Do you really need this?

In this week’s blog I am going to talk about the topic that was discussed in the workshop and just another summary of how I feel about, social networking sites and how I use them. In the digital cultures workshop we had a little bit of a discussion about how we personal feel about how our friends, and people we know go about using social networking sites such as; Facebook, twitter and even, instagram.

I currently only use one social networking site which is Facebook, when I was younger I was into following the trend of having multiple social webpages where, I just used to upload pictures of myself, songs that I liked and my close friends where given a shout out. When I think back now of the websites I used to use, I see there was really no point of having one of them as the networking capabilities were no as impressive as they are today. Also the fact that you couldn’t actual make connect by having friends, to make it easier to communicate made hard, as I used to write down their websites rather than a link on my page to take me straight there.

I may sound like an old retired veteran in saying this but it’s the honest truth when I say that I’ve experienced it all in the past so, that may justify the reason to maybe why I only used Facebook now instead of using so many different social networking sites like; twitter and instagram etc. I have even become bored of Facebook’s antics which when I first started using it became amazed by how, connected everyone was and seeing nearly everyone’s posts on one page, definitely beat having to check through tons of other peoples websites to just to check an update.

Another reason why I don’t like social networking sites no more is because of the fact that they have become way to personal these days. Before all you really needed were your email address and your name and maybe even you D.O.B. But now you need to agree to the website’s bible full of rules and regulations which you clearly know you aren’t going to read.  The fact that your pictures do not even belong to any longer once you’ve uploaded them to a website is a big turn off for me personally. There is so much to think about before clicking the accept box but, we neglect from doing so because we just aren’t used to have to do it, like we did in the past. All social networking sites are coming to a point when they are becoming truly irrelevant anyways, when the majority of time people just update status by saying ‘I’m bored’ or ‘I’m having dinner now’. Just because you can write about it, it doesn’t mean you should. And even now on instagram people have shifted from writing about what they are eating or doing to now, taking a picture of it and uploading it for everyone to see. I definitely don’t see the point of doing that so I don’t see the reason of signing up to that.

To conclude I feel that social networking site are only really useful if your using it to keep in touch with friends and long distance family, they become really useful when doing group work and you want to contact all members at once. But for everyday use and reading what people are literally doing at the moment, social networking sites become a huge turn off to me.

Divide and Conquer

In this week’s blog I am going to write about Globalization and Digital divide and just what it means in across our world today. Firstly I am going to define what the two terms mean;

Globalization- Is the process of international integration arising from the interchange of world views, products, ideas, and other aspects of culture-
Reference from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization

Digital Divide- A digital divide is an economic inequality between groups, broadly construed, in terms of access to, use of, or knowledge of information and communication technologies (ICT). The divide inside countries (such as the digital divide in the United States) can refer to inequalities between individuals, households, businesses, and geographic areas at different socioeconomic and other demographic levels, while the Global digital divide designates countries as the units of analysis and examines the divide between developing and developed countries on an international scale.
Reference from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_divide

From my understanding globalization and digital divide is when certain countries or even continents are more equipped and much more progressive then others for example: the United States is clearly much more digitally developed than Ethiopia is. I say this because more households in America are more likely to have a computer in the house with internet, than households in Ethiopia. The reason why I chose a reference from Wikipedia to define what digital divide means is because; it has different meanings across the global. Like explained in the reference for a country like the US digital divide could refer to peoples’ households’ i.e. different internet speeds, PC brand, costs etc.  

As you can notice poverty seems to be the main aspect of globalization which causes the digital divide to occur across the world today. Depending on where you are or live you will be affected by this either in a good way; by being able to use the internet or, in a bad way; either no access to internet or technology which is probably outdated. This is bad news as the developing countries across the world will always be one step behind those who are leading the way. Even if they pushed to close the gap between those developed countries it will either cost money which they may not have or, require training for a period of time as well as support from those who already know what to do.

In the world today the use of computers and working on the World Wide Web is a very relevant thing to have, and as some countries are still without one or the other it makes it very difficult for their country to develop. This in turn continues to create a globalization which as we know now continues to create a big gap between rich and poor countries. Its’ very clear to see that across the world today technology isn’t evenly spread out on the map, so access to information, technology and even forms of communications are obviously not going to be easy to get their hands on in a less developed country.

I think that globalization and digital divide are two factors that are always going to be present, as its presence in the world today is very clear to see and frankly not so easy to get rid of. I also think that the divide is something that will always occur not just across the world but internally in countries also, due to there being different classes, cultures and usage of the technology equipped. But on solving the problem across the world, poverty is clearly the main factor behind this digital divide and creates a globalization of it which makes it much harder to cure. So we should donate and help more in order for the development of, undeveloped countries to receive the educating they need to and receive the technology they need in order to progress. 

Call Of Duty 9: Digital Blogging-fare

  In this week’s blog I am going to talk about the concept of flow and how it is effective in playing video games.  As usual in my blogs I’ll start of by explaining what the main topic is of the week is. The concept of flow is ‘the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of activity.’- Reference from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology). The concept is further explained as being ‘In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does. Proposed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the positive psychology concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields’.  

The concept of flow easily falls into place when talking about the use of video games and the effect it has on the players whilst playing. I find it that people necessarily like to be challenged but also want to enjoy themselves at the same time too so, the perfect incision to missing spot is video games. We go through a lot of different emotions and moods when playing games and, we most often take the outcome seriously even though we know it is just a game.  Like Gavin Stewart pointed out ‘Whilst playing a game of FIFA we tend to say we or I scored a goal. But when a chance is missed in the game, we straight away single out the player to distance ourselves away from that player, although we are still in control’.

Mihály Csíkszentmihályi is a Hungarian psychology professor, who moved to the United States when he was 22 years old. He is the man behind the concept and expresses the idea fully in a video on www.ted.com.  

The video is great as Mihaly himself explains exactly what he means from his own mouth so you have a greater understanding of the concept of flow rather, than just reading it from a book. The diagram representation of the flow, gives a clear interpretation on exactly what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi means. I also found more information on the subject on the internet where Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi and Jeanne Nakamura, go into detail about the concept of flow and supports the claims with some analysis: http://myweb.stedwards.edu/michaelo/2349/paper1/ConceptOfFlow.pdf

University of sims 1,2&3

In this week’s blog I am going to discuss the meaning of gamification and how we can inject it into our normal life to make it more rewarding and, less boring. Firstly I am going to explain the meaning of gamification and how we as humans, include it in our everyday lives unknowingly.

Gamification basically means ‘applying game design thinking to non-game applications to make them more fun and engaging.’-Reference from http://gamification.org/wiki/Gamification. Now I can think of many times in my life were I’ve made a game out of nothing in many different places for example; Walking in the street and trying to overtake someone ahead of me, avoiding certain tiles on the floor in a corridor and even, seeing the same car more than once on the road.   I’m sure there is hundreds of other games I used to play and thousands more people used to play all over the world. My point is, we use these games to bypass the day and disconnect yourself from the world for a small amount of time that, we do for most our life.  The need of being instantly rewarded for achieving a goal or a task we set that has been set out for us reminds me of how video games work. Video games can be very stress relieving as they tend to have objectives, placed that are to be completed and when they are completed; immediately rewards the player for the quest he/she just accomplished.

So with that in mind I think of how gamification can be added in to school systems in the country and then to see if it actually could work. Being instantly rewarded for attending class, or doing your homework would seem like a much better system for student that don’t have the motivation to go into lessons. You can’t always blame students for not always wanting to come to school, we’ve all had the moment when we just do want to go into work or school. Our Morales drop incredibly low and for students like myself, go into school/university and sitting in a boring lesson not taking anything in, you then question yourself on why you even bothered. But for example; Lets just say during the lesson you attempted to answer 5 questions that were put forward to the class. And as a reward for attending plus, participating in the class you receive a cash prize at the end  of the day I would definitely become more encouraged in attending lesson, even if they are                 still extremely boring. The fact of the matter is we all enjoy being immediately noted for completing something.

If schools could possible find a way of letting the pupils know that their education doesn’t have to be so boring and tamed, and also that becoming more creative and, different would draw people into the whole idea of having fun whilst being educated. In a workshop this we all discovered that we became very engaged in a theses discussions and our lecture pointed out that ‘it had been the first time this year the class were fully focussed on the task and had smiles on our faces, on a Tuesday morning! So I think it doesn’t even have to be money that the students are rewarded with for attending class, it could be; a point system and if you save up your points that you receive for each attended lesson you can use the points to purchase books for your course or even all types of equipment for your course or, just in general. Because school shouldn’t be something you just turn up to and hope you’re not bored to death, but we should receive education in a more engaging method and I think Gamification has something that could just work out for school systems that are government funded or universities.