Myspace Predators

Although myspace is meant to be a fun, harmless site for people to message and post pictures, it can sometimes turn violent. One of the major problems that has plagued myspace are sexual predators. Numerous have been caught, though many are still out there. With over 40 million users, kids are constantly posting new pictures, blogs, and the occasional revealing picture. Myspace is where friendships begin and sometimes end, even relationships.
However, there is a darker side to myspace. One month ago, a man was accused to sexually assaulting a 16 year old girl after finding out where she worked and luring her into a dark parking lot. Though myspace declined an on camera interview, they remain constant on their stance to create a safer myspace. Parents are urged to keep reminding their children to make sure and not give out too much information for strangers to see.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11165576/

Consequences of Texting in Class

Check out this video on youtube for an example of how texting in class is negative and distracting from a teacher's point of view:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh4XFa4yCUs

This video adds some humor to explain how teachers dislike texting in class because it is rude and disruptive in class. I thought it was pretty funny, so enjoy.

Myspace to Devote a Section to Charity

The social networking website "Myspace.com" has devoted a new section entirely to charity, entitled "Myspace Impact". The new section now allows members to directly donate to various charities from their profiles.
"Myspace Impact" directly follows research conducted on the site's members showing that 20% of 18-24 year olds were actually found to devote their time to support for charities in the past year. Jamie Kantrowitz, the website's senior vice president of content and marketing, said that the new facility would provide charities and people with a platform to join hands for benevolent causes.
As soon as next year, the website plans to create a new section devoted to political issues and debates.

http://www.dailyindia.com/show/194512.php/MySpaces-new-section-is-devoted-to-charity-causes

Cell-Phones for Emergencies

Although cell-phones can be quite the distraction from education, they can serve a very important purpose during emergencies, such as that of the V-Tech shootings last year. They are a great thing to have to warn others of incidents like shootings on campus. It is really the only way the word can be spread from student to student very quickly.

Negative Effects of Cell-Phone Technology on Students

Cell-phones seem to be the thing to go to when you are bored in class. It is very easy to sneak a text to someone without the teacher seeing. It really takes a students focus away from the lessons in class, not to mention the fact that it is very easy to sneak answers back and forth during an exam or quiz. Almost every student has a cell-phone and they use it daily. In-class boredom really hits you hard so the thing to do now is either play games on cell-phones or text to friends, which totally takes the mind off the student's education. Instant messaging has developed to the point where you can talk to someone on MSN or AIM through texting. Someone could be in class texting someone who is online. It is unreal how cell-phones have come so far to be such a distraction in students lives.

Video Games improve Vision!

Video games that contain high levels of action, such as Unreal Tournament, can actually improve your vision.

Researchers at the University of Rochester have shown that people who played action video games for a few hours a day over the course of a month improved by about 20 percent in their ability to identify letters presented in clutter—a visual acuity test similar to ones used in regular ophthalmology clinics.

In essence, playing video game improves your bottom line on a standard eye chart.

"Action video game play changes the way our brains process visual information," says Daphne Bavelier, professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester. "After just 30 hours, players showed a substantial increase in the spatial resolution of their vision, meaning they could see figures like those on an eye chart more clearly, even when other symbols crowded in."

Read More at http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=2764

Gaming at Miami

I live in the tech dorm at Miami University and I interviewed one of our more avid video gamers about what gaming is like at this college:

1.What kind of games do you play?

-I play lots of shooters and guitar hero!

2. How often do you play?

- I usually play when I'm not in class, studying, eating, or hanging out with friends.

3. How many hours do you usually play per day?

- haha like 5 or 6 hours.

4. Do you usually play by yourself or online with other people?

-Oh...I'd say I play with other people about 90% of the time, either on xbox live or on system link.

5. Does your video game playing ever interfere with you academics?

-Sometimes, but I kinda have a rule that if I have to write a paper or something, I wont play until I'm done.

6. Do you play alot of video games because you enjoy them or there is nothing better to do?

- I play because I enjoy it, it kills time and partly cuz there is nothing to do on this campus really.

Online Gaming Doesn't Just Hurt You, But Everyone You Care About...

A Look at Video Gaming in College

College is known as a place to learn a higher education and to develop into a self-reliant, full functioning member of society. When students aren't in the classroom learning or at the library studying, a common time consumer/killer is video games. Video games are a common place where kids can go to get away from the stresses of school and take out their stress on some form of virtual plane.

A survey from MSNBC.msn.com found that 70% of all American College Students play Video games "once in a while", and 50% of all college students admitted that they play video games or online games to avoid studying.

The average college Gamer spends close to 5-10 hours playing videogames in a week. But in a survey taken in Times magazine it was shown that there are some students who consider themselves "hardcore gamers" and play up to 8-12 hours a day.

Well Rounded Look at IM

When cruising the net, I found a very good PDF written by Juan Marquez focusing on students at Stanford University, but it can also be applied to virtually any college. It can be found here:

http://www.stanford.edu/class/pwr3-25/group2/pdfs/IM_Social.pdf

The article really analyzes the often common misconceptions that people have of IM. I liked how he addressed that students use IM in many different ways and for many different lengths of time. Here is a good graph from the article that shows how much time 70 students he interviewed spent on IM, and the results were anywhere from 1 hour to 27 hours a week.



Many students start using IM around middle school age, which is an emotionally tumultuous time. IM actually increases depression rates at that time, but according to the article, most students grow out of getting depressed because of IM in a few years.

I agree with Marquez when he says the most appealing aspect of IM is multi-tasking. He discusses the busy schedule of most college students, and one thing most do not have much time for is spending it on the phone, so quick IM chats while they are eating or doing homework can help. Something he doesn't mention though is the possible use of IM in the classroom. As laptops are becoming more and more popular for students to have in class, some students are IMing during lectures, definitely not a good thing for academic success.

We as college students need to learn how to balance our time with IMing and deciding when it is and when it is not appropriate. It is a relatively new technology and will take time to teach when it should be used. IMing has a very good chance of making our lives easier if we can control ourselves.

Facebook Video

Negative Effects of MySpace

Though this video is a dramatization of so-called myspace addicts, it does bring up some good points. For example, many people do check their myspace web pages multiple times, and can even turn into extreme cases of obsession. This parody of myspace addicts is still humorous, and should be enjoyed!

Facebook Interview

Interview with a College student
1. What do you think of Facebook?
I feel that it seems fake and that I would rather talk to someone in person.
2. Do you use Facebook?
Yes, sometimes
3. Why?
To stay in touch with people
4. If I told you it was a waste of time would you agree?
Yes
5. Why do you feel it is a waste of time?
Because people spend too much time on it compared to doing more benificial things.
6. Do you feel that it disrupts a students grades?
Yes, if it gets out of control, which can happen easily.
7. How much time a day do you spend on Facebook?
half an hour
8. Does this take away from more important things?
Yes, homework, sleep, and studying.

Facebook

Facebook has become a social power house over the last few years, going from just college students to anyone being able to use it. A recent release from Facebook itself shows these facts:

• Over 150,000 registrants daily
• Over 55 million total users
• Over half of the total users are outside college
• Average visitor stays 20 minutes
• Most growth is among people over age 25
• 85% of college students registered
  

These numbers are outrageous and if you think about it you will see how big of a waste of time it actually is. In one of my own recent polls, I calculated the average college student gets on Facebook 4-5 times a day. That is a waste of over an hour to just look at comments. In college it is very important that you remain efficent because you do not have time to throw around. Is this a good waste of your time??

COOL LINK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_(website)

Harms of Instant Messaging

While IMing is a very beneficial form of communicating, it definitely has its downfalls. I notice people in class using chat engines, not focusing or paying attention at all. Many people are addicted to it as I once was. I used to chat for at least 4 hours a day, mostly using sleep time as the rest of my schedule was busy. I began to realize that I never really talked about anything I needed to know and so stopped doing it. Another problem that it causes is a very big distraction when trying to write papers. It's pretty tempting to just sit at my computer and just type that one sentence to one friend or send that one picture. Before you know it, you've wasted 3 hours and only have 1 paragraph on paper to show for all that time.

Instant Messaging

Instant messaging, also known as IM, has become a huge phenomenon on college campuses. It allows students to send messages, both long and short, to each other for FREE, a very nice benefit for us college students. IMing also allows students to stay in touch with other students from home.

The most popular IMing programs to use are AIM, Yahoo, and MSN. A program called Trillian allows users to talk to friends on all three popular IM engines.

Webcams have become popular with college students, mainly because of many students owning Mac computers with build in cams. While the three IMing programs have a video option, many users like to try out Skype or Oovoo. I prefer Skype because it has a better video quality, although the sound of Oovoo is a little better.