Paper 1 - Technology in My Life

L. Christie Linger
Dr. Barnes-Pietruszynski
English 303-01
11 November 2010
Reading Response 3


Networked Communities

Rheingold like Wesch sees the internet as a new way that society has formed communities. They both bring up really good points. We do everything online that we do in person. At first I was skeptical but then I started thinking and really it’s true. We can kiss through blowing a kiss into a webcam. We can smile through a colon and a parenthesisJ. We can laugh by writing lol. Some people have relationships online. I won’t even go into sexting or whatever lies beyond that with webcams. We have created a way to live our lives online. We are instantly connected with people all over the world in communities we have created.

Being instantly connected to multiple networks with people in the United States and other countries that partake in those networks is something that I have taken for granted. Until Rheingold mentioned that not all countries have networked I had never thought about it. I go to Facebook and can instantly find out what is going on with the people in that community and I can let them know what is going on with me. I can email every student in my school network through typing something as simple as all students. All of these things are at my fingertips. Rheingold has pointed out that some countries have not updated their national technology to allow as many networked communities that we in the U.S. experience.

Rheingold has a very good observation about the places that have not updated their networking, “refuse to join the Net in its widest sense and face being left behind, or to join the Net and face social upheaval” (Rheingold Ch 8). The phenomenon of online communities has its pros and cons. The internet moves so fast and is constantly evolving therefore making our societies evolve faster. If other countries don’t jump on board the face being out of the loop. It’s like if a person who uses Facebook regularly to message friends, see what is going on with their friends and family, and to communicate what is going on with them doesn’t use the site for a week, when hey log back in even though it has only been a week, they have missed out on so much. They could have missed information about who broke up with whom, about whose family member passed away, or who had a baby. Our culture relays so much on technology that there have been times that I find out things like this online. One time I missed a post that a friend was pregnant. It was a couple months later and I saw her. I was shocked and asked why she didn’t call and share the good news (since we are such close friends). Her response was that she had posted it on Facebook so she could just tell everyone at once and it never crossed her mind that I might not have seen it. If you take these concepts and apply it to a whole country think of how much that country misses out on every day. Not just simple stuff like Facebook but important stuff. World news, political decisions, almost everything is online. But if the culture plugs in to our networked communities will they be losing some other part of their culture. They jury is still out on that one, but personally I think it is better to be plugged in and change a little than be unplugged and left in the dark.