Marc Prensky's "Emerging online life of the digital native" and Dave Weinberger's "A New World" both present different views of contemporary internet users. In light of your own experiences with new technologies do you think they are accurate portrayals? Discuss why or why not with specific examples.
New Communication Technologies changed and is still changing the life of contemporary internet users.
The conclusion of the ‘NetDay’ survey of 200,000 U.S. students in the year 2004 is that ‘Students are not just using technology differently today, but are approaching their life and their daily activities differently because of the technology.’ (www.netday.org)
Using the internet or the computer today is totally different from earlier years. In the text ‘Emerging online life of the digital native’, Marc Prensky shows why this is the case and what exactly the differences are. He developed the two groups ‘Digital Natives’ and ‘Digital Immigrants’. He writes about what they are doing differently by using technology and how they are doing this.
Digital Natives or ‘native speakers’ of the digital language are the todays students and the younger children. They represent the first generation who grow up with all the new technologies. They spent their entire life surrounded by computers, internet, mp3 players, video games and cell phones. And these ‘different kinds of experiences lead to different brain structures’ (Dr. Bruce D. Perry, Baylor College of Medicine).
The Digital Immigrants on the other side were not born into the digital world. Mostly they are elderly people who later become fascinated by the new technology and use the computer and the internet for emailing and researching, but in a totally different way than the Digital Natives.
The online possibilities for Digital Natives are growing every day and their online life is much bigger than just the internet. For the Digital Natives the online world tells them how to live, to react, to survive and how to manage the daily activities. The cyberspace is a part of themselves and their everyday life. This is a big difference between the two groups. Of course often the Digital Natives and the Digital Immigrants are using the exact same technology such as email, blogs and eBay. But mostly there is a very big dissonance between the two groups.
When you observe Digital Immigrants, you can often see, that they are only using the internet for working or informing about important things and they mostly have a specific reason why they are using it. And often they prefer the traditional way like writing a letter, searching for a word in a dictionary or reading the newspaper in the morning instead of doing all these things on the internet because they are too used to it and they are still faster doing it the traditional way. For younger people using the computer and the internet is like brushing the teeth in the morning. Sometimes it is the most important thing in their life and they are checking their emails, or the social networking sides multiple times a day, sometimes even every few minutes. Digital Natives love to communicate via internet by sending emails, using IM (Instant Messaging), blogging or chatting. They have their own ‘language’, because writing is still slower than talking. Sometimes they are just using a few letters to say a whole sentence. For example ‘k’ for ‘OK’, ‘cu’ for ‘see you’ or even ‘H4T5TNT’ for ‘home for tea at five tonight’.
But the bad result of this is, that often especially the younger children have lots of problems with a normal conversation. It’s tough for them to write an essay in class or just speaking correct sentences.
Another big difference that Prensky mentions in his text is that Digital Natives are sharing really intimate details and knowledge they get from a specific source. On their blogs they write about their personal experiences, their problems and their emotional life. Earlier the people had the motto ‘Knowledge is power’ and they kept information as a secret. Today the young people love to share what they know as soon as they receive it. They exchange everything like songs, videos, even school- papers or exams, pictures and websites that express their personality. Digital Immigrants in comparison mostly doing intellectual blogging and only speaking about general themes in chat rooms for example. For them the online world is not an emotional thing, it is more informative.
In the text ‘A New World’, by David Weinberger the story about Michael Ian Campbell is a perfect example for the emotional involvement.
The 18- year old Campbell was known as a polite, kind man in his hometown. He was interested in new technology and used the internet for communicating with other people. But he was too much into the online world. On the internet he didn’t act like he would do in normal life and so it happened that he wrote a message to a girl he only knew from the internet where he said that he wants to go into her school the next day and massacre people. The result was that the girl informed the police and Campbell had to go to prison. When he was asked why he did this he answered, that he wants to become an actor and therefore he was trying on a role. He wanted to be like his favourite actor, John Malkovich. Probably if he had met the girl in normal life nothing had happened. Maybe he had told her about his idol, but he never had tried to act like him. Here you can see that the internet let Campbell became someone that he wasn’t. Of course and fortunately this is not the normal behaviour of all internet users, but it’s not at all unusual on the web to ‘try on’ a different personality or to switch personalities from chat room to chat room.
As a conclusion of all these points, it can be said, that both texts are accurate portrayals of the contemporary internet users. Prensky’s dividing of internet user into the two groups ‘Digital Native’ and ‘Digital Immigrants’ is very suitable. It shows the differences between the using of technology today and earlier. In these days older people are afraid of the new technology or may question its value, but although technology is growing and growing and with it also the Digital Natives. Technology has changed the behaviour of an entire generation in a short time and it will go on and influence all people whose daily life involves interaction with it, whether they are native internet users, new inspired users or just parents or friends of these people.
References:
- Prensky, Marc. 'Emerging Online Life of the Digital Narrative' 2004. 12 Oct. 2009
- Weinberger, David. 'A New World' 2002. 12 Oct. 2009
- Livingstone, Sonia. 'Taking risky opportunities in youthful content creation: teenagers’ use of social networking sites for intimacy, privacy and selfexpression' 2008. 23 Oct. 2009
- ‘Prensky’s Digital Native Versus Digital Immigrants’ 2008, Jim Rich, pp. 1-13. Retrieved September 24, 2009, from ProQuest Database.
- www.marcprensky.com
- www.marcprensky.com/writing/PrenskyThe_Emerging_Online_Life_of_the_Digital_Native-03.pdf
- www.smallpieces.com/content/chapter1.html
- http://depd.wisc.edu/html/TSarticles/Digital%20Natives.htm
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Summary lecture week 10
The lecture today was about Video Games and how we can 'study' them. I'm not really interested in video games, but this was although an informative and funny lecture.
- demographics of games: traditional: 18-25 year old males (80 percent of the gaming market),since 2005 more and more females- 59% males, 49% females
- different video games: PC games, console games, online games, arcade games, mobile games -> these markets are quite different, different audiences
- females playing more mobile games, males more PC or arcade games
- today there are also a lot of fitness games (e.g. for Nintendo Wii)
- games are often like everyday life: you have to learn the objectives, how to play it and often you have to work, earn money and learn things in the game
Three different ways of studying games:
1.Social science approach
- about effects of games on people (-> violence- what most debates are about)
2.Humanities approach
- meaning and context of games
- difference between meaning and context is: - narrative (story of the game)
- medium of arts
3.Industry and engineering approach
- about development of games, new technologies
Experiment:
female:
- console
- guitar hero
- pokemon
male:
- PC
- first person shooter
- demographics of games: traditional: 18-25 year old males (80 percent of the gaming market),since 2005 more and more females- 59% males, 49% females
- different video games: PC games, console games, online games, arcade games, mobile games -> these markets are quite different, different audiences
- females playing more mobile games, males more PC or arcade games
- today there are also a lot of fitness games (e.g. for Nintendo Wii)
- games are often like everyday life: you have to learn the objectives, how to play it and often you have to work, earn money and learn things in the game
Three different ways of studying games:
1.Social science approach
- about effects of games on people (-> violence- what most debates are about)
2.Humanities approach
- meaning and context of games
- difference between meaning and context is: - narrative (story of the game)
- medium of arts
3.Industry and engineering approach
- about development of games, new technologies
Experiment:
female:
- console
- guitar hero
- pokemon
male:
- PC
- first person shooter
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Task for week 9/10
The task for this week is to add some form of art that I have created to my blog with using special software.
And this is the result... I used photoshop to change this into what it is now :)
And this is the result... I used photoshop to change this into what it is now :)
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Summary lecture week 9
Jason's lecture today was about how to teach yourself software.
He gave us some really good advices what to do, how to do it and what not to do.
First he told us, that you should try to teach yourself easy software and not to ask first other people for help. For example how to use Adobe Flash, a really important page, cause the most movie websites or the sites of MTV or Nike use Flash.
But he also mentioned, that the right use of software could be a problem, cause if your not that into it you can make terrible mistakes. Therefore we talked about how you can teach yourself software in a few days. The result was that it's nearly impossible to do that, cause good software is deep and you need months or years to learn it. It's not enough if you have tried photoshop once for example and then say 'Yes, i can use it'.
At the beginning you should try to learn it by playing with it, open the software and try to use it. But make sure that you save all your data. Save your work is really important.
Another advice was to try many different ways to learn software and don't waste your time by spending to many hours at one solution.
And if you have problems or if you need help use the help file or search for help or better join forums and ask questions. But make sure that the forum has an active community. Another way for help could also be the use of video tutorials.
But always keep in mind, that if you are able to use software it's all about the content. Easy software can be used by every person, but the content is important!!
He gave us some really good advices what to do, how to do it and what not to do.
First he told us, that you should try to teach yourself easy software and not to ask first other people for help. For example how to use Adobe Flash, a really important page, cause the most movie websites or the sites of MTV or Nike use Flash.
But he also mentioned, that the right use of software could be a problem, cause if your not that into it you can make terrible mistakes. Therefore we talked about how you can teach yourself software in a few days. The result was that it's nearly impossible to do that, cause good software is deep and you need months or years to learn it. It's not enough if you have tried photoshop once for example and then say 'Yes, i can use it'.
At the beginning you should try to learn it by playing with it, open the software and try to use it. But make sure that you save all your data. Save your work is really important.
Another advice was to try many different ways to learn software and don't waste your time by spending to many hours at one solution.
And if you have problems or if you need help use the help file or search for help or better join forums and ask questions. But make sure that the forum has an active community. Another way for help could also be the use of video tutorials.
But always keep in mind, that if you are able to use software it's all about the content. Easy software can be used by every person, but the content is important!!
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
News for today!!
...really crazy and scary.I think the climate warming and the changing weather are going to be a huge problem in the next years.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Lecture summary week 8
The weeks lecture by Stephen Stockwell was about 'Political Possibilities'.
We learned more about CyberPolitics and eDemocracy and it was a really interesting and informative lecture.
We started with the definition of Democracy and some other terms like CyberPolitics or eDemocracy. Then we moved on and had a look at new political formations arising from new technologies, for example the work of hackers and cyberpunks.
CyberPolitics:
- politics of the internet
- there are a lot powerplays around the actual structure and functions of the internet (decided by the Internet Society and ICANN and even by political activities in forums, between bloggers and in games.
eDemocracy:
- intervention in real world politics
- it covers political campaigns and the government's use of the internet
- people can discuss political debates and critizise the government and their mistakes
After that we moved on to a general view of democracy. We learned more about it's history and we spoke about some simple definitions of democracy continue to inform popular discussion:
-the rule of the many
-the rule of the majority
-government of the people, by the people, for the people
The Democracy as we know it today is mainly the product of the nations of the industrial age. But the things we talked about in the lecture don't adress the impact of the present period of rapid transition from an industrial to an information economy and the consequent challenge to the power of nation states by global economic and cultural processes.
Then we had a closer look at the universal acceptance of democracy and the ambivalence of political process. Around eighty percent of Australian and American adults say, that they are interested in politics, but actually no more than half of the adult population follow public affairs in the mass media and only as few as five percent vote in elections.
The most obvious alternative to representative democracy is participatory or direct democracy, based on the ancient Greek model where all citizens have a right and a duty to be involved in all decisions made. Democracy, they argue, can only work where citizens understand that they have a duty to foster democratic processes as a common undertaking and, most particularly, a duty to participate in those processes. Participation is seen to educate and empower the participant and this is crucial to the health and strength of democracy.
So the search for a definition of democracy can never be concluded.
Chantal Mouffe argues in her preface to Dimensions of Radical Democracy that:
-democracy can only consist in the recognition of the multiplicity of social logics and the necessity of their articulation... [with] no hope of final reconciliation. That is why radical democracy also means the radical impossibility of a fully achieved democracy.
Our next topic was: Gaps in the Mass Media
The increasing concentration, centralisation and commercialisation of the mass media appear to have foreclosed avenues for democratic participation in currently existing representative democracy. To have a closer look at this we talked about Habermas ideas and his thoughts of the public sphere.
Basically you can say that if the mass media are the main forums for democratic deliberation then citizens must have the potential to make their voice heard or it is not a democracy. We learned,that there are potentials for demotic use of the mass media through the gaps provided by their commercial, competitive nature, by building public spheres for autonomous deliberation and by appreciating the hermeneutic capabilities of the citizen-audience.
Then we talked about 'Free Speech and Censorship'
-> 'The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it' (John Gilmore)
Deliberation and discussion are key attributes of democracy, maybe talk is the most important element of democratic activity. The ability to convince and the willingness to be convinced are what provide the give and take that makes democracy something for all citizens. And that requires access to free speech!!!
But in Australia there is no constitutional right to free speech, like we have it in the USA and the most European countries. So we have to ask: Is free speech a basic right?
Rather we might view free speech as self-correcting mechanism - in using free speech people make democracy happen.
But there are a lot battles between free speech and censorship on the net. On the one hand it's the case, that the net is like a newspaper, but it isn't mass media in the accepted sense. And you also have the problem of copyright.
Later Stephen went on to 'Citizen-Hacker: Doing Global Democracy'
One space for the recreation of the citizen has been cleared by the hacker. They move freely through machines and their networks to find obscure and hidden information. Hackers regard computer systems not as corporate property but as part the common wealth and do not believe it is wrong to break into systems to look around and understand.
The Hacker's Manifesto from 1986 explained the hacker ethos: 'This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons? We explore... We seek after knowledge?' (Blankenship 1986).
Today Hackers have a bad name. They are always named together with computer criminal, but in the Hacker's Handbook of Hugo Cornwell he notes two other uses: 'those involved in the recreational and educational sport of unauthorised entry into computers and, more generally, the enthusiasts 'who love working with the beasties for their own sake, as opposed to operating them in order to enrich a company?'
And there is also 'The Hacker Ethic'. This code says, that the data the hackers found are for free sharing and that they never harm information they found.
As the final word Stephen chose Hugo Cornwall's quote:Computers 'can threaten our traditional concepts of freedom, individuality and human worth. I like to believe hacking is a curious re-assertion of some of those ideas.'
After that we came to the topic 'Cyberpunk':
It is an outlet for political expression with regards to the internet and studies the political possibilities.
The word 'Cyberpunk' comes from the amalgamation of Cybernetics (the study of communication, command and control in living organisms, machines and organisations) and Punk (a style of fast, loud, short rock music with an anarchist political philosophy and a DIY, anti-expert, 'seize the day' approach to life).
Cyberpunk developed as a reaction against the over-blown stories of for example George Lucas's Star Wars.
The movie Matrix pushed the limits of cyberpunk so it became like the bloated soap operas that it had originally scorned. Nevertheless it deals with philosophical issues at some depth. It also explored a possible future world where machines are smarter than humans and where people are dominated by machines and media.
Cyberpunk Themes:
1. Technology and Mythology:
- connected for a long time
- in greek mythology ('Prometheus')
- 'Sisyphus' (used technology against the wishes of the gods -> see Albert Camus' Myth of Sisyphus')
- 'Adam and Eve'
- 'Faust' (a doctor, who sold his soul to the devil for unlimited power and knowledge, but was very unhappy with it, cause he couldn't find a way out of the deal)
- 'Frankenstein' (Dr Frankenstein tried to reanimate the reconstituted dead, but he created a monster which went out of control)
-> Cyberpunk was used to remythologise technology
2. Utopia and Dystopia:
- there are strong myths for and against technology -> Utopias (imaginary places, people, world, everything is perfect and humans and technology are in harmony)
3. Cities as Machines
- the city is a machine for living- it creates human life just as humans create it
- the city is a natural thing, created by natural beings (humans)just as bee-hives and ant nests are created by natural beings
- the city is a living being- a cyborg which combines human issue with synthetic infrastructure
4. Technological change
The First Media Age(centralised dissemination) vs. the Second Media Age(decentralised interaction)
-> First Media Age:
- early forms of electronic were quite similar
- but the telephone was a great invention
- characterized by the use of one source, but many receivers
-> Second Media Age:
- invention of the Internet
- characterized by distributed systems of interaction
Finally you can say, that the right understanding for technology is really important.
The new media brings with it a need for new understandings- particularly political ones- to protect the public interest.
New Technologies are always a chance, but you have to think really carefully about their need, the problems they can bring and how it can effect our live and the community.
We learned more about CyberPolitics and eDemocracy and it was a really interesting and informative lecture.
We started with the definition of Democracy and some other terms like CyberPolitics or eDemocracy. Then we moved on and had a look at new political formations arising from new technologies, for example the work of hackers and cyberpunks.
CyberPolitics:
- politics of the internet
- there are a lot powerplays around the actual structure and functions of the internet (decided by the Internet Society and ICANN and even by political activities in forums, between bloggers and in games.
eDemocracy:
- intervention in real world politics
- it covers political campaigns and the government's use of the internet
- people can discuss political debates and critizise the government and their mistakes
After that we moved on to a general view of democracy. We learned more about it's history and we spoke about some simple definitions of democracy continue to inform popular discussion:
-the rule of the many
-the rule of the majority
-government of the people, by the people, for the people
The Democracy as we know it today is mainly the product of the nations of the industrial age. But the things we talked about in the lecture don't adress the impact of the present period of rapid transition from an industrial to an information economy and the consequent challenge to the power of nation states by global economic and cultural processes.
Then we had a closer look at the universal acceptance of democracy and the ambivalence of political process. Around eighty percent of Australian and American adults say, that they are interested in politics, but actually no more than half of the adult population follow public affairs in the mass media and only as few as five percent vote in elections.
The most obvious alternative to representative democracy is participatory or direct democracy, based on the ancient Greek model where all citizens have a right and a duty to be involved in all decisions made. Democracy, they argue, can only work where citizens understand that they have a duty to foster democratic processes as a common undertaking and, most particularly, a duty to participate in those processes. Participation is seen to educate and empower the participant and this is crucial to the health and strength of democracy.
So the search for a definition of democracy can never be concluded.
Chantal Mouffe argues in her preface to Dimensions of Radical Democracy that:
-democracy can only consist in the recognition of the multiplicity of social logics and the necessity of their articulation... [with] no hope of final reconciliation. That is why radical democracy also means the radical impossibility of a fully achieved democracy.
Our next topic was: Gaps in the Mass Media
The increasing concentration, centralisation and commercialisation of the mass media appear to have foreclosed avenues for democratic participation in currently existing representative democracy. To have a closer look at this we talked about Habermas ideas and his thoughts of the public sphere.
Basically you can say that if the mass media are the main forums for democratic deliberation then citizens must have the potential to make their voice heard or it is not a democracy. We learned,that there are potentials for demotic use of the mass media through the gaps provided by their commercial, competitive nature, by building public spheres for autonomous deliberation and by appreciating the hermeneutic capabilities of the citizen-audience.
Then we talked about 'Free Speech and Censorship'
-> 'The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it' (John Gilmore)
Deliberation and discussion are key attributes of democracy, maybe talk is the most important element of democratic activity. The ability to convince and the willingness to be convinced are what provide the give and take that makes democracy something for all citizens. And that requires access to free speech!!!
But in Australia there is no constitutional right to free speech, like we have it in the USA and the most European countries. So we have to ask: Is free speech a basic right?
Rather we might view free speech as self-correcting mechanism - in using free speech people make democracy happen.
But there are a lot battles between free speech and censorship on the net. On the one hand it's the case, that the net is like a newspaper, but it isn't mass media in the accepted sense. And you also have the problem of copyright.
Later Stephen went on to 'Citizen-Hacker: Doing Global Democracy'
One space for the recreation of the citizen has been cleared by the hacker. They move freely through machines and their networks to find obscure and hidden information. Hackers regard computer systems not as corporate property but as part the common wealth and do not believe it is wrong to break into systems to look around and understand.
The Hacker's Manifesto from 1986 explained the hacker ethos: 'This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons? We explore... We seek after knowledge?' (Blankenship 1986).
Today Hackers have a bad name. They are always named together with computer criminal, but in the Hacker's Handbook of Hugo Cornwell he notes two other uses: 'those involved in the recreational and educational sport of unauthorised entry into computers and, more generally, the enthusiasts 'who love working with the beasties for their own sake, as opposed to operating them in order to enrich a company?'
And there is also 'The Hacker Ethic'. This code says, that the data the hackers found are for free sharing and that they never harm information they found.
As the final word Stephen chose Hugo Cornwall's quote:Computers 'can threaten our traditional concepts of freedom, individuality and human worth. I like to believe hacking is a curious re-assertion of some of those ideas.'
After that we came to the topic 'Cyberpunk':
It is an outlet for political expression with regards to the internet and studies the political possibilities.
The word 'Cyberpunk' comes from the amalgamation of Cybernetics (the study of communication, command and control in living organisms, machines and organisations) and Punk (a style of fast, loud, short rock music with an anarchist political philosophy and a DIY, anti-expert, 'seize the day' approach to life).
Cyberpunk developed as a reaction against the over-blown stories of for example George Lucas's Star Wars.
The movie Matrix pushed the limits of cyberpunk so it became like the bloated soap operas that it had originally scorned. Nevertheless it deals with philosophical issues at some depth. It also explored a possible future world where machines are smarter than humans and where people are dominated by machines and media.
Cyberpunk Themes:
1. Technology and Mythology:
- connected for a long time
- in greek mythology ('Prometheus')
- 'Sisyphus' (used technology against the wishes of the gods -> see Albert Camus' Myth of Sisyphus')
- 'Adam and Eve'
- 'Faust' (a doctor, who sold his soul to the devil for unlimited power and knowledge, but was very unhappy with it, cause he couldn't find a way out of the deal)
- 'Frankenstein' (Dr Frankenstein tried to reanimate the reconstituted dead, but he created a monster which went out of control)
-> Cyberpunk was used to remythologise technology
2. Utopia and Dystopia:
- there are strong myths for and against technology -> Utopias (imaginary places, people, world, everything is perfect and humans and technology are in harmony)
3. Cities as Machines
- the city is a machine for living- it creates human life just as humans create it
- the city is a natural thing, created by natural beings (humans)just as bee-hives and ant nests are created by natural beings
- the city is a living being- a cyborg which combines human issue with synthetic infrastructure
4. Technological change
The First Media Age(centralised dissemination) vs. the Second Media Age(decentralised interaction)
-> First Media Age:
- early forms of electronic were quite similar
- but the telephone was a great invention
- characterized by the use of one source, but many receivers
-> Second Media Age:
- invention of the Internet
- characterized by distributed systems of interaction
Finally you can say, that the right understanding for technology is really important.
The new media brings with it a need for new understandings- particularly political ones- to protect the public interest.
New Technologies are always a chance, but you have to think really carefully about their need, the problems they can bring and how it can effect our live and the community.
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