Staying Connected

Basically the moment I started reading the book “Connected” by Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler the same quote kept popping into my mind: “Is not what you know, but who you know.” The quote completely relates to the Stanley’s Milgram “six degree of separation” experiment as well as the authors (Christakis and Fowlers) “Three Degrees of Influence Rule.” Nowadays with social networks is even easier to stay in touch with the people we meet throughout our life’s, and at the same time is easier to find new people that may help us in a way or another.

                “In online networks, moreover, we not only manage our direct relationship to all these people; we also monitor all of their relationships with one another to a much greater degree than we would in the offline world.”

                Of course who we are and what we know also influences where we get into places in our life’s, but the people we know have a bigger influence than we think in what we end up doing in our life. The book doesn’t talk about one social network: LinkedIn. The business oriented social network site says it serves 3 main purposes. First re-connect with old and/or current colleagues and classmates. Second, it will power your career by discovering inside connections when looking for a job or new business opportunities. And third, it helps you get answers from experts of the industry that are part of the network. In LinkedIn profiles people post their previous and/or current professional experience. Also, the add information regarding about what they know to do in their areas of expertise. In relation to the six degree of separation rule I think it can be completely applied to this particular social network. You can see all the connections from your connections and so on. Then the website also informs of you how many of the same connections you have with a person you are not connected. The third degree of influence rule also will make sense to this website. I mean whoever affects you in your career probably would not be more than three degrees of separation of you. Anyone from a larger distance from you would probably not be able to affect your professional career for the simple reason that they would not know enough of your professional skills and/or ethics to vouch in your favor for you to move forward on your career.

                LinkedIn is also the perfect example to show the truth behind the quote: “It’s not what you know, but who you know.” Obviously whatever posts in your profile influences people wanting to connect with you and be willing to help you in any way in your professional career. At the same time the basic purpose of the website is to get that help from the people you know. Without the social network it would be so difficult to stay up-to-date to every single person that has or has the power to influence your career. It also opens a new form of connecting with people interested in the same professional areas as you. LinkedIn maintains and increases your network, therefore what you know forms your network but who you know opens the actual doors. Obviously no matter whom you know if you just don’t know anything you can only keep the lie for so long, but that’s a whole different question/blog.

                Even with social networks the same basic rules apply into how we are connected. The six degree of separation rule and the third degree influence rule still work about the same in every person. But the social networks revolutionize the way we are connected to each other in the sense that it makes that connection prevail. There are always people in our life’s that after we meet we never see each other again, before Facebook and/or email that more than likely meant you’ll never know about that person again. And if one day you wonder if that person would be able to help you, your options will be limited on getting in touch with that person ever. Today thanks to social networks and all the ways of communication the internet has introduced to society is easier to humans to maintain all those connections and just pull them out of their ‘friends’ if they ever have the need. I guess the authors said it best, “Our interactions, fostered and supported by new technologies, but existing even without them, create new social phenomena that transcend individual experience by enriching and enlarging it, and that has significant implications for the collective good.”

News in the Social Media Era

In the article “The Public Sphere,” the authors quote Karl Bucher: “But for the newspaper publisher it meant that he changed from a vendor of recent news to a dealer in public opinion.” This made my mind wonder about how newspapers and/or journalism in general has evolved in the social media era. There is no sole dealer anymore, now days the dealer can be about anyone with access to a computer.

Once upon a time you got your news by having to pick up the newspaper front the front porch, on the newsstand, the coffee shop or the office. Back in the day unless you physically hold the newspaper it was rare that you will find out about all the articles written on it. With social media readers now have access to as many article titles of as many newspapers as they wish too; and there is not even need to go into the official website of the newspaper itself. It is as simple as having a twitter or Facebook account. Personally, that is how I found out what is going around the world, and whenever a title interests me I read them. Since I started to follow newspapers in my twitter account I feel like I have read articles that otherwise I would have never read by going into the official website. Only so many articles are shown on the home page, and honestly I’m not going to browse to every section of the website, I don’t even do it when I have the actual paper in my hands. Sometimes even if you do not follow any news sources on your twitter or Facebook you can find out almost instantly by someone’s status. Social media is not just about sharing your personal life, is about sharing all kinds of information. It has become the latest medium for society to be informed. The day of the tsunami on Japan I had not watch T.V. or browse around the internet. I saw my friend’s status before I saw the New York Times tweet about the Tsunami. Even without my friends status I would have found about it, but the fact that so many people had posts about it just emphasized the gravity of the event. There is no doubt that although the internet is ‘killing’ the newspaper business, at the same time is giving them a new way to reach a broader readership. Most importantly the internet gives the newspaper business the one thing that left the out of the competition with Television and Radio: instant news.  And not only by posting it on their official website, but they are actual able to break the news to millions of readers around the world through Facebook and Twitter.

            Blogs have also changed the news world. Anyone can start a blog. Although many people use blogs with no other purpose but personal, others use it as a way to open doors for themselves. For whoever wants to be a writer or a journalist, blogs are the perfect way to show the world your talent. Of course is hard given the amount of blogs on the web.

According to Wikipedia.com as of February 16 of this year, there were over 156 million public blogs on existence. Blogs have become part of people’s portfolio. The term I have a ‘personal blog’ is not quite the same as a diary. Once posted online is there for the world to see even if set to private. People not only read blogs to know about someone’s inner feelings, but to read about different views about everything from politics to the coolest show on T.V. The way I see it, blogs serve as a sort of each individual memo statement about life. Blogs are not precisely competing against newspapers, but I do think it posts them with a new challenge.  Readers now have access to so many opinions that will make them question even more the editorials written in each edition. In a way public opinion has finally gone totally public as there is no need to rely in a third party to get your opinion out into the world.

            Newspapers and every single news source of any type has adapted to the benefits that social media has brought them. Now more than ever in history news travel to every corner in the world in an instant.

           

In the risk of sounding like a movie line, this is how I will end my blog tonight: “Rule #1 of Social Media: once is posted you can’t take it back.”

This is my final project I work on last semester for my video class. I don't think I ever had so much fun during shoot day. All the dogs were so cute. I still cant believe I didnt walk out of the shelter with my own hahaha. Cant wait to get a job so that I can adopt a cute puppy on the summer :) Enjoy!

Back in the Game

Nothing like a real honest conversation to make you open your eyes. Knowing that you have a person in the world that you can tell them anything and they wont ever judge is as lucky as you get. In moments when I feel like nothing is going as it should I lose my perspective in life. Dont worry, it sounds worst than it really is. It just becomes easier for the negative to overshadow the positive. Its ironic how in a day of thinking and at the same time trying to strop rationalizing certain feeling everything seems clearlier now. I know that probably the previous sentence didn't make much sense, but maybe if you have ever felt the way I do, I am sure you get the idea of what I am talking about. Luckily things make sense now, sort of. I really dont know what was about those couple of conversations that trigger something to make me stop complaining about things that didn't even matter. I realize I had to much crap in my mind and I had to let go of it. Sometimes over analyzing every single detail of our lifes just makes things more complicated, and I think I got carried away. The funny thing is I've never done that before, I had always been more of the carefree kind of person. And I'm still that person, but I guess that for a moment I forgot about it. Now Im back to my old self, not that I ever stop being me but you get the point. Now I understand somethings in life can't be rationalize and you just have to go with it. And the things that can be rationalize, well they all have a solution. May not be the solution you want or the fastest or the simplest, but it exists which at the end of the day is what matters. The truth is that I let insanity take over me for a while and lost I bit of control of what I wanted of my life. Today more than ever I know what I want in my life, for the most part. And I know I am in the right track although is not exactly how I picture it. But it has turn it out for the best. TIme has come to put those goal on motion again, not that they ever went away, but for a little while I let crazy thoughts and emotions push them to the back of my head. Literally I felt like I had to bare my soul to the most important people in my life, to myself and now to these blog to see the big picture again. It was worth it, and just in time for baseball season ha.

An Image Response to "What's Mine is Yours" (Version One)

On my text response I talked about societies love affair with Credit Cards. The following set of pictures intend to show how people buy stuff they can't afford. 

                                     

Is somehow ironic how people decide to live sometimes. Choose one luxury over another, instead of balancing it all.

Part of the reason problem sink in debt is because they are not aware of how paying off credit cards actually works.

What will it take for society to learn how to spend responsible? 

Communication+Internet =Materialism?

Karl Marx writes, “The first historical act is thus the production of the means to satisfy these needs, the production of material life itself.”

Naturally humans have the need to communicate and socialize, hence the reason we live in society. Communication has evolved from only being face-to-face to everything the web has to offer now. Once upon a time for two people living miles away from each other they communicated through letters, which could take up months before it got to its destination and an answer back. Then came the telegram which was much faster but still limited in the speed of feedback. Later came the telephone which was basically the same as being in the same room except for the fact that you couldn’t see each other. And still was the factor of being able to reach the person by the phone, the solution: cellphones. Finally came the World Wide Web. In a nut shell it brought together every old way of communication but made it faster, better, and with hundreds of different options. Think about it how many means of communication do you check when in your computer?

·         Email (multiple accounts: personal, work, school, etc.)

·         Instant Messaging (msn, aim, yahoo, Gmail, Skype etc.)

·         Social Networking (Facebook, twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc.)

·         Blogs

Personally I have 4 active email accounts. In terms of social network I use: Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn. Still I have accounts on MySpace, even Hi5 unless it deleted for no use in the past four years. I have one blog, so far.  Every once in a while I still get online on msn, I have aim but never really used it, there is Facebook chat now, and I have meebo and Skype. I have accounts in Kodak, YouTube, Flickr. Throughout the years I have probably gotten rid of a couple email accounts as well as accounts in other social networking sites.

Our need of faster and better communication has given rise to all these new media/mediums available to us. It has cause the creation and production of more materialistic stuff. Desktops, laptops, smartphones, ipads, ipods, tablets, netbooks and more. Not so many years ago people survive with only a computer, right now in 2011 is not impossible is just hard to believe. There is these constant need of being able to communicate through any possible method the internet has made available to society. It used to be a dial connection that took several minutes and even made your phone line busy unless you had two phone lines. It almost seemed like you were switching from one method of communication to another, you couldn’t have both. Then it became wireless you could access internet anywhere in your house without having to be chain down to a cord. Wireless internet evolved to being able in public places as long as you had the mediums to use it: laptops or ipods. Finally now thousands of people pay extra money each month to have internet available to them 24/7 in their phones. At least I now I do. Truth be told it has come very handy to have internet in my phone. In perspective it has probably save me several gallons of gas on giving me directions instead of me going in circles endlessly. At the same time I am aware of the material dependence it has become. Sure it’s fun to have my email or Facebook available to me at any time, but I am positive I can live without checking them just when I am in the computer. But the reality is that I could do it for a couple of days but soon I will start missing my phone. During the Christmas holidays when I was visiting back home for a couple weeks I couldn’t use my cell over there (I could but didn’t want to pay for roaming charges). So I had to settle with my old cell from which I could only text and talk. The first couple of days I really didn’t care, but as the days passed I did care. Literally felt like my phone was useless because I couldn’t access the internet. There was no life and death situation requiring my email, or school or work. The only reason I had to wanting to have access to the internet is to fool around on it basically.

It can’t be denied that the internet is a great invention and has satisfied our need of communication. I mean is just sounds foolish to say I couldn’t get a hold of you nowadays. Certainly helps in staying connected with important people in your life as the years pass by and life takes us on different paths. But sadly it has also increased our need for more and more materialistic stuff. Because even if you only own any of the mediums that give you access to the internet, is a constant want of upgrading them.

Natural needs have made us dependent to a materialistic life. Like everything it has its pros and cons, but the question will remain, when is it too much?