Blog Recommendations

Hey guys and girls! I visited Beatrice’s blog at: http://portrayalsofwomen.wordpress.com. She had an interesting discussion (DOVE Campaign for Real Beauty) about the Dove real women campaign and how it is a great thing in modern advertising. Though I agree, I had to point out that what we see might not be exactly what they say we see. Unfortunately advertising likes to exploit both men and women in advertising for money and power no matter what the consequences. It’s no good but it happens.

So I was just at BIG Mike’s Blog (Michal Palous) see here: http://effectivenessofinternationalads.blogspot.com

You should really check out the section called: What is Meant by Effectiveness of International Advertising? There he expresses the different forms of international advertising as well as the modern connection ad influence it has on a global scale. Me, being an American, I we not exposed to many international advertisements as most people are here in Prague. I have to say, and did on the post, that the next big thing is Virial video advertising… just you wait.

Hold UP! The most anticipated film by creator of Supersize Me Morgan Spurlock is covered by our one and only: Karolina Hejcmanova at http://theproductplacementblog.blogspot.com. Take a look at the section The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. I pointed out how interesting this film is in the aspect of transparency. The film both explains and bashes (in a way) product placement, yet is completely funded by product placement. Great film and great way t depict advertising manipulation and control.   

So I recommend that you one: take the political communication class… if you don’t have to… and two: take a look at Barbora Netolická’s blog about political advertising. http://advertisinglimited.blogspot.com/. The post I recommend is the one called Daisy Ad and Her Charm. I pointed out that negative political campaigns, though statistically not looked at as the most influential in terms of political advertising’s influance, are the most influential to me personally. Take a look and give her some support.

Last but not least, I had the pleasure to discuss the impact of ART ART ART in advertising and media, on society on Christina Kneitz’s blog fond here: http://artchanges.blogspot.com

In the section ART ART ART! I mentioned that art is also a great tool of manipulation and a healing treatment for many individuals. It is just very sad that it is so vastly used as a source of pricking our emotions to do or buy something. Let see what the future holds!   

"Talk to me," Google

With high demand and use of smartphones, Google started to realize that not only was it difficult to type in searches on the small screen, but – because not much development has been put into it in 2008 – the pages were loading supper slow. 

So, Google being the genius they are, they started to develop a new way to search called: Grand Prix.

"In six weeks, engineers revamped mobile searching and hatched plans for new ways to search on the go, by talking or taking photos instead of typing."

Come on everyone... we want you to now talk to your phones! 

This will open doors to the ability to translate signs, get info about products, and other things that relate to image recognition on your phone.  

Related video: Introducing Word Lens (mobile video translation)

“I feel like a parent the second time around feels,” said Amit Singhal, Google employee. “You saw your first child grow at an amazing pace, and here we are with our second child, mobile, growing at the same pace and showing the same signs.”

What does this mean in respect to the Google generation?

How does this or will it affect students?

Let me know your thoughts! 

Read article here: Google, a Giant in Mobile Search, Seeks New Ways to Make It Pay By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

The Facebook Class

"ALL right, class, here’s your homework assignment: Devise an app. Get people to use it. Repeat." 

(HELFT)

In the fall of 2007, a class in Stanford college were told to create applications (apps) that could be downloaded (DL) and used for free on Facebook. Some of the students not only ended up getting Millions of users to DL and use their apps, but some started to make more CASH – when advertisers rolled in – then their professors! 

This resulted in tons of jobs for the students and the start of a new model of entrepreneurship: "the lean start-up."

Unfortunately, this also has lead to The App Phenomenon... you may ask > Why unfortunately?

This app trend has unleash a new wave of WORTHLESS technology innovation > A Procrastination Bubble! With the help of wireless technology > iPhone and Android > you can now waist even more time outside the comfort of your home. 

NICE!

It has also lead to an easier way to cheat on tests and not focus on your studies!

I have to say that I do respect the business side of app creation. Here is a few NICE quotes :) 

“The Facebook platform was taking off, and there was this feeling of a gold rush,” said Mike Maples Jr., (investor and class attendee)

"The class, more than anything, set the tone for us to try to start something big,” says Mr. Baker, 32, Friend.ly’s C.E.O.

I feel that with the development of apps, these new media platforms are growing and growing to the point of complete attention takeover. What happened to the day of conversation, reading a paper book on the metro or writing notes in class with a pen?

Though this class learned a great lesson in business development and innovation... lets see them battle the future generations of laziness, obesity, and retardation.

NICE...

See full article here: The Class That Built Apps, and Fortunes - By. MIGUEL HELFT  

Academic Essay - New Media's Impact on Students

With the emergence of many new media platforms that are being integrated into all aspects of education, work, social interactions and everyday life, we are starting to see the increasing effects (both negative and positive) they can have on the basic development of students’ cognitive processes, problem solving and intellectual growth.  Many young people have a fixated dependence on or feel a social obligation towards these public new media options: social networking sites, blogs, search engines, etc. Less than 10 years ago people found entertainment through television, simple two dimensional video games, movies, and spending time with friends, talking, laughing and calling each other on the phone. 

With new media and the Internet, mediated communication and online information retrieval have become dominant forms of entertainment, available through the internet’s expansion of the free flow of information, social networking or other new media website platforms. The era of  “snail mail”, calling on land-lines, going outside, playing board games, and expanding your mind through reading, researching in the library and communicating face-to-face, has been replaced by procrastinating, socially isolated, technologically depended students, parents, individuals world wide with a increasing habit and need towards the fast growth of technology, as well as the introduction to a social networking, and interdependence of people in this newly mounting technological paradigm. 

Many students, academics, scientists, psychologists, researchers, and everyday business or common people rely exclusively on Internet communication to transact their affairs, making use of social networking and news sites to gather the information they need at a quick click of a button.

The free flow of information is grounded in a widely accessible platform that is mounting like a disease or virus that engulfs all past forms of obtaining information. For better or worse, there are effects on the maturing generations. Within this new media sphere, the ability to disperse user-generated content has expanded exponentially among all generations, and dramatically among the younger generations of students, and adults. These new media websites let their freely registered users share personal, illegally obtained, and private content, and are escalating rapidly within this developed net neutrality – the principle that the Internet should treat all content the same and equally. 

Principle that the Internet should treat all content the same – all content is treated equally. Net neutrality gives internet users equality opportunity get publicity, express opinions and browse the publicly opened Internet. Websites like: Facebook, Twitter, Google, Bebo, Yahoo, and Youtube are not only worth a substantial amount of money, but this platform also brings in a high level of user use and advertising volume. Analyst firm eMarketer Incorporated estimates that Facebook’s ad spending will double to almost $4 billion in 2011 with 2.2 billion coming from the US alone. They also estimate that over 130 million people in the US will be using Facebook’s services in 2011, and over 150 million by 2013 (eMarketer.com). Twitter is expected to earn $150 million in advertising revenue for 2011 and $250 million in 2012. Facebook has more than 500 million active users, and in 2010 Youtube has exceeded over 2 billion views a day (eMarketer.com).

These new media platforms are attracting a market that includes all age ranges of users and provides content, information, material and news. The content that is made available, in any single day, is enough to keep an average person occupied for a lifetime. Along with addictive applications, quick search results, games, research capabilities, and anything that person desires; these new media corporations are developing these platforms for content distribution, readily available for the consumers at home.            

Unfortunately, this overwhelming flow of information and modern attraction to these new internet platforms can lead to antisocial, un-social behavior and a distraction from other more important tasks; studying, exams, homework. This all dependence on your home computer, even as the quality of products is decreasing as might be expected by their geometric increase. And even at their best, some forms of information and entertainment are degraded in quality because they are digital simulacra of the genuine thing (movies, music, lectures, books, newsprint). 

Related Web Pages to Visit!

Here are a few links to visit related to this blog as a whole:

1. In an article by James Temple called "All those tweets, apps, updates may drain brain," he looks at the influence of new media technology and multitasking on individuals. This will give you a more direct insight of the world of texting and multitasking that most of us do daily.  

2. Though these suggestions are mainly for parents, Dr. Julie Weed wrote an article called: Setting limits for your multitasking teen, giving parents ways to help their teens from procrastinating and obsessing over new media outlets. There are some helpful tip and tools that all students can use when trying to get away from time wasters.

3. Here is a link to a video about Google and Verizon joining forces against Net Neutrality. It is called: Google Verizon attack Net Neutrality: That's Bullshit. The looks at the negative effects of getting rid of Net Neutrality and changing the flow of the internet as we know it. This is a bit unrelated to the topic, all will try to clarify the connection in the academic essay section.

Hope you Enjoy!

Facebook & Narcissism

A study, conducted by Researcher Soraya Mehdizadeh from York University in Canada, concluded that individuals with low self-esteem or are insecure and narcissistic have more of a tendency to check their Facebook pages more regularly than average.

See article here: Facebook users 'are insecure, narcissistic and have low self-esteem'

These students tend to check their Facebook page more often and to be more active in self-promotional activities – posting a picture, commenting and updating their status.  This behavior is more common in female students using Facebook than male students.

Though this could possibility allude to low G.P.A. being caused by low self-esteem or vice versa, further study is required before any firm conclusion can be reached.

This study really made me think how pathetic and unneeded Facebook can be. Give me your thoughts.

Do you think that Facebook is a platform for narcissism? 
What about the gender factor?

Google On The Brain

In a recent interview with Google’s User Experience Research Manager, Patrick Larvie, interviewed by Gerry Gaffney on User Experience Podcast (uxpod.com), asks: “ [Google has] had a very interesting effect on the teenagers that I encounter...[they just type] in sort of some random quasi-spelled fashion and [assumes that]… Google will fix it’.” “I hope that that’s true.” Responds Larvie, He points out that English “spelling is not intuitive” and “is a real barrier” when dealing with a search interface. What he finds as a solution is to: “continue to try to make sure that [teenagers] don’t have to know how to spell everything on their own” in order to make a more sufficient Google search and experience through various helpful tools.

Click here for the interview MP3 and Transcript here.

This is one of many solutions that Google has in store for the growing generations who depend on this interface as a main source of information, research and know-how in our Internet dominated world. The big question is: are these solutions resulting in a increasingly smarter “Google generation” or are these so-called tools impairing cognitive process and problem solving among younger and older generations alike?

Tom Satwicz comments in his article “Google as Distributed Cognition”, on Larvie’s quote within the interview: “So we will continue to try to make sure that [teenagers] don’t have to know how to spell everything on [their] own.” He focuses on this section of the interview because it shows how there is a defined joint effort between the user and Google when solving problems, finding information or browsing the web. This idea of Google doing good by taking away natural cognitive processes like spelling or memory in order to “immediatize” searches and remove possible “barriers” that “get in the way”. In their eyes this is progression and innovation, but in reality this is manipulating, pampering and preparing societies to be strictly dependent on a new form of unintuitive intelligence, what Patrick sees as Google’s intended design. What we see nowadays is a deterioration of effort, focus and time put into learning because of this dependency and/or over-availability.

Is Google making us stupid or are we to blame? Next post might just answer this question... 

Introduction

If you are like me, new and social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pitchfork, Youtube, Collegehumor, Failbog, Google search, and too many others are my escape from everyday life. I spend the majority of time – hours a day – on these platforms, no matter what the circumstances. They are my bread and butter, my vice. 


The problem is that these new media platforms can get in the way of my studies. I have found that I am procrastinating more, my attention-span has lessened and I get stuck scrolling down through the endless content, craving for more. For me, it is a constant battle to avoid wasting my time online. Though, I try to find new music on Pitchfork, uplifting articles and videos on Collegehumor, and keep in-touch with friends and family in America on Facebook, with just these three things, I can spend 3 hours in one siting; accentually wasting my time. 


Within this blog I want to look at the impact of social media and new media platforms on students ability to problem solve, as well as the impact on their intellectual, cognitive development. I want to see if there are major issues that can come about from spending too much time on these platforms. I want to look at studies that are related to this issue and possibly come up with some solutions that could help counter the time wasted online. I also want to dive deep into Googles effect on the brain. There is a very interesting article  called, Is Google Making Us Stupid By Nicholas Carr, that I will spend some time on in later posts. I would also like to talk about Net Neutrality and it's connection to the co-operation between Google and Verizon (see my logo here :) Veroogle). 


Lastly, I hope to inspire students, teachers and all individuals to keep a watchful eye on these developing platforms. In our day-and-age, new technology is created to make things easier for individuals, but what I have seen so far is that these new developments have the potential to cause harm, make way for control, manipulation, and induce dependance and procrastination that is not needed for life and living.


If this post has interested you, please stay tuned for more to come!