Entries in Communication (3)
S)T in the News: Texting Grandma
"Technology has changed the way families stay in touch, profoundly influencing not only how often we communicate, but also what we share with each other," writes Miami Herald reporter Ana Veciana-Suarez in a May 24 article.
"But does more mean better?" she asks.
Some she interviewed said yes, such as Pam Haldeman, a professor of sociology at Mount St. Mary's College in Los Angeles. "I didn't always feel this way, but now I think it's great," Haldeman said. "It certainly has increased interaction between family members, and we can reach far and wide to people who would've been lost to us a generation ago. It's a win-win situation."
Veciana-Suarez got a different reaction from Social Technologies futurist Kevin Osborn:
Kevin Osborn, author of several parenting books and a futurist for the research and consulting firm Social Technologies isn't as enthusiastic. While cellphones, webcams and computers allow us to correspond from faraway places and at unusual times, the information exchanged tends to be simplistic.
''Because we communicate more often it doesn't mean it's more meaningful communication,'' he says. ``Technology is great for people separated by long distances, but that same technology is used to avoid communication with people in the same room. Now you have Dad watching TV, Mom on the cellphone, Sister IMing on the computer and Brother playing video games -- all in the same house.''
Read the entire article.
Image: moriza (flickr)
Hope Katz Gibbs
in Technology, Families, Press, Communication
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S)T in the News: Are Faceless Friendships the Future?
Friendships centered around e-mail were the focus of a St. Louis Post-Dispatch article on May 13 by reporter Tim Barker.
Entitled, "Internet enables faceless friendships," the article describes two women who met online and talk daily via e-mail -- but have never actually met in person. He quotes one of the women as saying: "In some ways, [our friendship] is probably deeper because of the anonymity."
But not everyone has a great experience socializing virtually, warns Barker, who interviewed Social Technologies' Simeon Spearman about the security risks associated with online-only friendships.
Generally speaking, those cyber friends should be treated with more skepticism than the ones you meet in the real world, said Simeon Spearman, an analyst for Social Technologies, a futurist research and consulting firm based in Washington. If you do find someone you hit it off with, it never hurts to invest a little effort into confirming your new friend's honesty. "Get them to talk to you on the phone or in video chat," Spearman said. "I wouldn't recommend hiring a private investigator or anything like that."
Read the entire article.
Image: by Chaparral Kendra (Flickr)
Hope Katz Gibbs
in Press, Communication, Social Life, Internet, Infotech
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Lolz, and Gatsby Was Like :)
Color me old--though I get made fun of here at Social Technologies because I’m the youngest employee--but I was shocked to see this recent Pew Internet and American Life survey that shows Internet-speak is creeping into teens’ school assignments.
The survey revealed that in school assignments:
- 64% of teens have used “informal” chat-style writing
- 50% of teens don’t use proper capitalization and punctuation
- 38% use common Internet-speak abbreviations such as “LOL” and “OMG”
- 25% have used emoticons--yes, emoticons, those annoying symbols to denote mood :(
What?! In school assignments? These statistics do seem ridiculous. But, assuming they’re relatively accurate, imagine what the future of writing, grammar, and communication will be. What scares me is that the majority of my generation seem to find it acceptable to write "formally" in this manner. Will correct spelling and grammar vanish, replaced by LOLCat speak?
Catherine Finn
in Education, Language, Communication, Gen Y, Internet, Infotech, Change
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