Carr Wars

Carr Wars.

The presentations from the English department tonight was very interesting (which is a bit of a understatement). One of the first presenters discussed Carr and the credibility of his research. She seemed to have done her share of research, she looked up his resources and found a number of them to have been misrepresented and twisted. Although overall I do enjoy and agree with Carr, it’s hard to ignore the evidence she brought up of how some of the research conducted was also older. However, I do believe if he rewrote or researched further today he would find even more supporting evidence to his findings.

Also the social (Sur) reality of the Internet had really interesting perspectives of the Internet. I especially enjoyed the barstool paper, having never heard of barstool, it was very shocking (yet not shocking in a way) to find out the Internet is being used in such a way to attract a particular crowd of men based on sex appeal women.  Having heard about it now, and listening to her argument, it’s scary to realize the way women are being portrayed and men are portraying them. Even reading and using the attention for the sarcasm and crude stories is still feeding this problem. The other two papers were geared towards relationships and the Internet and were intriguing, about online dating and Facebook’s impact in relationships whether it hurts, is helpful, or isn’t a problem.

The creative section was by far very creative, having one incredible girl sing about Facebook and its creepers, was a great opener followed by a letter and two meaningful poems. (I would recommend this video of the meeting be uploaded to at least watch this part)

Overall it was an awesome presentation and if you missed it you missed out on many different and valuable options.

One point I wanted to bring up that was argued there was how people supposedly don’t post everything about themselves on Facebook. Looking through Facebook, I can tell way more information of people I don’t personally know nor have I ever met then I would need nor want to know. I wonder if it occurs to them how revealing they leave themselves.  In high school I too probably gave too much information and details but the reality now is there are creepers out there. Now everything is private and I do not share where I live to give myself as much protection as possible. Lastly, I made a new Facebook to start fresh and perhaps only add people I actually know. Anyway, on Facebook it really encourages you to add so much information. I even watched a video about the new “Story line” it creeped me out people had pictures and videos of everything from girlfriends to rock climbing to their marriage and even their child’s birth. WAY TO MUCH PERSONAL INFORMATION (if you ask me). Even when Facebook is set to private still they should encourage to put limited and selected information, there’re really intelligent people that can hack anything.  Seems like the biggest creeper is Facebook itself.

By Allison Saffie