Honesty is Key: A Prelude to Self-Assessment

As I start to finish up my questions for the final exam, I couldn't help but think for the future about what exactly I am going to write within my self-assessment. For me, this class has been a journey: a journey that has had its highs and its lows. At first I didn't have much expectations in this class, but in terms of the amount of new ideas that I have acquired, those expectations were exceeded. I will admit, however, that throughout this course I was highly intimidated my most of my peers, but neglected to let my doubts and fears lead me to give up and drop the class, like most have already done. I decided to challenge myself, and strive to achieve my goals and aspirations in the most effective way that I can. That is why I am still here.

Digital Networks had allowed me to view technology in a entirely different perspective. I have always been surrounded by technology growing up, and I still effectively utilize technology to this day. Now, I have become aware of how Google has really influenced my discovery of information online, and how I have constantly been distracted by technologies. I have learned that the media is highly influential, especially in today's society, and how the interactivity through social networks has both negatives and positives. Through my analysis of media I have become more open-minded about numerous ideas, and though it may seem peculiar or strange, I often link some technological ideas to Music, which is obviously one of my motivating forces in my life.

I felt the need to express some of my self-assessment with no intentions to seem vulnerable or weak, but in fact strong and determined to succeed in this course. Like we discussed in class from Carr's observations, these days there is not much compassion for others in the world, and I feel that this is true, simply because we are mainly concerned with ourselves, and often neglect the feelings or views of others. People have a tendency to not become fully engaged in knowledge and have trouble remembering certain ideas, thoughts and values. Sometimes it's good to sit back and dwell on our interactions with others without being distracted.

The Shallows

Just from reading and processing the first few pages of The Shallows brought me back to the days of my later childhood when I was at the point of graduating elementary school and transitioning to junior high school. Since my mother was a teacher, she always gave me books to read just so I would not end up immersing my mind into technology. She always hoped that I would have continued my engaged reading for enjoyment, especially through high school and college. Well Mom, I'm sorry to have disappointed you, but the idea of deep thought in reading is just not viable anymore. What I have derived from the few chapters so far of "The Shallows" is that we are using the internet in replacement of physical sources of information, such as books and periodicals, and have, as a result, lost the deep thought that was needed in order to fully comprehend and process information.

As a songwriter, I often find myself nowadays depending on technology (laptop, iPod, Android notepad) to jot down my melodic ideas. Even some popular artists have also used this technique, and as our society is continuously moving forward and accelerating, people need sources of information as quickly and as efficiently as possible without truly embracing the true meaning of the information. There was a quote on page 19, said by Koselitz, where he states, "My thoughts in music and language often depend on the quality of pen and paper."By all means, I love to write creatively, and I honestly feel that once I started using technology to formulate my song ideas, instead of cross-outs and sloppy pen marks, my finished products became structured lines of text that were in a different, unusual form. Somehow I miss the days of writing in my songwriter's journal, and still wonder to this day if it was really the transition from the quality of pen and paper to a virtual notepad that changed my songwriting style; not to mention, I found myself memorizing my songs more as I physically wrote it as opposed to writing it on the virtual notepad...

Here is what someone working in the music biz practically told me,

“It seems the higher I climb the ladder, the more I realize they use less and less vision, and want practically a finished product presented to them…”

I feel that this is relevant to Carr's view of the internet and how it has transformed our thinking habits because he states that we are often distracted by different technologies, and we often need a generalized view or basic summarization of the information that we need without really having to think much about the other pieces of information that is being left out. How we access and interpret information today is similar to how an A&R (Artist and Repertoire) Executive briefly skims through demos, only listening to 10-15 seconds of a song in order to determine if it is actually a hit or not. In other words, we only choose the main view of our information, but like a song, we tend to use the summarized version of what we need and neglect the actual meaning of our content that requires deep intuitive thought.

That’s what also happens once students make the transition to college. We multi-task, and therefore the tiny space we have to process information is lost. Once we are faced with deep thought, we become overwhelmed by the thought of processing more information than expected.

Reflections on Thursday's Class

From reading Bifo's views about autonomy within today's society and how technology diminishes the emotional effect of communication, there were many interesting ideas from Thursday that I jotted down and decided to put my own reflection on from chapters 4-8. Though the first few Bifo chapters seemed quite historically overwhelming, I felt more at ease with the later chapters, maybe since I can personally relate to many of the ideas that were expressed.

First off, In chapter 4, what I found very interesting was how Bifo claims the cellphone is seen as the assembly line of labor. This really struck me because I agree that in this age we have become fully dependent on smartphones, where even if we take a day off (or few days off) from work, we can still find an effective approach of completing tasks through technology without even being present at work. One example that comes to mind involved my absence from class for a couple days, where I had no access to any type of technology whatsoever because my phone had been damaged. I had felt out of touch with the world, and even at one point lost an aspect of time due to my dependence on technology. About two days later, once I received a new phone, it felt as if my world had spun on its axis yet again; everything had fallen back into place though in the meantime I developed my own sense of time cognitively... In short, what I derived mainly from this chapter was that technology is an extension of our availability, and that we rely on technology to provide flexibility within our lives.

Next, in Chapter 5, I couldn't help not taking one side from another when discussing the issue of how technology critically affects cognitive function, but I will say that comprehending and applying literacy to technology does result in the loss of the emotional connection that, for example, one would obtain from being taught by their parents or elders. I will also add that there is also an emotional disconnection between images that we share on Facebook and the images and memories that have been stored in our thoughts. For instance, when someone looks through another user's images, they are viewing the image from an outsider's point of view, and may not recognize the significant memory that was shared during the moment that the photo was taken. Also, another element that adds to the emotional disconnect through imagery is the limited amount of time that is spent looking through one's album which also contributes to the emotional disconnection. Moreover, the more information (or images) that we look through, the more dissonance of information arises which results in the increasing lack of attention that we pay to the overload of information.

What I also found interesting about Chapter 6 is that although through the idea repression, thoughts and emotions become internalized and build up over time, hyper-expressivity is what Bifo views as the main cause of disorders. It is as if the more freedom or autonomy people have to express themselves, the more prone people are to have several psycho-pathological disorders, since it is not solely based on an individual level, but on a mass level. However, was Bifo stating that art shouldn't be therapeutic due to the revolts of different people's opinions?

The Essentials of Marketing

What I derived from both the Movements.org was that the group was motivated to engage the youth through new media technologies such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace. I felt that this was a good approach to target youth for social justice, and that in today's society, utilizing these networks to reach out to the youth was a very effective technique. As for the combination of different top named companies at the summit, such as Pepsi, Youtube, and Google, at first I viewed the adjoining of these companies to have a positive effect on the community, showing that they can help out for a cause. However, it never slipped my mind that these companies would use their marketing strategies in order to benefit their own companies, which can be viewed as a good and bad thing. These companies are using the youth since we are the largest demographic for marketing and Public Relations, and they know how to catch our attention by finding new strategies to sell projects. 

If the money that companies make is going towards a beneficial cause, then it it should be fine. However, it is certain that their goals are not solely based on spreading awareness, yet hopefully these companies are using this movement to help society, not just as marketing gimmicks in order to obtain revenue for their companies. One idea that I agree with that was mentioned in class on Tuesday is the reality that there are needs in our society and corporations are filling those gaps and fulfilling these needs. 

I do believe that what drives most successful companies are their business strategies which are key components of good marketing. What bothers me, however, is how these websites may not actually be driven by young people, but mainly the marketers who are just engaging in these websites in order to advertise their products, so it is slightly biased. I also found it interesting that people’s own revolt for social change or awareness is repackaged, remodeled, and sold pack to an entrepreneurial elite. This idea actually reminds me of the music industry, specifically, where record companies collaborate with organizations in order to support a cause. One example I can think of are Live8, a movement in 2006 whose mission was to "make poverty history" in Africa by holding a variety of concerts. With this approach however, there is still poverty in Africa that has not been fully eradicated, and the record companies (and some artists) still made a profit from this movement. The big-name companies who were involved in this movement were AOL, BBC, and Nokia, who most likely benefited from this event and used their clever marketing tactics. Nevertheless, Live8 also claimed that, "The beneficiary of excess revenue after the costs of the concerts were donated to the Band Aid Charitable Trust." Therefore, the reality that companies fill the gaps in our societies towards our needs is still relevant today. Even through campaigns such as the Peace Iced Tea,  consumers are still being manipulated  into buying the Arizona products. Thus the Arizona company obtains revenue while advocating a cause. But like I said, it's all in the marketing strategy. You gotta do whatcha gotta do...

Today's Presentation - Debate on Open Source

I appreciate everyone's participation during today's debate. As we deliberated on each of the groups that were for or against open source, we found that there had been some very interesting points about open source.

The For Group: It was great how you all explained that open source provides the internet with open forum for "revolutionized" information, easy access to that information, and how there is a network harmony that is associated with open source. Also, I enjoyed the peer-to-peer interaction advantage of open source. As mentioned by Tuomi, open source "recruits developers from all over", thus bringing an array of ideas in order to improve software.

What I derived from Raymond's article was that the cathedral ideology involves carefully structured software, where the bazaar ideology contains:

1)      Different agendas and approaches
2)    Allows users to communicate efficiently with developers. Also, open sources are more effective in producing better, less time-consuming results.

3)      Linux world is more free and open to searches that are available.

I can also agree with Raymond's views that though there may be a community of geeks that may develop software that is challenging for some users to utilize, there are many users that can be hackers, effective hackers who can shorten the debugging time for applications. Raymond also states, "Given a bit of encouragement, your users will diagnose problems, suggest fixes, and help improve the code far more quickly than you could unaided. I also commend the For group for using the iPad example, where the iPad develops new improvements of established software, and that the Bazaar ideology engages thousands of developers who swallow bugs and help applications to work better.

Along with Raymond, Koch, who is also for open source, views it from a research perspective. Koch claims that open source allows researchers to "have complete data sets and provides much historical information through large quantities of projects." I also agree with Koch because through the public availability of information through open source, any group can "come back" and reproduce the study, which reminds me of many psychology studies that have been conducted that replicate older studies. Therefore, like psychological studies, open source reproduces information that can also be improved, and has a great impact on validity and results. 

As for the Against group, I also sided with some of the statements claimed about open source, such as how wikipedia is not respected in the academic community. Lanier talks about this idea through his analysis of wikipedia, where there are anonymous authors and editors who produce all different types of information, and that our intellect and productivity is flawed and decreased as a result. I personally would argue that though closed sources are more valid, they are less accessible for some users; not everyone has a Mac, or even access to GarageBand. More notably, the Audacity program (open-source) is just as useful as GarageBand, and can be used for everyone.

Overall, I felt like everyone did a fabulous job in presenting their arguments. After today's class, even as an advocate for open source information, I could admit that Wikipedia has its flaws with editing information. I have, along with many others, come across situations where even celebrity information (i.e. birthdates, place of birth) has not been validated (they show different birthdates of Mariah Carey, yet the same month and day). Nonetheless, open source software is still an outlet that is used to provide necessary information, even if there may be some negative effects to it. 

Today's Class Discussion: Chapters 6 & 7

At first, when I entered the classroom, I was completely lost in translation about what was about to occur during the next hour and 20 minutes. After I got settled, my mind finally began to marinate the numerous discussions about Chapter 6 and 7. For me personally, I can usually multitask, but when it comes down to listening to and understanding everyone's views about Andrejevic's points in the chapters, I realized I had to listen and comprehend first, then write a blog. Honestly, I felt that some views did go around and were not consistent until about 10 minutes later. Nonetheless, I thank everyone for sharing their views and ideas to help me write this blog. What i basically derived from both the discussion and the readings about iWar and iPolitics were that:

The efforts of war are turning into profits. Also, Andrejevic states,"...Anxiety is especially productive, and risk can be leveraged for profit" (p. 184) I agree with these statements because the more that we become anxious about what is to occur, be it terrorism or any attack, the more that we are vulnerable to the government investing in weaponry in order to incite fear.

Some of the other ideas that were discussed were that the government tricks us into giving up our privacy, and that in order to be prepared, we are giving up every ounce of our privacy. Another idea that was brought up was the idea of a feedback loop of fear, where the government manipulate us into thinking that in order to not be afraid, we must be prepared. However, this motive of preparation is provoked through heightened fear. Also, because we are afraid of what can potentially happen, they can make us feel as if letting go of our privacy can contribute to preparation.

Another idea that was discussed was that technology is being used by politicians to gain voters. Also, if politicians have access to target companies and distribute personal messages, they can influence voters into thinking the politicians are sympathetic towards their issues and control. Also, it was also mentioned that social networks such as Facebook are being transferred into our physical lives, where people are buying into gated communities, yet people have limited control of what is being discussed or determined by the higher officials of those social communities.

Lastly, what was also brought up was that we do not recognize what the real source of terrorism is, and even if we attack a targeted terrorist, there is distributed network of terrorists. In addition, the internet could make us more engaged in democracy, but in reality there is still a higher force of political authority that places limits on what we can access and determine, yet the government can access all aspects of our privacy.

iSpy: Our Privacy's in Jeopardy

We have 4 lives: Our public life, private life, secret life, and digital life.


Andejevic states that "Contextual advertising" (pg. 1)  is seen as google using users' locations to give time and location for specific ads to pop-up, whether it be through our browsers, smartphones, or applications through Facebook and Google. There were many instances where I  have encountered contextual advertising. One particular experience involved listening to the online unlimited radio station which we all know as Pandora. While tapping into my musical space, one specific ad struck me as annoying yet fascinating. It was a St. John's University advertisement about enrollment. What really puzzled me about this ad was how Pandora was able to use my location to advertise local restaurants and schools that are popular in NYC, seeing that St. John's is in Queens, and I reside in Brooklyn. My point, which Mark Androvick touches bases on, is that different internet services, most notably Google, are taking advantage and control of internet users' location in order to provide ads. In the case that Androvik discusses involving users receiving free wi-fi in San Francisco, my case is similar in that in return for providing free musical enjoyment, Pandora is utilizing my input of information on my account including my location in order to provide local advertisements. I would not be surprised if in a couple of years, or even months I should say, instead of us Pandora-lovers having the freedom to develop our own stations based on our personal music interests, we might instead be faced with completely automated playlists (which has already been generated with several company promotions such as Macy's and Facebook) or even have out personalized playlists be exploited through third-party servers without us even knowing.


I agree with Andrejevic when he states that digital enclosure involves a creation of an interactive realm, where every action and transaction develops information about itself within a physical space. The internet provides digital enclosure where the more we post on social networks, the more we and other services are able to locate our information. Thus our private information is not really private, but there should be a limit as to what personal information can be accessed through different anonymous services, although there is not a physical, contractual agreement between the user and the service provider stating and confirming that they cannot access our private information. In addition, although shopping services claim our transaction information would not be used for third party purposes we really cannot take the risk of jeopardizing our privacy...

Blog Theory: The Last 2 Chapters

Seeing that I am currently in the process of writing out answers for the midterm, I decided to spend the last 2 chapters writing out some points that I took from the reading, and placing it into this post. Here it goes:

1)      Blogging is a practice that includes multiple forms of media integration, and provides a space where people can express themselves. It’s whatever.

2)      Blogs are not as personalized as much as you may think. Yes it allows for unique expression, but there are still limitations. 

3)      Whatever is such an interesting word. The term “Whatever “ suggests apathy, lack of interest, and/or the disposing of someone else’s thoughts or feelings., and much more.  Whatever is unsettling, and for blogging, it’s communication without any communicative effort. As Professor Dean mentioned in this chapter, “whatever”  takes no side, and “neither rejects nor accepts.” When I think of the word, “whatever”, not only do I think of today’s society and my generation, I also think of pop culture entirely. Honestly speaking, for instance,  when I think of most of today’s pop music and how it is received,  I think about how the messages that some music puts out is not based on the true content or meaning, but perhaps intent to make you dance or flaunt your lavish spending,  but not to make you feel.

4)      When it comes to blogging, people can blog “whatever” their heart desires, but the response of content goes unresolved through “whatever.”

5)      The supplying of blog services such as layouts and other features, makes blogs virtually indistinguishable from one another. I agree because although we have the option of personalizing our own blog, there is still a standardized structured that is followed with blogs, as well as other media networks (facebook, twitter.)

6)      We can almost control what we put out, but not how many people receive or react to what we put out. It’s whatever.

7)      There are two types of fantasy –

a)      Exposure without exposure – telling your info to the world without having an exploitation of your information, leaving room for easy monitoring,

b)      The f.a.m.e.  – (fantasy allowing mutual exposure), where people share their life with friends, and also add friends just to gain popularity (say, 1000+ friends). I’ve actually become a victim of this F.A.M.E. fantasy. However, you have no full control of what you are putting out because the info you put out to you network also feeds into advertisements and third parties.

8)      What I derived from Chapter 4 was that users gain a sense of attachment through these affective networks. When the blogging system was down due to a virus, I could not help but think about the idea of blog anxiety, where at that moment  I realized my excessive enjoyment for writing blogs as soon as the system went down, hoping to seek fulfillment in writing yet another blog.