Cyberbullying

A Danger of New Media

            Growing up, I learned that nothing or no one is perfect. Intentions may be good, but there always seem to be a reward vs. risk no matter what someone is doing. That’s just the way life goes. There is no difference when it comes to new media and online activity. A danger in new media that is affecting the world is cyberbullying.

            Cyberbullying is the use of electronic communication to bully a person by sending messages of harassment, threatening, or intimidating nature. Cyberbullying is very dangerous because there is no telling how the person being bullied will handle or take what is being said to them or about them. There have been several different instances where cyberbullying has lead to various individuals committing suicide.

            In 2010, Tyler Clementi was a freshman at the University of Rutgers. His stay at Rutgers was very short lived though as well as his life because he committed suicide on September 22, 2010. Tyler was a victim of cyberbullying. The report on puresight.com says, “Tyler Clementi, a shy 18-year-old Rutgers University (New Jersey) freshman with a passion for playing the violin, jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge on September 22, 2010. His last words, posted onto his Facebook profile about 10 minutes before he died, were: "Jumping off the gw bridge sorry." Also freshmen at Rutgers were Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei, who were the causes behind Tyler’s decision to commit suicide. Dharun and Molly had recorded Tyler sexual encounter with another man in his room and streamed the video online without Tyler knowing. Dharun and Molly were only charged with invasion of privacy.

            According to buzzfeed.com, there have been 9 teenage suicides since last September due to cyberbullying. This leaves me to wonder what can we do to prevent cyberbullying or at least improve the chances of it not happening. To be quite honest though, I am not sure if there is anyway to fix this problem. I believe that there should be a harsher penalty although. I think that if one is caught cyberbullying another individual, that person should at least be fined money for it. Imprisonment might be a little bit too far because they did not actually commit the murder, but they were the cause of it. Maybe the fine will lower the statistics. Until something is done, there is no telling what else cyberbullying may lead up to.

Works Cited

"Tyler Clementi 1992-2010." Parental Control. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2013. <http://www.puresight.com/Real-Life-Stories/tyler-clementi-1992-2010-puresight.html>.

"9 Teenage Suicides In The Last Year Were Linked To Cyber-Bullying On Social Network Ask.fm." BuzzFeed. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2013. <http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/a-ninth-teenager-since-last-september-has-committed-suicide>.

Small Potatoes

Small Potatoes

            What is a small potato? Is it exactly what it sounds like or is it a reference to something else? “The breakneck speed of media evolution in the 21^st century has left some major new media in the dust, or at least not as prominent as they were just a few years ago.” That is what small potatoes are in reference to new media. Some smaller potatoes are MySpace, Digg, Reddit, Second Life, and Podcasting. Some feel that these smaller potatoes should either be considered more than just a small potato or should just be forgotten all together. In my personal opinion, MySpace should be forgotten all together.

            MySpace is a social networking website where you can create a profile page to communicate with friends or meet new friends. It first jumped onto the scene in 2003. When MySpace first jumped onto the scene, its constant rise of users who signed up and were online was extremely high. Fast forward 10 years later and there is hardly anybody who uses MySpace anymore making it a small potato. Some small potatoes can be revived while some should just totally be forgotten about. I think in MySpace’s case, it should simply just be forgotten about. There is no hope in MySpace becoming relevant again.

            An article was posted online two years ago by marketingweek.co.uk entitled “Four Reasons why MySpace Failed to Retain the Social Networking Crown.” In my opinion though, there are only three reasons worth mentioning. Those three reasons are…

•       Lack of loyalty to its users;
•       Lack of innovation; and
•       Lack of understanding about itself.

            When MySpace first came onto the scene, it appealed mainly to people who were between the ages of 13-15-years old. MySpace failed to update to appeal to an older age and those 13-15-year-old kids went away from MySpace and joined a more popular social networking site called Facebook. Facebook is not hard to master or understand. It only takes a few seconds as opposed to MySpace, which can take some time. Not only is MySpace pretty much hard to grasp, it also lost site of what its main purpose was which is to communicate. The website begin to primarily focus on entertainment as oppose to communication.

            I am curious to know how many people actually still visit MySpace today. Although I am pretty sure the number is low, I want to know how low. So long MySpace! You had a great run, but now I think it’s just time for your website to just be shut down from existence altogether.

Works Cited

O'Reilly, Laura. "Four Reasons Why MySpace Failed to Retain the Social Network Crown." Marketing Jobs & Marketing News. N.p., 12 Jan. 2011. Web. 05 Nov. 2013. <http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/four-reasons-why-myspace-failed-to-retain-the-social-network-crown/3022208.article>.

Levinson, Paul. "Smaller Potatoes." New New Media. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2013. N. pag. Print.

New Media Awareness

New Media Awareness

In my opinion, the top 10 things (no particular order) that one should be aware about with new media are…

·      E-commerce;

·      E-banking;

·      Advantages of social media;

·      Disadvantages of social media;

·      Cyber-bullying;

·      Search engines;

·      Misleading information online;

·      Spamming;

·      Health issues resulting from social media and/or the Internet; and

·      Age-inappropriate content.

            Electronic commerce (E-commerce) is the buying and selling of different goods and services online. Have you ever seen yourself wanting or needing a particular item but knew that there was no store open at the moment to buy it because of the time? With E-commerce and it’s 24/7 production, instead of waiting until a store open, you can search online and find whatever it is you are searching for very easily. The procedure of buying or selling something online is much easier than having to go through a store because of the availability and pricing. Online, you will either find something cheaper or for the same exact price as in store.

            In addition to E-commerce, there is also electronic banking (E-banking). E-banking is the process of banking where the customer can do different transactions online as opposed to having to visit a bank telling or an Automated Teller Machine (ATM). Obviously, you cannot make a transaction where you deposit cash online, but you can do checks which is great. Below is an image from the past that shows a graph that indicates the growth of E-banking over time. With numbers like that in that time period, one can only imagine what the statistics are for the ever-popular E-banking process.

            Arguably, the biggest phase to take over the world is social media. Almost the whole world is avid social media members. But just like most things in the world, social media has advantages and disadvantages. Some advantages of social media are staying connected with family and friends, fast way to communicate with others, and the ability to expand one’s business. According to socialmediatoday.com, the top benefits that companies are seeing from social media are…

·      89% of respondents said that social media marketing has generated more business exposure;

·      64% saw lead generation increase by using social media 6 hours or less per day

·      69% of marketers use social media to gather marketplace intelligence;

·      62% of marketers using social media for 2+ years reported a rise in search engine rankings; and

·      62% of businesses with 10 employees or less reported that social media has reduced marketing expenses.

According to shrm.org, some disadvantages of social media are that…

·      It opens up the possibility for hackers to commit fraud and launch spam and virus attacks;

·      It increases the risk of people falling prey to online scams that seem genuine, resulting in data or identity theft;

·      It potentially results in negative comments from employees about the company or potential legal consequences if employees use these sites to view objectionable, illicit, or offensive material; and

·      It potentially results in lost productivity especially if employees are busy updating profiles, etc.

            Cyber-bullying is bullying that takes place using electronic technology and typically happens online. This happens a lot on social media websites. But according to stopbullying.org, mean text messages, emails, or putting up online embarrassing pictures, videos, or fake profiles are also examples of cyber-bullying. Posted below is an image of the statistics of cyber-bullying as accurate as May 7, 2013.

            Search engines are programs that search documents for specified keywords and returns a list of the documents where the keywords were found. Examples of search engines are Google, Yahoo, and Wikipedia. These also happen to be the most popular. One should be aware of how to use a search engine. There is a little more to it then just typing in the search. This comes to play in what you actually put in the search. On kidzworld.com, they have an article entitled “Search Engine Tutorial” where they elaborate on how to use a search engine effectively. According to their article, “the more specific you are, the more info you’ll find.” Below is an image from the article that states some others way to use a search engine effectively that some people probably never even knew.

            In today’s age, there is plenty of misleading information online. There are not many ways to tell if what you are reading is misleading, but there are ways of preventing from reading something that is not really credible. According to news.nettop20.com, the top 20 most credible news sources to do research on are…

·      Cnn.com;

·      Cbs.com;

·      ABC News;

·      Google News;

·      Reuters;

·      Yahoo News;

·      BBC News Online;

·      World News;

·      MSNBC;

·      FOXnews;

·      Usatoday.com;

·      CBC News Online;

·      Time.com;

·      The Associated Press;

·      Guardian Unlimited;

·      NewsLink;

·      The New York Times;

·      EmergencyNetNews;

·      Consortium News; and

·      News.com.au.

           

            One of the most annoying things that pretty much take place with anyone who goes online is spamming. Spamming is unwanted email, normally of a commercial nature, that is sent generally to multiple mailing lists, individuals, and news groups. Another name for this is junk email. There are different types of spam. There’s harvested address spam, virus spam, domain name spam, dictionary spam, windows messenger spam, hacked mail service spam, and hoax spam. The most common forms of spam are harvested address spam and virus spam. Attached below is an explanation of what harvested address spam and virus spam is and how to prevent it according to wordsandpeople.co.uk.

            Most people know that too much of anything can be hazardous for one’s health. This is the same when it comes to online activity. Too much online activity can lead to various social problems and/or health problems. According to the article “8 Ways Social Media Negatively Affects Mental Health” from activebeat.com, those social and health problems are…

·      Productivity drain;

·      Distracts from real life;

·      Social phobias;

·      Feelings of inadequacy;

·      Fear of missing out;

·      Promotes inactivity;

·      Makes us unable to be alone; and

·      Exacerbates unhappiness.

            Age-inappropriate content is always among the world. Adults with kids should obviously know what is suitable for their children’s eyes. Unfortunately, when kids start to grow up, they start to become curious about the world they have not seen yet. I know I did. The company Apple, known for devices such as the iPhone and iPod, has enabled the option to set parental controls and block content on their devices if you choose to. On blog.laptopmag.com, there is an article that gives step-by-step ways to enable the parental controls and how to block content.

Works Cited

"Search Engine Tutorial." Kidzworld. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. <http://www.kidzworld.com/article/1900-search-engine-tutorial>.

"News Top 20: The Pick of the Best News Sites on the Net." News Top 20: The Pick of the Best News Sites on the Net. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. <http://news.nettop20.com/>.

"Computer Security Information." How to Prevent Spam. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. <http://www.wordsandpeople.co.uk/security/how-to-prevent-spam.htm>.

"24 Outstanding Statistics & Figures on How Social Media Has Impacted the Health Care Industry." ReferralMD Referral Management Software DoctorPhysician Network RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. <http://getreferralmd.com/2013/09/healthcare-social-media-statistics/>.

"8 Ways Social Media Negatively Affects Mental Health." ActiveBeat. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. <http://www.activebeat.com/health-news/8-ways-social-media-negatively-affects-mental-health/8/>.

"How To Set Parental Controls and Block Content on the IPhone, IPad, and IPod Touch." LAPTOP Magazine The Pulse of Mobile Technology RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. <http://blog.laptopmag.com/how-to-set-parental-controls-and-block-content-on-the-iphone-ipad-and-ipod-touch>.

"Cyber / Bullying Statistics." Statistic Brain RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. <http://www.statisticbrain.com/cyber-bullying-statistics/>.

"University of the PACIFIC." Online Social Networking Dangers and Benefits. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. <http://www.pacific.edu/Campus-Life/Safety-and-Conduct/Safety-and-Security/Online-Social-Networking-Dangers-and-Benefits-.html>.

"The Top Benefits of Social Media Marketing [INFOGRAPHIC]." RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. <http://socialmediatoday.com/pamdyer/1568271/top-benefits-social-media-marketing-infographic>.

"Social Media: What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Networking Sites? What Should We Include in a Policy?  ." Social Media: What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Networking Sites? What Should We Include in a Policy? N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. <http://www.shrm.org/TemplatesTools/hrqa/Pages/socialnetworkingsitespolicy.aspx>.