Welcome to my little corner of the internet. Only time will tell if this corner remains musty and dark or if it will become illuminated by your presence... or a well-placed lamp. I can only hope you will be interested in the (hopefully topical) ramblings of this short, redheaded and generally well meaning 20 year old.
I am currently in my second year of uni, studying Communications and Media Studies and also International Studies. I hope to become a journalist at the end of my degree, but am becoming increasingly interested in the many other possibilities these degrees provide.
The Internet often reminds me of a library or C.S. Lewis' 'Wood Between the Worlds'; a mysterious place that serves as a portal into thousands of worlds. I find this both exciting and a little scary. Exciting because there is so much potential; for the useful, for the fun, and occasionally, the whacky. What scares me is how easy it must be to get lost in such a place.When we looked at the different types of network topologies in the lecture, I couldn't help but think that no matter whether our DIGC202 online presence made us part of a centralized, decentralized or distributed network, we were going to be part of a massive spider web. However, we have already been introduced to things like tweetdeck and RSSfeeds, which seem to help make sense of all these connections. I'm hoping this subject will help me understand massive networks such as these so that as is suggested by Castells, I can harness their power for my own use.
Speaking of getting lost, I've been meaning to comment on this post for an hour. I fell into a youtube hole. Aaah the internet! It is quite easy to get lost.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. I have fallen into many a youtube hole myself...
ReplyDeleteIndeed, making sense of the connections is the real problem. Considering the avalanche of content we are faced with, filtering the good from the trash becomes the real money maker. hence the power of our Google overlords :)
ReplyDeleteAhh... Google, the Big Brother of our time (or is that Facebook?). Maybe one day in the future we'll realise how thoroughly these (probably) evil corporations have taken over our lives, right about the time that it's too late to escape.
ReplyDeleteBut until then, I'll only occasionally wonder how much I might be missing out on because Google has regulated it to the 'trash' section.. or the 6th search page, while simultaneously lamenting that I'm being overloaded with content.
It's just like getting caught up in the world of books, or music- there's just so much out there to explore that you'll never find all the good stuff, but you can't escape the bad stuff either. It's no wonder we tend to accept the need for a gatekeeper such as the library or Google. I guess we just have to be discerning enough to know when to stop relying on the gatekeeper and look a little further.
I agree re: getting lost in the ever-changing spider web of information. Facebook/twitter leads me to Google, Youtube and Wikipedia. Then there's Livejournal, Blogger, Tumblr, memes, news.com.au, cracked.com and before I know it I've lost 4+ hours! Information, however random is so addictive. Esp when packaged so concisely, imaginatively and conveniently!
ReplyDeleteThings do tend to get out of hand!! I could literally spend hours on YouTube, with absolutely no boredom. Put together with all the other platforms available, as well as sites specifically designed for 'wasting time' (helloooo StumbleUpon!), no wonder it takes us so long to get anything done! As much as there is a proliferation of amazing, interesting information on the internet, the amount of ridiculous things I end up reading/viewing/procrastinating with is fairly embarrassing
ReplyDeleteReally liked your reference to C.S. Lewis, amazing author and interesting connection to the idea of the internet. Its crazy how vast it is, such a scary thought!
ReplyDeleteI really like your blogging style, very info-taining, if that's a word.
ReplyDeleteI never really thought about the information i'm not getting access to with the whole google sending it to the 6th page thing, i mean, i usually give up if it's not on the first or second page. It's like a jungle out there.
Great C.S Lewis reference. And I loved Ted's 'avalanche' metaphor. The Internet is quite overwhelming isn't it! Definitely an information overload, which would be a really interesting avenue to explore... what happens to all this information that gets put on the web? Will it ever get used or even seen? Looking at the Subject Outline for DIGC202 is a little bit scary, lots of concepts that I haven't thought of before but I think it will be interesting to say the least.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to your further posts!