as the technology advanced to make games better and appeal to a wider audience, more and more people bought a console. Now most houses have some sort of console. The industry is dominated by Sony and Microsoft with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, respectively. With this huge increase in gaming, we have to revisit an old question and stigma. Are video games bad for you? I'm consider myself a gamer and a pretty heavy gamer at that. I'm a student athlete so after I finish school and basketball, I spend a lot of my free time playing video games. I play a variety of games and I'm pretty interested in the industry as a whole. In my opinion, video games aren't bad at all. I think all the negative connotations behind video games are over exaggerated. In my interpersonal media class the past week we have been talking about community and if you can form a true community online and have the same effects as offline. Personally, I think gaming is one of the best ways to do that online. I'm a big NBA 2K player, and the 2K community is huge. We all have similar interests and band together and go through the same struggles as each other (glitches in the game). I think this can help create a sense of community for people who don't have that in their physical community. There have been numerous studies done in the past five years that show the positive effects of video games and why they are good for you. I read one article from Huffington Post, which I will link below, that highlighted nine different ways video games are good for you. The article talks about video games as actual pain relievers, how they can help slow mental deterioration and may even be able to improve eyesight. Video games may not be the absolute best way to spend your free time but, they certainly are not a bad way to spend your free time. I think it's time we change the rhetoric around video games from negative and harmful to entertainment and even positive effects... ...but I'm not a blogger. www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/07/video-games-good-for-us_n_4164723.html ![]() Community is defined as "a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common." Another definition is "a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals. " What do you think of when you think of community? What types of things or places come to mind when you hear the word? Maybe it's the place where you live, your hometown. Maybe it's your school or work or church. It could even be your sports team. As humans we seek out community, we like to surround ourselves with others that think like we do or at least that are going through the same things we are. Communities give us a way to share ideas, learn together and support each other. Communities are physical places based on location. Or are they? Can a community be a bunch a people from around the world sitting at their computer? Yes it can. The internet is an amazing tool. You can meet all types of people. Through social networking sites, fan pages, chat rooms, online video games you can create a true sense of community. These satisfy the second definition of community I mentioned earlier. There is no reason why you have to be in the same locale to feel fellowship with others. I think one of the biggest things that creates that feeling of fellowship and sense of community is knowing that there are other people going through the same struggles and experiencing the same triumphs as you. That's why there is such a strong sense of community on sports teams and in schools. When you are online that same feeling of community can be felt. For example, there is a community surrounding online video games that stretches from the game itself to social media and beyond. It is a culture and players bond together through the game. They have common attitudes, interests, goals and have a particular characteristic in common. This satisfies every part of the definition of community except being in the same location. Online communities aren't the same as physical communities and they could never fully replace them. There is something special about a physical community because it is people you actually see and interact with. There is more diversity in physical communities as well. You really can't choose who is allowed in a physical community because they are mostly based on location. The diversity can be good and is something that is harder to achieve in an online community. However, they add to the human experience by making more communities available to people. Community is no longer just the people you live by, work with or go to school with. Communities form online to help people, educate people, entertain people and much more. I think online communities will be essential in helping people connect with each other and support each other in the future... ...but I'm not a blogger. ![]() These days it seems there are two viewpoints surrounding technology use, either it's ruining our lives or it's a new way to express ourselves and connect with other communities. In my last blog post I talked about the digital divide and how some people, like parents most times, have a negative view of technology. But others, like many "social media stars" today, have used technology to their advantage. So who's right? Are our cellphones making us depressed and ruining our social skills or are we simply using those social skills in a different environment? The answer is I don't know. I haven't done any research on these questions so I'm really not qualified to say. But from my personal experiences and the experiences of people I've talked to and seen, there's a little bit of truth to both sides. There's no disputing that from the rising popularity and availability of smartphones, people, and kids especially, are spending more time inside looking at a screen. That's a fact that everyone agrees with but, is it necessarily a bad thing? It depends on how that screen time is spent. Social media is how most of that screen time is being spent. Social media is a very broad term. It can be the classic Twitter or Facebook, but platforms like YouTube are other forms of social media. Even video games are a form of social media, if you are playing online which most people do today. The internet by it's nature is a social platform. And when we engage in activity through one of these forms of social media, nine times out of ten we have some kind of profile that lets the rest of the world know who we are. The social media stars I mentioned before gain their notoriety and success from their "profile". This is something that Julio Appling, a guest speaker we had in our class this week, calls your personal brand. Basically what is boils down to is what do you find when you google yourself. Who are you on the internet? All your "profiles" combine to create your brand and this is one of the positives of all this social media use. You can use your brand to gain all sorts of opportunities. Technology has it's drawbacks, that's for sure, but it also has so many positive opportunities. Social media provides you a platform where you can feel comfortable being yourself and connecting with people who are like minded. Your brand is who you are on the internet and you can use it for many different things. I think that smartphones are doing a lot to improve our society despite the challenges they cause... ...but I'm not a blogger. |
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