Essay 2: Networking Then & Now

Summary:

Through the research on the changes of communication I will admit my mind went straight to smoke signals and the pony express. While these were ways people communicated it was still a limited amount of interaction. So I jumped ahead and focused more on the way people interacted as cities and towns began to develop and eventually as technology became more advanced.  I felt like there was a distinct connection between communication and generations. I never really thought about how different it is for my parents living in a technologically dependant society. I grew up using all the things my parents have had a difficult time adjusting to.

Reason:

After careful consideration the reason behind this question was still slightly unclear. Then after doing the needed research and comparing what I found to my knowledge of modern social life I began to understand. The question isn’t so much a historical record or a trace of communication changes but how a city that needs to be revitalized needs to have both the public and nonpublic interactions incorporated into its design.

Purpose:

When redesigning the city we can’t just fix up the buildings and call it a day. There has to be some kind of logical and space orientated way that benefits the city and the members of the community.  The community needs to feel like it plays a part in the city design and they are able to have interesting and fun things to do. This would promote happiness among residents and would allow for people to feel more interaction with each other not just their coworkers and their computers. It also allows parents to spend quality time with their children.

Direction:

           As I began researching I had a pretty good idea which direction I was going to go. I wanted to show how the city had changed in regard to people’s interactions.  I wanted to look into how the city’s change into more modern times and a more fast paced design had affected interactions. I wanted to see if the neighborhood bar or park was still as important to the community as it was ten or even fifty years ago. The original plan I had for the question was to trace communication types and how they have affected people’s lives but now I want to determine how the way people interact can help or hurt the way we redesign New Bedford.

Impressions:

Part Two:

QUESTION: Look back on the historical and traditional manner in which people have exchanged news, information, ideas, gossip and the like and compare it to today.  How different or alike is communication, interaction and social networking?

Social interaction has always been a basic human need. As babies that is one of the things we crave, the comforting touch of our mothers or the gentle rocking of our fathers. There is an instinct in humans to migrate towards people because as much as people love to have their personal space no one likes to be completely alone. During the earlier generations it wasn't uncommon to see people gathered at the local bar, nail salons, barber shops, and parks. It was a way for everyone to share the news and gossip they had heard over the course of the week. There was also a distinctly divided way it was done. Men and women had their own places to gather and their own different things to talk about. Men could “complain” about work, their wives, the economy, or the upcoming season.  Women on the other hand would exchange cleaning tips, “complaints” about their husbands, tips on raising children, and little bits of gossip about the other women.

                

                The way people interact now is in some ways similar just the locations and the topics have changed. In some ways they are completely different because people don’t have to be in the same place to have social interactions.  A very well known, often joked about, interaction is the world of internet dating. Before the creation of internet dating websites people would be able to place personal ads in the newspapers. These were for people to look for a potential partner without having to go out and try the bar scenes.  Internet dating started off with the international dating process mostly with the common term of “mail order brides”. By 1995 there was the creation of one of the best known dating sites, match.com, which lead to the major increase in web dating sites. People were able to communicate what they found most interesting in other people and wait for someone to come along that was considered a good match. This takes the social awkwardness about meeting someone new for the first time.

                

In 1998, Internet dating got a cultural boost with the release of the movie "You've Got Mail". The movie, which reunited "Sleepless in Seattle's" Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, focused on two business rivals who hated each other in person but fell in love over the Web. Though the movie didn't focus on Internet dating directly, it put meeting someone on the Web in a positive light and showcased the Web as a tool for bringing people together, even those who don't like each other in the physical world.

(http://brainz.org/history-online-dating/)

http://www.weblo.com/asset_image/477736/113977/Match.com/

               

The drawback to internet dating is the fact that people lose the personal connection. They don’t have the initial interaction with someone that could make or break a relationship. First impressions can’t be made over the internet because you can’t see the person you are talking to. Someone may sound amazing while they type but they could have a pet peeve that you don’t know about because it is physical. This could cause a serious problem for the local businesses that rely on people to interact with each other or to have large quantities of people in their establishment at once. This can hurt the economy of a city extremely when the smaller businesses don’t have the income to pay the taxes that help support the city education system, emergency system, and public works system.

Another huge change in the way people interact is the development of social networking sites, such as facebook and myspace. Both of these sites offer different ways to communicate with your friends and family both while on line and while on the move.  It allows for people to make events that they want to invite friends to, instead of using the traditional mail delivered invitations, and it also allows people to post photos for their friends to see of their vacation or photography interests.  Social networking is a great way for people who don’t live near their friends anymore to stay in touch. For example a student who moves even a simple two hundred miles from their family can use facebook to show their mom photos of the new and exciting things going on in their lives. It can be a very useful tool when it isn’t used in place of being out in the real world.

We define social network sites as web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. (http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html)

http://www.accessfacebookinchina.com/

Social networking sites have had a huge impact on the younger generations who have grown up knowing how to text and how to send an e-mail or an instant message. They don’t know how to write a formal letter or how to properly write an e-mail to a potential employer. It has created a gap in the generations that isn’t bridgeable by giving kids a history lesson but by helping the older generations understand how to use the new technology that has emerged. Personally my mother has had the hardest time adjusting to using a computer, much more than my father and some of my other relatives. She doesn’t understand how a link works or why a computer needs to constantly update the software to stay current and up to speed with the rest of the world.

http://technorati.com/blogging/article/how-myspace-can-survive-apples-ping/