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Pop Culture Definition & Example of Social Media Usage

Published on Tuesday, September 20, 2011 in

Pop culture is the popularization of a group, idea, feeling or look in mass media. When something is mainstream it is often has features that a wider audience would enjoy. For an idea to join the mainstream it often has to become a trendsetter by being very popular. Such pop culture is often used by companies to sell products unrelated to why it become popular.

One such game that is both in popular culture and also mainly used for an advance form of social media is Second Life. Having only tried to for a short time I can only guess at what people do in it, but it seems like a lot of the fun would be the social aspect of it.

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The Changes Social Media Has Had On Society

Published on Wednesday, September 14, 2011 in

Over the past few years since a much wider audience has adopted social media many different people have said the opinion that it is damaging society.  This viewpoint has been written about in prominent newspapers like the New York Times. One such article named "The Twitter Trap" can be summarized in one such quote that was given, “The generation that had information, but no context. Butter, but no bread. Craving, but no longing.” It is perfectly logical for a person to not be readily accepting of something that is new that can effect their life.

Just like the article that was mentioned previously mentioned some people have a tendency to form an opinion about something and feel strongly about that viewpoint without needing evidence to support it. Finding and looking into the positive and negative sides of the use of these tools is the objective of this blog post.

A recent report that was published by Eurostat, which correlated the online activity of an individual and the education level showed an interesting data pattern. The study clearly showed that the education level increased when there was more online activity. This study doesn't really prove that increased activity is the cause of the higher levels of education, but it is interesting that more intelligent people had more activity online.

A graph from the study below:

Moving on to the political side of things a report that was release in 2009 by PEW showed that social networks getting younger people more involved with politics. Seeing recent revolutions in the Middle East it is hard to believe that those events would have happened with out the organizational power that social media provided. The Middle East being an area with a much younger population than most other places in the world.

An image showing the new tools of a revolution:

Egypt's Protest Network, Mapped With Google Pagerank - The link has a bigger view of the below image





So the conclusion that looking into changes that have happened to society since the introduction of social media is seemingly entirely positive. Being more connected and social with your friends and acquaintances can only be a good thing. Sure people do need to be careful as to how they use the tools just like everything, but the current benefits far outweigh the cost.

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Ted Nelson and Doug Engelbart

Published on Tuesday, September 13, 2011 in

The following is a link to an interview with Doug Engelbart and Ted Nelson. One of the good points that was made is when Ted says, "this technology is modelled on how the mind works." I have never thought about this before, but this makes sense.
http://alex.tsd.net.au/2009/11/19/doug-engelbart-ted-nelson-interviews/

This is a video called "Douglas Engelbart : The Mother of All Demos", which talks about a live demostration to the public.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfIgzSoTMOs

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First "Real" Post

Published on Saturday, September 10, 2011 in

Hello! Welcome to my blog!

I look forward to sharing things with this tool.

Once I figure out something interesting to share and a good way to execute the story, I will post it here.

Cheers!

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