The Future of Digital Culture

The digital world and reality are too very different subject areas, no matter how much we try to make the digital world connect with reality, nothing is ever going to match. So many people these days can get totally engrossed in gaming or online chatting that they completely forget about the real world we actually live in.

The video above shows shocking equations of what technology is doing to our world.

However, society is pretty much stuck within technology now, and technology is constantly upgrading and changing to make our lives easier. We are coming more and more reliant on technology, making us lazier, did you know that more than one third of U.S. adults are now obese, is this because we are allowing technology to do everything for us?

From the moment I wake up in the morning and make a slice of toast to go with my email checking, I have using technology to make things easier. It seems it is very hard to go anywhere these days with out coming accross technology.

What I would like to figger out, is our we actually going to loose our reality? Even if you walk outdoors into the great outside, most people usually end up connected to their mobile phones or iPads. In a previous blog I also spoke about Robots, will we end up having robots do completely everything whilst we live a lazy life of "luxury".

http://youtu.be/pDEDPHa9ehY <- This video talks, and questions the idea of robots taking over.

People use Myspace and Facebook to create a certain "dream" identity that they want to keep, however in reality that identity doesn't matter at all, leading to people getting addicted to who they come accross as online.

Even though I enjoy technology, I admit, I would not be able to live without it one bit, however, I personally do not think that it is healthy for people of today to be too sucked into it, there needs to be a healthy balance  between whats real, and whats not.
We cannot dismiss the technical world, we are way too reliant on it, without it, it would now become extremely hard to apply for jobs, keep in contact with friends, and gather certain information and gossip.

Identifying and Discussing a Substantial Issue created by Digital Culture that has not been discussed previously:

This particular unit has been very interesting, and has led to learning many different things I have either never heard of, and helped my awareness grow for such subjects such as Cyberstalking, the relisation of how much it affected its victims and Web 2.0. However the topic of communication over the internet is one that I would like to research alot more into, I feel that maybe we use technology a little too much these days to communicate.

Everyone will soon have a Facebook or Skype account and these sites are of course key too keeping communication, as a university student, Skype comes in extremely handy for me seeing as I can see my family and friends back at home, and many people will use websites such as Facebook to have conversations rather than meet face-to-face. However isn't this slightly unhealthy?

Call me old fashioned, but I would much rather sit for a coffee with a friend than "poke" them on Facebook. Its hard to go anywhere without seeing someone messaging on there phone, everyone is so reliant on such a small items for communication. This of course will eventually have an affect on our social skills and our manners towards each other, surely not a good thing.

In a past blog, I talked about the Digital Divide, I think it would be very interesting to assess how people who have no idea on technology act differently to us. Take my Nan for instant, she hardly uses technology and her relationship with her boyfriend is one that will always last, with no arguments involved, however the young adults of today seem to be constantly bickering with their partners over the phone. By using technology we can't actually see how the person we are talking to feels and their body language.

http://whatsonyourmind.moadoph.gov.au/topic/technology-and-relationships/index.html <- The following website discusses the issue of technology affecting our relationships.
There seems to be alot of different mixed emotions with the idea of technology and communication, the website has comments from people for technology who say "I reckon that technology has helped relationships as it allows people to communicate over long distance and create social networks. Technology is great and it allows us to communicate a little more sophisticated than message sticks, smoke signals and semaphore" and others who's relationships have actually came to an end because of technology saying "I play WoW and my wife left me beacuse i didn’t pay enough attention to her, i am very alone and depressed now, i think that technology ruined my life". It may sound funny, but if you speak to any young girl, the Xbox is their worst enemy is younger relationships today.

Then their is communication failure between family, I know that in my house hold, is we aren't all in the internet, were all watching television. However, my parents do like to ask my a million questions in between TV, but it is horrible for me to think that some families do actually sit in complete silence for hours on end when the television is blaring.
http://www.livestrong.com/article/243280-how-does-technology-affect-family-communication/ <- I found this website, which states all the worries that we should think about when it comes to technology and families.

http://youtu.be/70i39ALADTU <- This video also talks about the affect communication has on our society.

I do think that this is an important issue to bring, as its only going to become easier and easier to communicate over technology, but we need to start thinking, is that actually a good thing?

What I have learnt from studying Digital Culture

I chose Digital Culture because I was attracted to the idea of writing about all the different areas that I would learn over the year, and get more of an insight to technology and our future within it.
I found many of the subjects very interesting, and it has definitely changed my mind on a lot of issues and topics, making me realize just how much of an impact Digital Culture and its technology has on us every minute of our lives.

I have always been very interested in the idea of blogging, but even though I have started a few up which would talk more on the idea of fashion and celebrities I have never really kept at it, however it has always been something I have been more interested in doing. I have thoroughly enjoyed writing about the topics discussed in lectures, and learning more about them as I write and continue to research whilst doing so. Such topics as Cyber Stalking, Cyborgs, Globalization and Identity were four that I really got into whilst blogging.

I am a very big film lover, so writing a blog on Cyborgs was heaven to me, however it wasn't just about the films, It actually made me realize how much Cyborgs make an impact on many normal peoples day to day lives, a subject I have never really sat down and thought about.

The topic of Globalization really hit, the realization that so many people in this world aren't as well off as us, and the fact that we use the internet so much, but many people out there have not actually ever touched a computer, really touched me, and I was pulled too find out more. I personally can not even imagine my life without the internet, everything would just seem a lot more difficult to get in reach with. But then, if there are people out there who do live there every day lives without the internet, shouldn't we be able to as well? I highly doubt it, the internet seems to me like sinking sand, once you hit it your stuck.

Cyber Stalking, as I said in my blog earlier, became very significant to me, I became so in fixed with finding out more on the subject. Overall I learnt from the amount of research and stories that I read online, that there definitely needs to be a new awareness level on this subject.

I found the second term of blogging a lot harder, many of the subjects were topics I had never even heard of such as Open Source Movement and Meta data, but with a lot of time researching and reading, I eventually managed to work everything out, to hopefully give a clear example and explanation in my blogs. By researching, I found that these subject areas I had the least understanding on, were probably the areas that I use most in my day to day life.

After studying this subject, I feel I have developed in such a way that I am more open minded to subjects that most people shut off, and I am deffinately a lot more interested to find out information of our technological age, especially seeing as it is becoming so important to us. Although along the way I did at times have doubts, I look back on my blogs from the beginning and my blogs closer to now, and realize how much more in depth I talk about topics, I have begun to research into things a lot more and fully explain them with examples from the internet.

Digital Culture and technology now have such a big impact on our lives, it would have been crazy not too want to learn about such a subject. By picking Digital Culture as a unit I have a much better understanding of the world I live in today, it is extremely different to how it was when my parents were younger, and it is still going to be constantly changing, there is no way about it. No matter what we do, it is extremely hard to get away from technology these days, its a very big part of our lives, and now will always be. It seems that we actually sometimes interact more with the World Wide Web and technology than we do our friends and family, but isn't that a bit worrying? However we do now have access to all the information we could ever need, making us alot more wiser that previous ages, but I sometimes feel I would like to have to work a bit harder to find out information, rather than type it in Google, but then maybe i'm slightly old fashioned.

Overall studying this unit has given me a much greater understanding of the world I live in today, I have realized and learnt about alot of things I didn't notice. Even though I do sometimes feel we rely alot too much on technology, how could we ever live without it?

Identifying a Digital Culture issue which I have changed my opinion on

Over the course of the Digital Culture unit, I have learnt many new and different things that I have never really put my interest in, but I am now glad to have learnt all these new subjects because I never knew how much we used things such as Metadata, Tagging and Web 2.0 in our every day lives.

However, I found a topic that I became increasingly interested in, and even done my own research into it after writing the blog. This topic is Cyber Stalking, and subject which I never really took much interest or awareness in before, even though I had heard certain and various stories. After writing my previous blogs, I read a lot in cyber stalking, began watching documentaries on the subject and even old films which point out how dangerous it can really get.

Such films as "Chat room" which involves going into the surreal worlds of online chat rooms, and seeing the impact and seriousness of what getting too involved in these rooms could bring too you and your everyday normal life.

I also previously published a post on a documentary I watched about a young girl that got quite seriously cyber stalked by a stranger who then turned out too actually be her boyfriend.

There is also a website you can access, which illuminates the idea of a man stalking your profile and then travelling to your house, this really and shockingly shows how much the information you decide to post on Facebook can get you in to serious trouble when i comes to stranger people looking at your page. I will post the link to this video below.
http://www.watoday.com.au/technology/technology-news/facebook-horror-movie-sounds-cyberstalking-alarm-20111020-1m9nn.html

But not many people actually know the true extent of cyber stalking, so many people worryingly go there days to day lives with ongoing personal information on their Facebook profiles. Unfortunately, not many people that do get cyber stalked know that they can actually prosecute the stalker but this usually only happens after the victim is quite badly threatened or even hurt, to be honest, hardly anyone actually speaks up when they are being stalked and this is something that needs to start happening, more and more people need to become aware.

It is also very well known that woman are more likely to end up getting stalked by men, than men would woman, a issue which obviously scares any young woman who lives on her own in a student flat. 

I also enjoyed writing into the subject of "Is it possible for anyone to have a private life". 

Now I didn't realise how much everyone knew and everything until I thought a little more into in that blog post, I sort of saw it as "the norm" for us to know everything that's going on, but is that really right? 

What with the amount of technology we are capable of using these days, gossip and stories and circle round a social group in absolute seconds once found out, and of course I feel sorry the most for the celebrities who's every move is posted in various newspapers and magazines. 

http://www.scotster.com/forums/local-interest/Is-Your-Private-Life-Anymore.5366.html <- The following link is a forum with normal people discussing there thoughts on privacy in the 21st Century. 

It is just worrying to me that to keep anything private these days, you have to go to very high levels. It is always nice to have thing that you and only you know about, something close to you, but that is rare to find these days. 

However the fact I am studying journalism probably makes me sound extremely critical right now, but I want to be a journalist for awareness and help make change, not just jibber jabber on about peoples personal lives.

I think what is even more worrying is that fact that some employers could actually ask for your Facebook password. I remember one of my favourite teachers getting in a lot of trouble and almost sacked because of a picture he uploaded of him drinking. But shouldn't our social networking sites be for our personal and social outside life anyway? 

http://youtu.be/azIW1xjSTCo <- The following video talks deeply about the issue.

CyberWafare

Attacks made through Cyber technology are constantly on the up rise, especially seeing as technology is forever constantly growing, these advancements that we continue to make with technology means that there are new ways of war thought up to stop incoming threats.
Countries are trying to find information through cyberspace to hold against enemies and find out secrets, countries are also always trying to gain the upper hand in warfare.

Cyberwarfare was explained by Richard Clarke as- “actions by a nation-state to penetrate another nation’s computers or networks for the purpose of causing damage or disruption.”

To disrupt your apposing countries ability to fight back is key in war, and the fact that many people feel that this threat is on the up rise, when actually could it not just be being hyped up by cyberspace itself?  

http://youtu.be/nxeGYa3S5FM <- The following video discusses whether cyber warfare is hoax.

Stuxnet Virus was originally created to interfere with Irans nuclear warhead, and was also detected in many different countries such as China, the UK, Germany and India. It was a first look at the future of cyber offenses. Instead of bombs, why not use computer codes? 

The link below looks more into this story.

 http://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/9861-Stuxnet-Virus-is-an-Example-of-Cyber-Warfare.html

We, as humans, are becoming more and more dependent on technology and cyberspace as time goes on, one of the main uses of these is communication. Which bring me to the situation of Egypt, the government turned off the internet. I cannot imagine how this must of been, especially seeing as they were going through a uprising, and protesters were using the internet, which would spread information to other countries around the world. Was turning off the internet a cyber weapon? Telecomix and Anonymous joined together to help get dial-up devices working again, so by turning the internet off it actually did bring people together. 

It it also now confirmed that the MET police have control, and can actually turn off your mobile network, they will then use a fake one to track someones whereabouts. They can either just turn off the network, or make it look like it's working when it isn't.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/30/metropolitan-police-mobile-phone-surveillance

They can also blanket an area so everyone in the radios is under illusion. 

I have officially grown up it a generation where technology and cyber space is used and is extremely popular with everyone. Okay, so the military will use cyberwarfare most probably more often in the future, but the doesn't mean we ever have to chuck out the good side of technology that brings alot of people together. 

My Social Network Stalker

I wanted to post a blog dedicated to a documentrie I have recently watched on TV, seeing as I feel it was very interesting a relevant to alot of what my blog overall talks about.
On Monday 20th Febuary 2012, a documentrie came onto Channel 4, titled, My Socail Network Stalker. In this documentrie we saw a young girl, Ruth Jeffrey who was stalked online, by her very own boyfriend. Her boyfriend had been uploading explicit images all over the internet including such websites as Facebook where even her mum was tagged in one of the photos.
The young girl actually quoted during the show "Why should one person be able to make another person feel like this" a moving quote which does make me think about how stalkers can actually react the way they do and think its "okay" to do such things to peoples lives.
The documentrie showed just how painful and upsetting cyber bullying can actually get. Ruth suspected that the reason behind such bullying from her boyfriend, was her new life away from home at University making him jealous, jealousy can truelly push people to some limits.

Cyber Stalking

Stalkers are everywhere, even without us actually realising.
There are actually many different types of ways people end up getting stalked:

• Women: When it comes to women getting stalked online, they may find that they end up getting rape threats, and postings of person info/pictures. An article I found online introduces to us that 1 in 5 women are actually stalked online, and that stalking is increasingly on the uprise. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-21634/One-women-stalked.html
• Itimate Partners: Worringly you may also find that your partners are actually stalking you online, this is of course a form of domestic violence and also creates social isolation.
• Anonymous online mobs: In a blog I wrote before, I spoke about Web 2.0 and it seems that Web 2.0 technologies actually enable online groups of anonymous people to target individuals. A perfect example of this is, Kathy Sierra, a young blogger who found herself recieving death threats and comments online. She quoted, "As I type this, I am supposed to be in San Diego, delivering a workshop at the ETech conference. But I’m not. I’m at home, with the doors locked, terrified. For the last four weeks, I’ve been getting death threat comments on this blog. But that’s not what pushed me over the edge. What finally did it was some disturbing threats of violence and sex posted on two other blogs… blogs authored and/or owned by a group that includes prominent bloggers." The stalking actually led to her cancelling her blog.

These statistics that I found online show the worrying truth about what we may be up against if we do find ourselves getting stalked.

11% of victims were stalked for 5 years or more

Approximately 25% experienced some form of cyberstalking such as email or instant messaging

66.2% of stalking victims experienced unwanted phone calls or messages

Nearly 75% of stalking victims knew their stalkers in some way

The fact that nearly 75% of stalking victims knew their stalkers seriously worrys me, why would people you know already need to stalk you?

"Slightly more than 30% of stalking offenders are a known, intimate partner - a current or former spouse, a co-habiting partner, or a date."

http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs14-stk.htm

Author Aontonio Chacon Medina who wrote Una Nueva Cara De Internet, El A Coso which translates (A new face of the Internet: Stalking) says that a harrasar is cold, with little or no respect for others.

Its clear that the most obvious places for stalking would be websites such as, Myspace, Facebook, Bebo, Friendstar and Twitter, places where we upload all our personal information, allowing people to know where we are, where we work, where we live, and what were up too with our hourly updates (Depending how addicted you are to posting and letting people know what your doing). We add people, and chat to people on there comfortably, but what if them people aren't who we think they are, noone actually knows whos behind a computer screen. I've even had friends admit to making a fake account on websites such as Facebook to check up on their partners, doing such things as flirting with their partners on a fake account to attempt to catch them out cheating, this deffinately worrys me, are people not allowed a private life anymore?

I found a website online, on this website you can type your name in and see if anyone has searched you on Google, unfortunately the website did not work on my laptop, but im pretty sure it would be extremely interesting to know.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/13/us-crime-girl-cyberstalking-idUSTRE76C74C20110713

The link I have posted above is a story about a young girl who put a classmates name on sites asking for sex. Shockingly, the stalker in this story was only 12 years old, how are our younger generation finding out about such things, luckily when I was 12 years old I was still on the Barbies!

I found these clips online which are from a movie called Odd Girl Out, the film is about a young girl who gets quite violently cyber bullied online and shows what could really happen in the aftermath and the affect it could have on young girls. I plan to watch the movie, and will write up another blog of how it actually made me feel on a later date.
http://youtu.be/kIjhNYX7jKo

Overall Cyber Stalking must be stopped, it can turn girls to food disorders, put boys into hiding in fear for their life all because of the internet. The internet is an amazing place, and we should all be using it for good reasons.