Final Thoughts

What is community?
Community is a group of people that are brought together by one common purpose. This group develops strong ties among one another, while developing strong relational bonds. The bonds that are formed become mutually dependent. Members of the community are vulnerable with one another. The group is committed and not easily dispersed. Disputes and problems will arise, but the community will seek to workout any disagreements. The group will not dissolve with the changing of a fad or when times get tough. Community seeks to better their group above themselves.

Is community possible online?
Although this form of community may be more difficult, it is nonetheless possible online. A group can exist online that shares with one another their thoughts, feelings, passions, and weaknesses. However, the community could not be one that hinges on the latest fad or popular idea. The community online would have to be committed to one another, and not simply dissolve with the changing of an internet option. Community would need to be linked to some greater unifying agent and not simply a trendy website.

Web 2.0 part of the problem or solution?
It is neither completely the problem nor solution. In regards to creating a problem, some internet activities can draw people away from their physical community. People can waste time playing games or surfing the web, but this is just like any other form of wasting time. This could be a problem is a person did not compromise time with there community prior to the web. When people seek to do all of their community building online in place of any physical dimension, this too can cause trouble.

On the other hand, it could help facilitate community. As with Facebook, most of those relations are in the physical world. Organizing get-togethers and meetings can be time consuming and tedious trying to get a hold of everyone. However if a single online post could reach the entire group, a social gathering becomes much easier to plan. Online communities can help facilitate closer bonds and connections.
As more people are moving and changing locations, the internet can help reunite the long distance relationships. Globally time differences can lead to difficulty in connecting at a decent hour for different members, but online interaction is not bound to time. The internet can go beyond a phone call or a letter with more interactions and abilities to express oneself. The internet provides an easily accessible tool to connect people no matter where the location; traffic, time zones, and travel expenses are not a problem.

community redefined

Community consists of a group of close-knit people with strong social ties.  Those who are connected to this community are knowledgeable of each other.  In fact, they are so familiar with each other that there is a low level of privacy and a high level of trust.  Privacy is low because people are connected to one another and are aware of what is going on in each other’s lives.  It is not that people are nosy and in each others business but rather share with one another their lives on a consistent basis.  Community connectedness finds its main interactions in the physical realm; however, these relationships can also be enhanced through other spheres like phone calls, emails, and letters.  Overall, a community is a group that comes together with a common bond and seeks to further the relationships that binds the group together. 

Answerable Questions

After looking through several more articles and seeing how community and on-line social networks are reacting with each other, I started to think about strangers.  As people are more open online and their behavior may be different than if face-to-face, I began to wonder how often this could occur.  People do meet strangers online, people they have never met before physically.  Usually this has a negative connotation, however not necessarily always.  Therefore I have come up with three questions that are somewhat open-ended but also have possible answers.

 

 

1. Basically do people meet strangers online and is this common?

      -more narrowly with Facebook / MySpace

 

1. When people meet online do they then seek to meet each other face-to-face?

      -Once two unknown people acknowledge the other, do they then seek to further this     relationship physically (as in face-to-face)?

 

1. Once a relationship is established online do people continue them?   

      -Do the strangers simply remain strangers and it is simply an acknowledgment of the      other and nothing else?

 

The premise of this paper will deal with whether people go to online networks (Facebook / MySpace) and meet new friends or are these internet groups mainly for established relationships?

REseArCh tOpiC

After reading several articles talking about the dangers of placing too much information on-line, I started to wonder why people would be willing to put a large amount of incriminating information about themselves.  The internet has become a vast system of documented evidence for several indictments.  These range from suspension and expelling of college students from school to businesses doing background checks on interviewees.  Athletic teams at various schools are suspending athletes from using the social networks.  At Northwestern, after hazing photos surfaced, the women’s soccer team was temporarily suspended.  Dry campuses are busting students for drinking after viewing on-line photographs.  The secret service even paid a visit to a

University of
Oklahoma freshman after he placed sarcastic comments about killing President Bush. 

 

As colleges do not always patrol the on-line communities, they are obligated to take action if claims or complaints are made.  Here is an awkward place to be as public/private institutions seek to keep their student body safe, should they be more intentional about monitoring on-line activity? 

 

However as students are not only getting in trouble by the school authorities and law enforcement, they are also putting themselves at risk by revealing too much information.  Facebook, MySpace, blogs, and other like sites give spaces for telephone numbers, addresses, and schedules.  This easily accessed information has lead to dangerous stalkers.  Online users are exposing many personal details and are possibly putting themselves in danger.   

 

With all of these negative consequences, the original creators of many of these sights did not have such intentions.  In a USA Today article, Mark Zuckerberg the Facebook founder stated, “as time goes on, people will learn what’s appropriate, what’s safe for them – and learn to share accordingly” (“What you Say online could Haunt You”). 

I do not know if this will hold true and if people really will be more cautious with what they post online.  More and more people some how seem to have more boldness or stupidity in expressing what they would not normally do in a face-to-face encounter.  To some extent, behavior on the computer and actions on a screen may not typically match up to a person’s actions in a physical social interaction.  To young online community users, their sites can be perceived as their own private groups and limited to their typical social surroundings.  However, this is obviously not the case as mentioned above, where these online groups are used as evidence in not only young adult cases, but also cases of all kinds from drug busts to murders of all ages.

 

After jumping all around, my big question is why are people (my focus is mainly students/young adults) feeling less inhibited with their online behavior than if they were face-to-face?  There are obviously still consequences, but maybe ramifications are delayed or sometimes not existent if gone unnoticed.  If the punishment or penalties are not instantaneous with the initial action, then maybe people are less likely to calculate the ramifications.  Peter Branch in his article “Footprints in Digital Sand” addresses this question in regards to the judgment of young adults.  Just as the government has set a driving and drinking age due to the fact that the younger people may not be ready to make sound decisions and could possibly hurt themselves, maybe more rules need to be laid out and explained for the younger users.  Not all students may be ready to use the tools of the internet in expressing themselves properly.  Yet even as young adults incriminate themselves online, so do older people.  This problem does not appear to be age specific. 

 

Consequently, why do people reveal so much about their activity if it appears that it can be easily accessed by all, which could easily be found out through a basic search engine?

 

As people are willing to reveal so much then where does privacy come in with the First and Fourth Amendment?  Without a probably cause, a person is not allowed to search your house or to listen to your phone calls without consent so why can the internet be searched so liberally?  Technology is so rapidly expanding and shifting that rules and regulations are not able to keep up with the changes. 

 

So why is so much being exposed on the internet and how do law enforcement/institutions, handle this information?             

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!