Unplugged: Deactivating My Brain
Dec 9th
Technology Diet
No TV. No Facebook. No Texting. Can anyone imagine such a world?
This became reality for 26 students at the University of Central Florida. Last year their English professor, Mary Ann Murdoch, challenged her students to unplug and live a technology-free life for five days.
Only two of 26 students in Murdoch’s class were able to relinquish cell phones, iPods, portable CD players, text messaging, e-mail, computers, TVs, DVDs, and video games.
I crafted a similar technology-free experiment for myself. No texting. No web surfing. No social networks. No iPods, CD’s, TV, video games or personal e-mails. Just my phone for basic calls and my laptop for emergency school-related email and Microsoft Office programs. For one week.
Tech Diaries
Sunday Night 11:45pm –
The experiment was set to start at midnight. Before I unplugged from my comforting world of chargers and wires, I posted a disclaimer on all my social media profiles stating: Doing a social experiment for a class which involves me giving up most technology for a week. If you wanna talk to me, call me or stop by my place! Starts tonight at midnight! Bets on if I can do it?
The Evolution of Fashion Journalism
Dec 9th
Photo Courtesy of Google Images
For the past ten years, Los Angeles Times fashion critic Booth Moore has been covering fashion shows in New York, Paris, and Milan. But at fashion week in New York this year, she noticed that something was different. “Bloggers were the flavor of the month this season,” she says, noting the overwhelming presence of these hyper-intense fashion fans.
Known for their role behind computer screens, bloggers upgraded this year to front row seats at once-exclusive runway shows like Dolce & Gabbana and Rodarte. These trendsetting, influential, and style-conscious members of Gen Y seized the role of fashion editor, with the Internet as their stage.
The number of colorful blogs and fashion forums has exceeded ten thousand, providing some stiff competition for traditional fashion magazines like Vogue and Elle. Fashionistas rely on daily visits to these sites in order to keep up with the dynamic fashion industry.
“The Internet has really allowed for the democratization of fashion,” says Moore . “Now everyone can participate in the discussion of clothing and designers.” Read the rest of this entry »
Crackberries and iPhonohalics: A Generation Addicted to Smartphones
Nov 24th
Has your smartphone done this to you?
Good morning, mobile-me
It’s 9 a.m. and NYU journalism student Devin Chanda rolls over to grab his Blackberry after three hours of sleep. He’s writing a concert review for Clutch, a rap magazine, so he opens up the phone’s built-in memo pad and quickly taps out a review of last night’s—good music, flowing lyrics, free booze. Still on his phone, he attaches the pictures his photographer sent him at 6 a.m., sends an email to his editor, and goes back to sleep.
“Without my Blackberry, I would be completely lost,” he said. “Communication is the most important thing. I have to stay connected all the time.”
Chanda, whose phone never leaves his side, reflects the rising Smartphone culture among generation Y. With the Blackberry and the iPhone, this “anytime, anywhere” access has become a mantra by which gen Y lives. Not only does it ensure that every text and email goes through, but it also offers applications that lets users read the news on the go, log on to AIM in class, and calculate a tip at the end of dinner. This obsession with Smartphones has prompted criticism that begs the question: Is Gen Y too dependent on technology?
Bridging the Gap: Mash-Up Artists and Copyright Law
Nov 24th
In 2003, Danger Mouse, a.k.a. DJ Brian Burton, took music samples from the Beatles’ “White Album” and edited in Jay-Z’s vocals from his “Black Album,” creating the “Grey Album.” This record became one of the first mainstream mash-up albums, and Rolling Stone Magazine called it “the most talked about musical event of 2004.”
Mash-ups, the genre that the “Grey Album” is a part of, fall into a legal middle ground. Downloading, sampling, and distributing recording artists’ music violates copyright laws, which are still trying to catch up to this new technology. Sampling and remixing music isn’t a new phenomenon, but only recently became a complicated legal issue. The music industry is now suing its consumers, despite the fact that few current laws regulate this kind of music sharing.
(”What More Can I Say” by DJ Danger Mouse)
Facebook Fatigue: Is Gen Y Over It?
Oct 27th
Now that everyone (and their mother) is on Facebook, some of the site’s first users are beginning to step away
Facebook fatigue has hit college students.
NYU senior Shalin Patel, 21, plans to deactivate his account while he applies to medical school. Patel says that he uses Facebook a few times a week, but mostly to talk to acquaintances. “A lot of my close friends I call and text message, even e-mail,” he says. “I know I’m going to give it up eventually. I don’t even need it. I’m just on it to be on it.”
Since 2004, Generation Y college students have chatted, procrastinated and broken up on Facebook. So much that five years later, some students have lost interest in the site, deactivated their accounts, and moved on.
Beyond the “Novelty Effect”
The “novelty effect” of Facebook has worn off. “Whenever a new medium emerges, people get fascinated, but after a couple of years it drops off,” says JoEllen Fisherkeller, an NYU associate professor of culture and communication. “People realize the limitations of the medium.”
You’ve Got One New Friend Request…Your Mom
Oct 27th
Your mom may want to be your pal, but should you let her see your Facebook page?
Laura Miller was recently sitting at her computer, checking the friend requests on her Facebook page, including an old family friend, the best friend of her boyfriend and an old high-school classmate. One more request surprised her – it was from her mother.
Miller promptly rejected the request. “I told her I’d have no problem helping her use it as long as she didn’t expect me to be her friend. So why is she adding me?”
Google Images
Miller’s mother is just one in the fast-growing trend of older-than-Generation-Y users on Facebook, the largest social-networking website in the world. There has been a 60 percent increase in users ages 35-54 on social networking sites in the past year alone, according to the New York Times. Females over the age of 55 now make up 1.5 million of Facebook’s users, up by 550 percent from six months ago, CNN.com recently reported. What this means is that more adults are joining Facebook, and often adding their children, and even grandchildren, as friends.
Whether Facebook users find these requests to be unwelcome or simply awkward, there is no denying that older relatives on Facebook are changing the family dynamic. Anne Collier, co-author of MySpace Unraveled: A Parent’s Guide to Teen Social Networking and Editor of NetFamilyNews.org, believes that social media is forcing us figure out how to communicate in a healthy manner in a different setting. “Social media are getting us all to think about things like presence, community, courtesy, and how to communicate and have relationships in and with a new environment,” she said.
Miller, 21, like many of the site’s original, college-aged users, refused to add her parents (her father tried to friend her also) because she believed it would allow them into a part of her life that they don’t belong in. “Facebook is an extension of my life with my friends, my life at college, and other stuff like that,” she said. “Those are things my parents are not, and really don’t have any reason to be, a direct part of.” Read the rest of this entry »
Lights, Camera, YouTube: Changing Celebrity for the Web
Oct 27th
Since its advent in 2005, YouTube has bred a new kind of celebrity. But, can these online personalities compete with tried and true Hollywood stars?
| TOP 10 YOUTUBE VIDEOS: 1. Girlfriend by Avril Lavigne – over 125,428,485 views 2. Evolution of Dance – 126,311,388 views 3. Charlie Bit My Finger – 121,186,703 views 4. Don’t Stop the Music by Rihanna – 98,199,012 views 5. With You by Chris Brown – 97,863,761 views 6. Achmed the Dead Terrorist by Jeff Dunham – 95,082,506 views 7. Hahaha – 91,672,741 views 8. Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis – 89,575,443 views 9. No One by Alicia Keys – 83,413,733 views 10. Apologize by Timbaland ft. OneRepublic – 77,611,669 views |
In 1968, Walter Cronkite spoke out against the Vietnam War on CBS. “It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate,” he told America. As a result of Cronkite’s address, American opinion of the war shifted overnight. Lyndon Johnson is rumored to have said, “I’ve lost Middle America.”
For millions of baby boomers and their parents Cronkite was considered an influential celebrity; someone who because of his years as a journalist could be trusted. As media continues to democratize, generation Y’s concept of celebrity continues to change. Today, with the advent of YouTube, becoming a celebrity is easier than ever. YouTube not only promotes existing celebrities, but it also breeds its own stars.
Although YouTube makes it easier to develop a fan base, no modern celebrity matches the authority had by Walter Cronkite. “Our concept of ‘celebrity’ has become so diluted,” said Adam Penenberg, a journalist and author whose book, “The Viral Loop,” examines companies that survive by going viral. “Today, there is no one celebrity that has this kind of power.”