Tweetledum and Tweetledee

Source:  https://twitter.com/jack/status/20 - The very first ‘tweet’ by co-founder Jack Dorsey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Dorsey).

"On Twitter we get excited if someone follows us. In real life we get really scared and run away." 

~Unknown via @mozusa 

Didn’t your Mother teach you not to talk to strangers? Yet in this digital age of social networking sites we ‘follow’ strangers and crave their reciprocating attention.  

This week's group delivered another thorough presentation on the social networking site Twitter.  This social phenomenon allows users to create profiles where they can express themselves in 140 characters or less , post photos, videos (Vine) to the twitter world at large and can send private messages to other twitter users.  Users can also choose to follow any number of fellow twitter users, essentially resembling a popularity contest.  Also due to the added fact that twitter can analyse and submit your own statistics to you at the drop of a hat, you can know who’s winning the popularity race.  Currently, there is over 230+ million monthly active users tweeting 500 million tweets a day (https://about.twitter.com/company, 2013).  The winners of twitter so far include President Barack Obama with over 40 million followers but the title of 'most popular' with the largest number of followers is Katy Perry with over 47 million.  Other contenders include Justin Bieber, YouTube, Lady Gaga, Instagram and Justin Timberlake.  

As a fellow ‘tweeter’ myself I have 16 followers, I follow 274 other tweeters (mostly strangers) and have posted 38 tweets since 23 September 2013.  In the twitter-sphere I am a loser, and I’m really comfortable with that!  I must confess I created a twitter profile to  follow celebrity feuds for their ridiculous and somehow entertaining content.  Somehow I have a disturbing fascination with watching a filthy rich celebrity quickly demise towards an attention seeking lunatic that dribbles brass content in 140 characters.  Not that any of my tweets fair much better but I’m a nobody, so who cares, nobody! 

But the question still must be asked, why is twitter so popular? Is it our celebrity obsessed culture that fuels this phenomenon or an individuals need for validation by others or a combination of the two?  I think it's a combination of the two.  My own guilty pleasure of peering into a celebrity's life lead to my twitter profile but some would argue many of us participate on social networking sites for attention.  

Commercially twitter is used by many businesses to advertise their goods and/or services in the same way Facebook can be used.  Followers can get live updates of product deals or even events.  In a sense it's a 24/7 digital billboard constantly in touch with your market through micro-blogging.  Some companies have even gone as far to pay celebrities to tweet about their products to boost their reach to the market.  According to 2013 research conducted by Wood & Burkhalter:  Kim Kardashian has earned $10,000 per advertised tweet for shoedazzle.com.  It is claimed that as her  popularity increases, so too does her pay rate as she tweets to 18,779,056 followers. (Wood & Burkhalter 2013, p. 6).

Another issue on the rise regarding Twitter is fake followers.  Apparently, there are computer generated robot that is paid to create fake profiles and essentially fake followers. Some would argue it's to edge out your rival in the popularity contest of who has more followers, as if it's some sort of test regarding your likability! It is also legal but can be damaging to your credibility, especially if a public figure, once details reveal you have paid to increase your followers.  Probably not worth it if you are a presidential candidate like Mitt Romney trying to gain the confidence of the American public, when it's revealed your rapid 17% increase in followers was the result of paid fake followers. 

Ultimately, Twitter is winning, it has us.  On a slow news day celebrity feuds through twitter can make the nightly news.  In recent years I've noticed television shows running live feeds during programming from their twitter profiles, making watching an interactive experience. For better or worse, even if you don't have a twitter account you are bombarded with tweets and news on what goes on between users on a daily basis.  I don't think we will see any less of this little blue bird in the coming years.  Tweet-tweet!! 

Mobile Identity

An iPod, a phone, an internet mobile communicator... these are NOT three separate devices! And we are calling it iPhone! Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone. 

- Steve Jobs

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/s/stevejobs416860.html#zzl4ZfUWb2QzOr7D.99

This week's topic on my educational journey is Mobile Devices.  A selected group of students, Group A, delivered an outstanding and thorough presentation on the topic and addressed to our learning group many questions regarding our usage of mobile devices.  

They posed questions such as 'what type of mobile devices do you use?', 'are you obsessed or addicted?', 'are we turning into cyborgs?', 'how safe and secure will mobile devices be in the future?', and 'future gaze: what would you like your mobile device to be able to do in the future?'.  Each tasks required us to look into our own mobile identity.

Mobile devices have evolved quite rapidly over the past decade (or two/three decades, I still think the 90's was only ten years ago *awkward*).  As Steve Jobs put it, Apple developed a universal device with various operating uses called the iPhone.  

I am user of many Apple products (MacBook Air, iPad, iPod, iPhone and AppleTV) and find my usage of my iPhone to have eliminated the use of my iPod, however it has increased my use of my iPad and MacBook Air as iCloud allows me to sync all devices and thus makes using either one more convenient as all are generally up to date.  There is convenience in not having to pick and choose which device to take on my travels or which to glance at first in the AM for my social media and news updates.  I can take one or all, it really doesn't matter.  In saying that, I am a self-confessed addict.  

Like my previous blog, where I confessed to being a social media addict, consequently makes me a self-confessed mobile device addict - as my iPhone is my main tool to access social media apps or websites.

Has this addiction, some likened to a smoking addiction, caused me to turn into a cyborg of sorts?  That being, has my online (mobile, if you will) identity become my reality?  Has my mobile device become my primary source of communication? Even when in the presence of human company?  

Contemplation lead to the hopeful belief that I have not let my mobile device take over my life.  Repeat:  HOPEFUL belief.  I hope it hasn't taken over my life.  I make a conscious effort to not have my mobile device on or near me when I am at the dinner table, whether at home or out.  I always have my phone on silent when asleep but also rely on it for my daily morning alarm.  To stop unwanted or distracting social media updates, I simply log out of each app or turn off the notification option and avoid distractions altogether.  

Security and safety was also a theme and privacy featured in many discussion posts.  The heavier points regarded hackers getting into your bank accounts and social media updates about where you are or who you're with or not.  The previous being an obvious security issue if you insist on imprinting your bank or credit card details on the world wide web.  I personally have had my account hacked and emptied and after my bank alerted me to the oddity, I stopped all online banking.  However, the convenience of a mobile app for banking, I now am back in the world and hold onto the hope that my bank has the skill to prevent future hacking.  The latter regarding check-ins or status updates that broadcasts seemingly harmless information can lead to some very dangerous circumstances.  What if the common criminal uses social media as a tool to find their next victim...they can track down people's whereabouts and source whether or not they are at home and rob them or worse assault them in their home if they know they are alone.  Some very terrible circumstances but not outside the realm of possibilities. 

On top of those security issues, we were directed to read an interesting and somewhat horrifying article about an app that allows you to control the movement of cockroaches - RoboRoach.  I was conflicted as to whether I found the app realistic in relation to humans.  Could the future hold similar apps that could control us? A little too Sci-fi for my liking but again not outside the realm of possibilities.  In line with that we were also asked what we thought the future held for our mobile devices.  Many of us insisted on apps that could help improve our everyday lives (almost what apps already intend to do).  Apps that could lock your house, turn on your car etc I simply would like an app that could tell me the contents of my handbag so I don't have to waste time digging through it.  

Ultimately our future seems to include further evolution of mobile devices (iPhone 5S already has fingerprint scanning).  If we insist of their daily use we are going to have to insist of behaving more diligently.  Be more aware of what you broadcast to the world, protect yourself! Ignorance gets you nowhere in the real world so why would it help your mobile identity.  

Welcome to the Blogosphere

“Blogging isn’t about publishing as much as you can. It’s about publishing as smart as you can.” 

― Jon Morrow

As a self-confessed social media addict, it's somewhat surprising that I am yet to dive into the realm of blogs.  I find the task of collecting my thoughts in a concise and coherent manner rather tiresome.   Capturing my thoughts and daily activities in a picture is more likely to occur for my fundamentally lazy self.  

In essence, my introduction to the blogosphere is a forced attempt of my educational journey through social media studies.  However forced, I still find the topics within social media rather compelling in this 'modern' day and all the underlying theories.

Within three weeks I have learned that social media can be an effective educational and informative tool but also a dangerous artificial realm where narcissism and cyber bullying can fester.  Aside the bullying I'd be guilty of a few rather narcissistic acts of the 'selfie'.  

Blogging is my latest topic.  At this point in attempting to complete my first post, I am already out of ideas.  Either because I've moved on into a new topic and am yet to complete thorough reading of 'blogs' or because I really just don't like the idea of having to write about it, ask me to talk about it and I'm all for it.  Maybe 'video blogging' would be more suited to my personality type.  

Either way, I can understand that a blog is a website that contains entries (posts) in reverse chronological order (latest posts appearing first) about almost any topic your little internet heart desires. Blogs also typically include comments and links to increase user interaction within the blogosphere.  Today, most blogs appear as online diaries for bloggers due to the internet evolving as a more social medium.  

Regarding Jon Morrow's quote - let's hope so!