The Web- Is it as safe as we think?

Why should we care about the online world? What is it about the World Wide Web that makes us so drawn to it? Why is society so fixated around the concept of the Web today? Throughout this week’s readings, authors Adrejevic and Castranova attempt to answer these difficult questions in their own unique ways.

In the article “Three Dimensions of iCulture,” author Mark Andrejevic discusses the many different concepts revolving around the internet culture we all live in. The first of these concepts is known as iCommerce, in which companies like Nike and Proctor & Gamble use a sense of online “interactivity” in their advertisements. Such ads serve to promote a relationship between themselves and customers. However, Adrejevic also warns that allowing users the chance to interact with ads also helps companies like Nike the chance to gather data on their consumers’ preferences. Such a concept also relates to the second topic Adrejevic discusses- iCulture. iCulture delves deeper into this concept of audiences being used by company ads, in that interactive advertisements allow companies the chance to profit from the ideas of their customers. One of the last discussed subsections of iCulture is known as iMonitoring, which appears to be the most intrusive of the three. iMonitoring involves everyday online websites such as Facebook and Google, covertly recording information on our online activities without our apparent knowledge. All in all, Adrejevic’s article discusses how companies utilize interactive ads and online websites to exploit their customers’ trust, ideas, and privacy.

Inversely, Castranova’s “Synthetic Worlds” discusses the dangers of online worlds in particular, such as those created from video games like Second Life. Castranova notes that synthetic (online) worlds have been rapidly growing in popularity these past few years. Throughout a variety of examples, he summarizes his ultimate fear that synthetic worlds will soon become so popular that they will inadvertently intertwine and blur the line between the real world we exist in. That said, Castranova also notes the potential good such intertwining can do as well, namely in the field of education and research (allowing educators a virtual, limitless space to communicate and conduct experiments).

Upon reading both articles this week, I was a bit dumbfounded to discover just how frightening the World Wide Web can be. Society today has become so reliant on the Web that many of us fail to realize how it’s being used to exploit our thoughts, and reduce out sense of real-world personableness. Such dangerous impacts actually remind me of my days as a gamer in middle school, where I used to be obsessed with a virtual environment called Rumble Fighter. In the game, players explore a virtual landscape and battle each other of their free will. Throughout my two years playing the game however, I can confess to that I obtained quite a bit of cash-op, or Rumble Fighter currency, to enhance my abilities in the game. Rather than paying for said currency with real cash however, I instead obtained it through the use of online survey providers, who exchange things like cash-op if a user completes a variety of random corporate surveys based on opinion. Though at the time I had no idea why filling out surveys equated to cash, I now realize the cash-op trade was a ploy to learn more about me as a consumer. The gripping interactivity of online games like Rumble Fighter, paired with the consumer manipulating mindset of big name companies really tarnishes the concept of the World Wide Web we’ve come to know and love in today’s modern time.  

One of the many survey websites out there today that “pay” user’s to fill out surveys. Many websites like these collect a variety of consumer data on unsuspecting users.

 

Romance and Sex Online

For this week’s readings, we have the chance to witness the dual nature of MMORPGs, and how they both help and hurt our societal concept of “gender and sex.” Even in today’s society, gender stereotyping of women and homosexual individuals is still a present and terrible issue. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that both groups are constantly berated with unnecessary objectification and scrutiny nearly every single day.

With the presence of MMORPG’s however (namely Second Life for the sake of this example), both groups finally have the chance to exist in a world where they can crush these stereotypes. Being that Second Life is a game constructed primarily of player built maps and cultures, society as a whole has the ability to foster a new environment- one where societal norms such as gender discrimination are a thing of the past. Unfortunately however, as per Brookey & Cannon’s “Sex Lives in Second Life,” this vision is nothing more than wishful thinking. Even with the presence of games such as Second Life, women and homosexual individuals are still chastised and mocked by other male players of the game, falling into their societal facades even despite this being a virtual environment. Apparently the free and open nature of Second Life and other games like it still fall susceptible to manipulation at the hands of ill-minded masses who play the game as well.

With that said, online games do not only serve to further insult the sexes. In Gross’s “The Gay Global Village in Cyberspace,” we have the chance to find that homosexual individuals have also been using online communities to reach out to one another, and find kindred spirits. Similar to the online community reading we dissected from Jordan Mccabe (resisting alienation), in which anorexic individuals used the Internet the support one another, the homosexual community also follows the same practice on a more positive note. Members of the community meet in a variety of different games, and forums to support one another through the struggles of public scrutiny. In many respects, this shows the web does have the potential to fight gender stereotypes, even if it is only in small steps.

A photo from the gay pride parade of Second Life, June 2011

 

When relating both readings to my own life, I find the best experience I can draw comes from a memory five years ago, in which I had been playing an online game called Rumble Fighter. In the game players had the chance to open “rooms” which would be used to field players for an all-out battle. Being an avid player, I often jumped into any open rooms I could find. On one occasion however, I noticed the tag “AMO” in the title of a room. As it turns out, “AMO” was an anagram for “All Male Only,” and was in fact a way of signifying the room was designed as a place for homosexual males to socialize, bond, and play the game together. Apparently the community of players that join these groups was very tight knit, and the administrator of the room quickly realized I was new. Out of interest, I played along with the fact that I was of the sexual orientation to learn more about the room. The administrator seemed nice enough to explain the anagram and such, but halfway through the discussion when I confessed to actually being a straight male, and was quickly booted from the room. This was the first and last time I choose to enter any room with that tag, understanding they probably used the location as more of a social space to play recreational game and bond with real life individuals facing similar issues.  Though I didn’t have the opportunity to see how they actually mediated discussion in said groups, I still wonder today how such activity was moderated.

Online Economy- Left to Our Interpretation

The concept of currency is always a very peculiar issue to discuss in modern economic climate. While the general ‘run of the mill’ method to a person gaining currency is through the means of working job- we have members of our society who have managed to “cheat the system,” propelling them to riches and fortune.

While there are a variety of ways to cheat the system, one of the most unique ways is discussed in the Dibbell reading, “Life of a Chinese Gold Farmer.” In the reading, we are explained what the concept of Gold Farming is. Gold Farming entails small business owners, who employee workers with below average salary (35 cents an hour) to play games such as World of Warcraft for extremely long periods of time. In turn, the gold/fake currency they collect is then packaged off and sold to real life customers who pay actual money for nearly quintuple the items value. Though extremely shady in practice, this illustration discusses how many real life employers are able to exploit online worlds for their profit. In some cases, the amount of revenue generated under such circumstances may even overpower the revenue generated by those who create and run the game itself- putting the whole concept of online gaming profitability to question.

Inversely, we also have the chance to see the positive things online worlds have to offer our economy as well. In the Linden Lab reading, we have the chance to see the computer juggernaut company IBM utilize the virtual landscape of second life to their advantage. In order to hold what would have been a large press conference for the organization, company heads took it upon themselves to team up with Second Life owners Linden Labs, so that the entire conference could be held on their virtual space. After holding the extremely experimental conference, the entire convention was met with huge applause. Many attendees applauded the company’s use of digital space, and IBM saved a fortune in what would have been transportation and setup costs.

Through our readings this week, we have the chance to see the duality present in online gaming. While there is a true chance for organizations like IBM to channel the benefits of online worlds through conferences and such, there are also scenarios in which individuals not even affiliated with online games can exploit them for personal reward. One example I found which truly hones in this week’s message is actually from my personal life. Last summer, a game by the name of Diablo III came out. The game was met with worldwide applause, selling 6.3 million copies in its first week. A bunch of my friends personally bought the game, and played it religiously for hours upon end. After two weeks of hardcore gaming however, I had come to find many of them had suddenly ended up selling their copies of the game. When I asked why, one of my friends informed me he leveled an account up to “60,” and then sold it to another player via http://www.playerauctions.com/sell-diablo-3-account/. He successfully made $120 off of the transaction- doubling the investment he put into the game itself.

An account for sale on Diablo 3.

 

After hearing this, I was dumbfounded. It occurred to me that online games, once developed, have the ability to influence the world’s economy in ways only left up to the interpretation of their players.  In this case, Diablo III had reached a point critical acclaim so early that online organizations and players alike were quick to reap its benefits. Ultimately, the economic benefit of online games/worlds can only be defined by those who choose to play it.

The World Wide Web- Influencing behaviors, changing thoughts on Privacy.

This week’s readings strike me as some of the most relatable material we’ve dissected in a while- that being, Internet Privacy and how its being perceived by our modern day society. Internet privacy, by its very nature, is a very controversial subject. While there are those out there who who abhor the very existence of the World Wide Web for its ability to break down many of our personal information boundaries (the most recent example of which being the public outrage of one NSA scandal), there are also those who embrace the idea of sharing every little thing about themselves online.

When discussing this week’s readings, we’ll primarily be discussing the latter of the two personalities- that being, individuals who post online without any consequence. Such users are discussed in depth in the article “Kids, the Internet, and the End of Privacy.” In the article, Nussbaum talks about the wave of social change in the minds of young adults today. This wave essentially encompasses the idea that children today choose to embrace the idea of “sharing everything” on the world wide web- be it their day-to-day activities, their personal issues, and in some cases, even things that are socially considered extremely private things to keep to oneself (i.e.-nude pictures). 

To add onto the unfortunate reality of the aforementioned behavior, we also have Madrid’s article “The Lying Disease,” who discusses another issue many online user’s face today. That being, an obsession with lying online. This example was illustrated with the story of Valerie, a kind-hearted woman blogging about her breast-cancer illness, who was strung along by multiple users claiming to have cancer. Valerie often blogged about her battles against breast-cancer, and throughout her time as a blogger, made many friends with the same issues. Unfortunately, she came across two individuals in her time who both faked having the same illness- one of whom stooped so low as to villainize Valerie for faking the illness instead of her. Ultimately Valeria was able to set the record straight with the confusion, but not after taking in a lot of unnecessary grief first. 

Upon reading both articles, I’ve come to find there is one common lesson to be learned here. It appears the introduction of the World Wide Web has truly changed the way modern day society functions. In regards to the younger generation, we now have a society that has been conditioned to constantly document every living thing they do online. On another side of the coin, we also have individuals who are using the sense of ‘culture’ and ‘community’ the Internet provides and are falsifying information about themselves to join these groups and seek approval. When coming to grips as to whether or not the presence of the web is universally a good or bad thing when it comes to our society today…I’m torn. While there are certainly a variety of benefits that come from websites, such as entertainment and truly connecting online with one’s friends- there is also a lot of havoc that can be reaped. This statement is especially true when we consider how diminished privacy has become with the invention of the web.

For example, let’s take a look at the following buzz feed article (http://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelzarrell/what-happens-when-you-dress-as-a-boston-marathon-victim), in which a girl choose to dress up as a Boston Bomber Victim. Though the idea itself was rather poor in taste, the young girl’s decision created an unprecedented outbreak of hate on the Internet. She proceeded to have all of her personal information stolen, had death threats sent to her parents, and was fired from her job in three days time. The speed it took for the Web to wreak havoc on this poor girls life was something unfounded, and it really speaks to how destructive a force such a service can be (especially when we consider loose Internet privacy is what led people to hurting her).

Qualitative Research- Dissecting Data

In this week’s reading, we’re introduced to the idea of what it means to conduct proper research, and more so, how to analyze the many findings we as students come across online in order to establish reasonable discoveries. Baym is the first to go into detail with this concept, discussing how the creation of the Internet has changed the way we as researchers go about the process of qualitative research- which, in layman’s terms, means the idea of capturing an in depth understanding of a specific subject. As such, she makes an effort to collect the findings of a variety of scholarly experts, who help her in constructing a guide of what constitutes genuine qualitative research. Of the many principals Baym highlights, one of the most relevant of the bunch happens to be the notion that the constitution of data is the result of a series of decisions.  To put that into a baser context, Baym essentially notes that we as researchers must have a standard way of distinguishing the many observations and bit of information we gather while conducting research.

When reading Boellstorf’s “Coming of Age in Second Life,” we have the chance to learn more about the concept of qualitative research through the context of our class’s online lecture medium, Second Life. In the chapter, Boellstorf introduces us to his very own research project, which is to study the virtual ethnography (or as he likes to put it, anthropology) of Second Life through the context of one of its players. Upon creating his own avatar and experiencing the world first hand, Boellstorf comes across a variety of unique discoveries regarding how players of the game function, as well as what fosters their sense of community and culture. While conducting his research, Boellstorf constantly remarks on his methods of conducting research while playing the game. In one instance, he is speaking with an avatar named Laura, and notes after the conversation that his engagement in the actual premise of the game (speaking with another player) allowed him the ability to extract valuable information about the game’s nature. In addition the importance of participation, Boellstrof also notes the gift and curse of conducting an online ethnography. Though being online means researchers have the chance to record any and all conversations they come across, they are burdened with the issue have having too much data to sift through and analyze (similar to Baym’s aforementioned argument).

When comparing the lessons of the following readings to my own life, I find no better example to illustrate then our last online class session while on Second Life, in which we were asked to take field notes while researching local hotspots on Second Life. Researching the culture and mannerisms of Second Life this week was no easy task. Truth be told, I found myself suffering from quite a few issues that I did not expect to come across when initially jumping into this activity. The first issue was that the Robot skin I normally wear during class periods did not blend in at all with my country club environment- making me the subject of minor chastising and avoidance.  The other issue I faced appeared to be dissecting “useful” information about my environment. Upon entering the country club, there was so much going on around me that I had no idea what to record as data for my report. While I initially assumed I could just run through my chatbox and analyze a stray conversation, as Boellstrof warned, there were simply too many things going that cluttered my recording tool. As such, I was forced to use Baym’s principal of highlighting what constitutes data, and spent most of my lecture time reordering the small lot of information I was able to collect. In the future, I plan on adopting better research principals while participating in an online Second Life Field trip. Specifically, I would like to try and covertly blend in with my environment, potentially striking up a conversation with a few locals to see how they normally behave when introduced to a new face.

 

A glimpse of the environment I was in.

 

Online Culture

               The term culture can be most readily defined as “the behaviors, beliefs, and characteristics of a particular social, ethnic, or age group.”-Dictionary.com

                In today’s day & age, there are a variety of unique cultures that individually represent the traits of their own respective societal collections. Though our society has come to recognize culture to be synonymous with the ceremonies based around one’s nation (or place of origin), the term actually has the versatility to characterize the customs of different age-generations, religions, and other such assemblies. The creation of culture is often unprecedented, and perhaps the biggest cultural phenomenon to sweep our nation as of late is the online culture represented by users of the Internet.  

                With millions of users logging onto to social media websites, MMORPG’s, and other such services each and every day, the world wide web has come to develop something of its own unique culture based off of the behavioral traits of its frequent users. Sydell’s NPR report on World of Warcraft offers a great illustration of what online culture truly looks like, when she discusses the behavioral patterns of users who play the game. According to Sydell, the rpg allows individuals to create online personas of themselves to tackle quests and challenges- similar to that of most video games, with the exception of the fact that there is an entire social aspect added to the environment thanks to its online capability. From this description, I came to draw that World of Warcraft’s ability to create its own “online society,” one which nearly mimics our own, is what gives it the capability to produce common behavioral traits and ceremonies amongst its users. For example, there is a tradition on the Internet in which players often misspell the word ‘owned’ to say ‘pwned.’ This phenomena primarily kicked off due to the constant mis-tpying of the letters “o” and “p” while players typed the word own on their keyboards (due to the fact that the keys are so close together). Soon enough, it became universally understood that this was a common flaw amongst many players, and they instead choose to turn it into a ritual of sorts every time a user is able to defeat another player in battle.

The widespread popularity of “pwned” turned it into a meme in recent years. Yet another example of a cultural ritual emerging online.

Moving forward from the quirky rituals, Sydell also discusses the dangers of online culture as well. When an online medium such as World of Warcraft reaches a point where it creates a widespread culture- one which, as we mentioned, is nearly identical to that of our modern day society- players often begin to take it much more seriously. Sydell pointed out an instance where a programming bug in the game caused a “plague” to be caught by players. This plague, which supposedly killed players in the virtual world, was responded too with widespread fear and agony. According to Sydell, many players were running rampant and begging game developers to end the supposed nightmare. Ultimately, I find this as a great example of how the over development of cultures in a society that is by no means ‘real,’ can pose some very harmful issues in the eyes of real life people. 

False Representation

In today’s modern day society, we as individuals are driven to try and appear ‘perfect’ to the public eye. No matter where we are, no matter what we’re doing, and no matter what crowd we’re with, we all have an inherent need to try and present ourselves to the best of our ability- even if that means sometimes manipulating our behavior to give off false, more favorable impressions of ourselves.

No one demonstrates this concept better than the Ellison, Heino, and Gibbs in their article “Managing Impressions Online: Self-Presentation Process in the Online Dating Environment,” in which the authors all discuss the concept of Internet users who self-regulate their online personas to appear more favorable to other potential users (in hopes of scoring a date). According to the authors, the increased presence of social media websites on the web today has encouraged more and more users to adopt the concept of “self-presentation,” and while the concept is certainly applicable in everyday life, the presence of social media allows us as users the ability to more strategically manipulate the way we appear to others online. 

To put things more into perspective, let’s take the social media website Facebook for example. As we all know, Facebook is the world’s most frequently visited website- offering user’s the chance to create “profiles” which embody their real life image on the Internet. The whole concept of Facebook, however, is sullied by the fact that people only choose to display things that make them appear favorable and cool to their social peers. On a few separate occasions, I’ve seen people post controversial statuses, just to get a single comment of negative backlash from one of their “friends”, and then proceed quickly remove said status in an instant. Furthermore, I’ve also found many girls choose to untag themselves in photos that they don’t think they look good in, and often post numerous posed “selfless” on the web. Facebook allows people the opportunity to portray themselves in one of the most regulated ways possible, and often gives us a false impression of who people really are. 

An example of a user poorly photoshopping a “selfie” of himself on the Internet. He seems to be portraying that he has a strong build, which of course is false.

Gamification in Today’s Society

Gamification can be most readily defined as the concept of adding gaming features (i.e- competitiveness, collaboration, achievements) into non-game based platforms. In the Man reading, “Playing in Real Life,” this example is demonstrated through the use of games on social media websites such as Facebook. According to Man, Facebook’s decision to include a social gaming aspect into their already phenomenal social networking experience was a move of sheer genius, and may very well have propelled them as the most popular website in the world today (Man 5). In Man’s opinion, gaming creates a form of addiction for its users, and companies like Facebook have learned how to harness that addiction in order to boost the popularity of their own business (Man 3).

Though I often consider myself one to challenge such bold retorts as these, I actually found myself agreeing with Man on most of his points. It is true that gaming does create this sort of ‘addiction,’ that seems to attract some sort of grip on its users. I recall my days as a gamer back in middle school, where I would spend entire days just playing with my Play Station 2 console.

From that point, Tanz’s article, “The Curse of the Cow Clicker,” chooses to elaborate on the concept of social gaming. According to Tanz, while the quality of social games is far from perfect, they seem to be gaining immense traction in the industry today primarily thanks to their ‘social’ factor. From what I gathered, there is a formula behind social gaming. A popular social networking medium, such as Facebook, helps introduce the player to the game. From there, the features of the game begin to foster an addiction of some sort with the user- making them strive for the highest score amongst their peers or beating the game in general. Now here’s where things get interesting. More often than not, social games require users to invite their friends play the game after reaching a certain level in order to continue ascending. I actually had the opportunity to witness this bizarre phenomena first hand when I friend of mine messaged me at 2am one night this summer pleading for me to accept his “Candy Crush” game request. He told me he needed to invite one more new player in order to make it to the next level of the game. At first I thought nothing of the exchange, but looking back on it now, I’m beginning to feel companies have found an ingenious way to increase their traffic- by adding the collaborative features of the Internet into their games so that more people are driven to play them. 

Personally, I find myself a tad bit uncomfortable by the concept of gamification. While I’ve certainly never seen anyone particularly impacted by a business’s ability to profit off of social gaming, something feels off putting to me about companies who exploit the friendships of users in order to gain more traction. 

Candy Crush. I’ve found game to be our modern day ‘cow clicker.’

The Virtual World

Coming into this course, I expected to learn about the “virtual world” we as a society have created through the development of new communication media such as the World Wide Web, cell phones, and other such services. To my pleasant surprise, this week’s readings did a great job in summarizing the general concept of what that virtual world is, and how it functions in parallel to our modern day, real world society.  

While similar in theme, each of the three readings we analyzed this weekend (Baym, Sanchez, and Bans) discussed the concept of online worlds in their own unique way. In the Baym reading for example, we were given a very thorough description of how specific forms of communication technology have changed modern day society in both positive, and negative ways. Baym chooses to illustrate the duality behind the presence of online worlds- that being there are some favorable benefits of online communication through its ability to channel private messages and manage large groups of friends (Baym 8); while at the same time also having the drawbacks of deterring people from the ‘real world’ activities going on around them (Baym 3), as well as leaving out different groups of people who choose not to immerse themselves in the construct of an online world entirely (Baym 18). In regards to the latter point, Baym specifically stresses the fact that due to the digital divide, the ideas of online influence we’re discussing only truly apply to select groups in the world, and as such, should not be considered universal theories.

A map of the computer accessibility of other countries.

 

Unlike Baym, Sanchez chooses to take a very different approach to his article. Primarily discussing real examples of online worlds, Sanchez describes how games such as Second Life and World of Warcraft have boosted to the monumental popularity they have today. According to Sanchez, the concept of online collaboration, online forums, and expanded Internet networks have made MMORPGs the choice medium for virtual play (Sanchez 11). Rather than talking about the double-edged effects of online worlds Baym mentioned, Sanchez simply chooses to explain the very black and white portrait of how Internet users slowly shifted their attention from real world activities to more virtually based ones, going into very little detail about its social implications.

The Bans article was considerably the most literal of our three readings. Choosing to center her entire piece on the virtual game Second Life (which we conveniently use for our lectures), Bans discusses the typical behavioral trends of users in the game. According to her, Second Life is a glorified version of our modern day world- where users depict themselves as ‘beautiful’ avatars, develop thriving businesses, and foster intimate relationships with other users. While a great escape for people who sometimes want a brief social release from the real world, many users of the medium are often found immersing themselves a bit too heavily into the virtual paradigm. In one particular example, Bans discusses the life of Rick Hoogestrat, a middle-aged married man who happens to spend nearly every 14 hours a weekend playing the game. His own wife even acknowledges his addiction, and refuses to believe she has the capability to “compete with that” allure (Bans 57). Furthermore, despite the games ‘universally equal’ type setting, Bans noted that during a test in which she entered the game as a darker skinned female, she found herself berated with hate. Inversely, as a white male character, her plight toward developing new friends was significantly easy (Bans 59). This comes to show that Second Life not only fails to hide the narcissistic traits of society, but in some cases, even encourages it thanks to the protection of a user’s identity on the Internet.  

All in all, despite their differences in theme, I’ve come to find all three readings help personify a similar message regarding the virtual world as a new, near tangible presence in today’s society. Through Sanchez’s article, we have the chance to see how exactly social MMORPG’s truly reached their rise to fame. With Bans’ article, we come to realize the allure of such games, and how they have an ugly trade off in promoting vulgar behavior. And lastly, through Baym’s article, we have the chance to understand more about the mechanics of online worlds, as well as the double-edged nature they represent to our collective real world society. 

This semester, I’m excited to learn about the many different ways people happen to be effected by the participation and use of such online games and programs. As a personal online gamer back in middle school, I found myself relating to a lot of the vulgarity present in Bans’ article, and I’m curious to hear the opinions and shared experiences of professionals and classmates alike.