While researching for my 'Culture, Change and Trends' class research paper on social networking websites, I ran across this guy: Michael Bugeja. He's magical. He teaches at Iowa State University, if it was a cooler place I would totally go get my Masters under him.
He wrote a book called Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a Technological Age
(description of the book here) where he discusses "the void that develops when we spend too much time in virtual rather than real communities, neglecting our primary relationships. In this innovative book, Bugeja traces media history to document how other generations coped with similar social problems during great technological change and makes a compelling case for face-to-face communication in an increasingly technological and world." It sounds really cool. I have to pick it up soon at the Journalism Library for my group project on Schizophrenia in modern communication technology.
Last night at Veritas Luke Miedema spoke on Facebook and he had a really good title but I didn't write it down. It was something like "poke others as you would have them poke you" but a little less graphic. He said some really interesting things all the way through, but I thought his most interesting point was that Facebook makes us think about ourselves more, which is never a good thing. He spoke on the format of Facebook, which is kind of a purified and distilled popularity contest (who's talking to whom, wall posts, etc.). Also that everything is 100% editable. Nothing shows up that we don't want up there. We can untag ourselves in unflattering photos, delete wall posts, etc. Therefore it's kind of like a quasi-reality in which we can have on-demand access to our friends and leave when we want. I had never thought about the pure self-centeredness of Facebook before, interesting.
He wrote a book called Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a Technological Age
(description of the book here) where he discusses "the void that develops when we spend too much time in virtual rather than real communities, neglecting our primary relationships. In this innovative book, Bugeja traces media history to document how other generations coped with similar social problems during great technological change and makes a compelling case for face-to-face communication in an increasingly technological and world." It sounds really cool. I have to pick it up soon at the Journalism Library for my group project on Schizophrenia in modern communication technology.
Last night at Veritas Luke Miedema spoke on Facebook and he had a really good title but I didn't write it down. It was something like "poke others as you would have them poke you" but a little less graphic. He said some really interesting things all the way through, but I thought his most interesting point was that Facebook makes us think about ourselves more, which is never a good thing. He spoke on the format of Facebook, which is kind of a purified and distilled popularity contest (who's talking to whom, wall posts, etc.). Also that everything is 100% editable. Nothing shows up that we don't want up there. We can untag ourselves in unflattering photos, delete wall posts, etc. Therefore it's kind of like a quasi-reality in which we can have on-demand access to our friends and leave when we want. I had never thought about the pure self-centeredness of Facebook before, interesting.
MJB is awesome. I have been reading his work since, I dunno, the early 1980s? He was the poetry column editor for Writer's Digest for some time. I haven't read all of his work, but enough that I, too, would sincerely love to work with or for him, or study under him, for some time. I hope he has mentored many, because we need his legacy.
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