The Language of Social Media

One of the final project presentations was really interesting to me. The one about the different social media websites, and when presenting the different sites, they talked about the specific language that website had. I really had never thought about it like that before, but it is so true that people act differently and speak differently on different social media accounts. I didn't really notice it as something I did, but it is definitely something I do. Something I think we all do. I personally act differently on snapchat than I do on Facebook than I do on Instagram. On Facebook I am more polite in a way and more serious. On snapchat I am pretty indiscriminate with what I post because it just goes away after 24 hours, and on Instagram I feel like I can kinda be more myself. Really the thing I found the most interesting about this presentation was the part where they put quotes on the screen and we all had to guess which social media sight the quotes came from. I got every single one of them right which is crazy to me! I dont even have a twitter. But being a person who is involved in the social media community, I guess you subconsciously pick up on the different languages in the different sites. Maybe that is why it is so hard for people who didnt grow up with social media to understand how to use it. They are still learning the different languages. I just thought it was really cool that we subconsciously can figure out what social media website something is from with no other information other than a quote.  

The Future of Books

The future of books is very exciting. There are so many different directions that books can go in. On the other hand it does make me a little sad that we are moving away from books in hard copy and more toward technological books. I love the feel of books, I love being able to write my own notes in them, I love how they look on a shelf. I even love the way they smell. I guess books are comforting to me in a way because when I was little, and I was scared or upset, I would always just read a book to make myself feel better. Because of this I know for sure that I will always have actual books, paper and hard back. I just like being around books. I think a lot of people feel the same way. Thats why coffee/book shops are so popular when combined. I also think that there are always going to be people like me. People who wont let go of physical books. I think that eventually though books will probably become a collectors item, or maybe things that are more for decoration, but people will always have books. I think books will go the way of the Vinyl record. People still use them and collect them because it is fun or they like the sound better, but music has mostly just been digitized at this point and it is extremely unlikely that we will ever go back to having physical copies of our music. And thats fine. As long as we still have music, its all good. I feel the same way about books. As long as we still have novels, it does not really matter how they are read. I think really I just mean that it doesn't matter how the words are read, just that they are read and people are still getting the messages and moral that stories give us all. Even though I will always like actual books, the possibilities that electronic books offer are really cool. Like the idea of Hypertext, allowing readers to choose their own stories, character and anything else they want. This also allows people to read their favorite stories over and over again, getting something new out of it every time. Maybe a more desirable ending, maybe a coupling the reader wished could have happened the first time. Really the whole point of this is that I am really excited to see where the future of print goes. I guess not even technically print, but novels.

Looking at social media.

I found what we talked about in class last time we met was very interesting. I have really mixed feelings about whether or not social media is harming our social relationships. I guess that i'm on both sides. I think it is harmful and can be very damaging to relationships and people in general, but it can also have its benefits. These benefits include being able to keep up with friends that don't live near you anymore, and keeping friends and family updated on what is going on in your life. It can also allow people to have access to your life that don't have the best intentions. Social media can hurt people's self worth and it can even be addicting. Our generation is on social media for hours a day. People could make the argument that this time could be spent doing more productive or healthy things, which is definitely true. Sometimes though it is just good to relax and not really think about anything important. The problem arises, I think, when people start to live their entire lives through their phones. I know people who go out and do things for the soul purpose of getting the perfect Instagram picture. These people are then devastated when their picture doesn't get enough likes. They'll either delete it completely, or try to post it again in an effort to get more attention from the picture. Couples will get into huge fights because another girl liked her boyfriend's picture and commented on it and he responded or something and vice versa. These fights are completely empty and about nothing at all really, but they cause damage to the relationship. It doesn't have to be a romantic relationship either. This happens between friends all the time. People will post pictures of being out without inviting one of their friends, and this will hurt the party that was left out, again causing damage to that relationship. Social media becomes a popularity contest basically, causing people to act in ways that they wouldn't normally when not behind the protection of a glass screen. It is even more of a problem when living through the phone creates a strong sense of isolation. In my opinion people who depend on likes on a picture for happiness end up feeling really alone. Even if they have upwards of 100 likes, I doubt that its actually very fulfilling after a while. All of those likes don't really mean anything. People who they probably haven't talked to in years or even never liked that picture and in the end they're just in their rooms by themselves. I think this relates to the Monkey Sphere theory. By trying to remain in contact with so many people, it ends up being harmful. Every one has their close group of friends and then the people they are friends with but not close to. No one person can keep up with so many people at once and still maintain a close relationship with all of them.    

Our midterm

When given our assignment for our midterm I was excited. I had never been given the opportunity to really reflect on what I had learned throughout a semester in my classes. I usually am too focused on memorizing and re-learning the materials for the exam to have a chance to reflect on what i've actually learned in the class, and how it applies to me personally. By the time I finish with all my tests I am too over thinking about the material I learned to really absorb what had gone on in the semester. This assignment gave me an opportunity to really think about all the things I had gone through this semester, what I learned from it and how it changed me as an individual. So I really thought this assignment was cool. I think in some ways it is actually a better tool to solidify what we learn in class in our minds permanently. A lot of students look at finals and midterms as basically big knowledge dumps. Thats not really a wrong way of looking at things, its just not conducive to learning. They memorize everything, starting probably a week in advance, and keep studying until the test where they just write down all their information they have absorbs. After the test is over, students will go home and never think about it again if they can help it. Especially if they don't have a cumulative final at the end of their course. That is why I have always preferred essays. Essays make me actually think through and learn the material I am writing about. I just personally think they are better options. Without fail I could tell you way more about classes that i've had to do essays in in comparison to tests that I just have tests in. So thats why I thought this midterm was so cool. Not only the part we did in class, which was hands on and fun, but also the at home portion. It gave me an opportunity to look at my semester in my way. I had to actually think about my life and classes this semester and decide what the most important thing to say about it was. It was a way to decompress about my school year this far, and I think that is a very good thing. It was good for me anyway.

Evolution of written language.

How writing was formed is a very interesting process. It started with pictographs and worked its way up from there.  Accountants, to keep track of who paid whom what and who owed whom what, used the earliest form of record keeping and writing. Which makes sense if you think about it. There was no real need for it. It evolved from there mostly for political purposes. Messages and stuff like that. The kings and queens sending the messages didn’t know how to read or write them, so they had people called scribes who would write the messages, deliver them, and read them to their intended recipient. In some places scribes were very proud of their work. They saw themselves as superior because only they could read and know the things that had been written down. Religious leaders also knew how to read, because of the bible. When written language became more common, it was just symbols and pretty much had nothing to do with how things actually sounded when spoken. The first examples of phonetic language were when people’s names were written down. I think that is so cool. The fact that you can follow the evolution of language so well is awesome to me. Words are always something I have been interested in. I always wanted to take Latin to try to learn all the roots and origins of words, but unfortunately when I started taking my college foreign language credits, Latin was not offered. Some people were very opposed to the widespread use of written language, which is crazy to me. Today everything we do is in written language. Well, not everything, but a lot of things. We communicate through texting with our parents and friends, emailing our professors and bosses, keeping up with each other on social media. Its crazy how much people read on a day-to-day basis. It isn’t books that they are reading, but its definitely written word. And it all started with some drawings on a cave wall. That is so insanely cool .

Monkey Sphere

            In the book Writing on the Wall I found the first chapter very interesting. Learning about the research about monkeys and how they form social groups was almost mind blowing to me. I had heard of the “monkey sphere” before. I had no idea that within larger groups, that monkeys form even smaller grooming cohabitations and how complicated that they can be. Who the monkeys choose to groom and what smaller groups they choose to be in is extremely calculated. Everything they do is in relation to their social status to the rest of the group. I had no idea that monkey society was that complex. Baby monkeys will even trick the whole group into thinking that there is danger to get out of trouble with their mothers. It goes on to explain that humans behave in much the same way. Apparently, the larger the brain size, the more capable of handling social situations we are. That means we can have more people in our “monkey sphere”. If I am remembering correctly, that means about 150 people for humans. With social network I am going to assume that we all have more than 150 “friends”, but that’s the number it is thought that we can actually connect with. We even have smaller groups within our larger one. Look at any group of friends and you will see what I am talking about. For our grooming cohabitations, we no longer use grooming we use gossip. This is something else I found incredibly interesting. Gossip is a fundamental part of how we relate to each other as people and how we build relationships. Gossip is always looked at as a bad thing, but it is legitimately how we grow as a species. It is how we build trust with each other and warn others about people that could possibly hurt them or cause them pain. All of this makes a lot of sense to me. I was just so shocked at the similarities you can draw between the social groups between monkeys and people.

Readers Interviews

Blog 2

The class and early books

     So far my class, History of Print Culture, or as my professor likes to call it, The Business of Books had been incredibly interesting. Ever since I was a little kid books have been a passion of mine. I would stay up way later than my parents would allow and try to read my books in the dim light my cracked closet door allowed to cast across the room. I would collect books from my grandparents house, and make trips to the public library with my mom and fill an entire shoulder bag full of books to take home. One of the most exciting moments from my childhood was when I learned how to sign my name so that I could get a library card. So I guess you could say that I really love books. Everything about them. Not just reading them. So taking this class I have been very excited that so far, we have been talking about the history of books, and how they used to be made. From scribes to Gutenberg people painstakingly and lovingly put books together. Books were a form of art (still are in my opinion) when everything was handlettered and hand stitched. The drawings were all by hand, and books were so rare that only the rich could really afford them. People were much less educated and bound books were reserved for the churches. With the invention of the printing press, books became more widespread, although still rare. And with this came an interesting reaction. Religious authorities began speaking out harshly against books, claiming they should be reserved for holy use only and that they would change society for the worse. Even intellectuals, philosophers, spoke out against books claiming that they were inferior to the spoken word, and that they could never capture the emotion and expression expressed through telling a story by mouth. They said that a man would never have to remember anything for himself because he could just write it down to recall later. This was an especially interesting point in the class because the same sort of thing is happening in our society now, just not with books. With the invention of social media, these problems and questions are being raised again. I don't think anyone in modern society will argue that books were a bad invention that affected society in a poor way. Unless maybe you talk to a college student who has to read a textbook in a couple days time. Now we're faced with wondering in social media is detrimental to our society. There's is no question that it is changing society, and that we are in the middle of a cultural revolution, but is it harmful? It is definitely something interesting to think about.