Sesame Street and Attention Spans

My kids could care less about Sesame Street. I grew up on it, but they’re like “Snuffa-who-luff-what?” They don’t’ want to sit and simply watch a TV screen with which they have no input. They’ve got Dora teaching them to read and type on a computer where what they input makes an actually difference as to what happens next. Leap Frog, Nintendo DSi’s (the list goes on), true interactive learning is at their fingertips and they love it. But when they do sit down and watch Nick Jr. (about 98%  of what they do watch), I can see the producers do still stick with the shorter show for shorter attention span programming from the Sesame Street days. I often wish my daughter’s favorites, the Bubble Guppies and Yo Gabba Gabba, would last longer than 20 minutes so I could get some stuff done!

Since I usually share a quote and a thought, here’s one that made me love my gamer-ness (and that I’m passing it on to my children : ) :

“Mander claimed that television commands our attention but not our cognitive activity, indeed that it suppresses active attention and makes viewers into zombies (in Sesame Street’s case, one supposes, zombies who count and spell).”

Now, I do believe in physically activity, which video games lack, but my PS3 solves the problem discussed in the quote…the games command our attention AND our cognitive activity. My kids aren’t zombies, trust me. I wish they’d ‘zone-out’ from time to time, but I’m not that lucky.

To conclude, probably the most interesting thing about this article to me was how it got me thinking, “well, duh?!” I mean, how are we supposed to have marathon attention spans when we’ve got SOOOO much constantly coming at us? Not including TV (which does count for a ton), we can still have work and/or school and/or relationships and/or (the most traumatizing of all) CHILDREN in our heads (and ears!), the radio on, be stuck in traffic under huge billboards next to a guy waving a sign for cheap pizza while talking to your passenger who’s sending and receiving emails on his phone all while texting your wife “what’s for dinner.” Whew, it’s exhausting and if you paid attention for longer than five minutes, it could kill you.

Sarcasm got the best of me again.  :D 

Sharxjay signing off for the summer, have a great one, ciao!

Collective Behavior

First things first..."Sociologists have been researching collective behavior longer than new media have been in use" is a ridiculous statement to make. Although this was a well written and interesting article, I laughed when I read that. Wasn’t the written word a form of ‘new media’ at some point long ago? Pretty sure it was ‘in use’ and is much older than sociology and sociological research, I’m thinking.

As for the ‘2 or 3’ main ideas about the article, although there were many, I only want to talk about one…the Producing Consumer concept, or ‘Prosumer.’ The case study of the ‘Bus Uncle’ incident does indicate that we now reproduce and reinterpret what we’re given on the web. But what about off the web? Aren’t we prosumers in our everyday lives as well?  I feel with the feedback from us (in the form of whether or not we buy) that companies are exposed to, don’t we, the consumer, choose what will survive in any given market? I believe we ‘prosumed’ (my new past tense term!) the gaming phones that are out today. And Netflix (bye bye, Blockbuster). Heck,  even Volcano Tacos at Taco Bell (they were supposed to be ‘for a limited time’ but made their way onto the permanent menu probably because I alone eat so many of them!).

Okay, back into focus. I’m simply trying to say although this is an interesting term, it is not a new concept. The web has simply made it much easier for us to offer feedback to companies and Youtube video producers alike. Actors have said “you know you’ve ‘made it’ when they parody you on Saturday Night Live’…now Youtube vids have ‘made it’ when a couple hundred strangers mock, rehash or in other ways regurgitate them. Gaming phones came about because people LOVE their phones, and many of us LOVE gaming, etc, etc.

Hope I didn’t lose you all! ‘Til next, Sharxjay : )

the Good Enough Web (gew.blahblahblah.com? Naa, wouldn't of worked ; )

For this article we were asked to share what we learned and found interesting. I had to search outside the article to understand it since I had no idea what these terms were:


The Gopher protocol /ˈɡoʊfər/ is a TCP/IP application layer protocol designed for distributing, searching, and retrieving documents over the Internet. Strongly oriented towards a menu-document design, the Gopher protocol was a predecessor of (and later, an alternative to) the World Wide Web.
The protocol offers some features not natively supported by the Web and imposes a much stronger hierarchy on information stored on it. Its text menu interface is well-suited to computing environments that rely heavily on remote text-oriented computer terminals, which were still common at the time of its creation in 1991, and the simplicity of its protocol facilitated a wide variety of client implementations.

(found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol) )

Wide Area Information Servers or WAIS is a client–server text searching system that uses the ANSI Standard Z39.50 Information Retrieval Service Definition and Protocol Specifications for Library Applications" (Z39.50:1988) to search index databases on remote computers. It was developed in the late 1980s as a project of Thinking Machines, Apple Computer, Dow Jones, and KPMG Peat Marwick. 
WAIS did not adhere to either the standard or its OSI framework (adopting instead TCP/IP) but created a unique protocol inspired by Z39.50:1988.

(found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_area_information_server )

I found it interesting that I had no idea what these terms were! I’m well into my thirties and ‘from’ that era, a young adult in ’91 and ‘94 when those conferences took place. I was getting into computing, everybody was. I paid attention to tech stuff because I was into the stock market, everybody did. I knew what Linux was, got the just of html…but WAIS and Gopher? And I giggled when the article called them “real competitors” to the web, really?! I guess that just further proves another point of the article, the web wasn’t the best available technology, it was just good enough (and the most widely used and accessible : ).

Hope everyone’s paper is going well, I know I’m having fun with mine…signing off, Sharxjay

Virtual Deciet!

I really thought this summed up this article quite well: "The Internet did not create grifters...if anything, the Net has simply changed the dynamics of the game."
Yup, my thoughts exactly : ) It also said because of the mediums vulnerability to deception that Internet users should "adopt a healthy scepticism when online." I'm a mostly trusting person, but I keep a safe distance, especially emotionally, from strangers and strange things online as well as in real life. Keeping my guard up online comes natural to me since its always served me well IRL.
I do feel bad for the people who ended up feeling betrayed by the story. The sense of belonging to something, even simply praying for a cause, is very powerful and when those trusts are damaged...well this article points out exactly what can happen. I think Debbie knew what she was doing. I totally don't buy her "Oops, I didn't mean any harm" bit at all. She wanted what every 'cool blogger' wants...readers! It was wrong letting people comment and support and gather around this 'story' knowing that everyone else thought it was real. She should have let them in on her little secret earlier, like right away. Too bad they couldn't revoke her blogging license or something : )
So that brings me back to the beginning...people like this exist, with or without the Internet. Be careful who you choose to trust, period.

the End of Paper!

Besides the creativity inspiring things Coover discovered in his workshops, which I will address, I thought it reassuring that "the very proliferation of books and other print based media, so prevalent in this forest-harvesting, paper-wasting age, is held to be a sign of its feverish moribundity," was stated so perfectly well! : )  I know I'm concerned for the generations to come. Electronic teaching, reading and writing practice all save paper, and the planet!
Secondly, this quote made me smile: "But they also engage in continuous on-line dialogue with one another, exchanging enthusiasm, criticism, doubts, speculations, theorizing, wisecracks. So much fun is all this, so compelling this 'downright celebratory' experience..." Does this sound familiar to anyone? : )  I know I enjoy classes like these where we all engage and encourage each other, make some new friends.
Last, I wanted to know if anyone would be interested in a blogging "Hotel" like the community created one in the article? Jk, but how fun of an assignment would that be for a fiction writing class?!
Good luck on our 3rd test everyone!! Ciao for now, Sharxjay.

Blogging and Privacy

First of all, let me just say that I was amazed at how far Karen McCullagh went to define privacy. I did a ‘wiki’ for Dr. Coopman’s 181 class last semester on a similar topic I entitled “Privacy and Social Networking: Managing Your Personal Information” (if interested, found at http://comm181.pbworks.com/w/page/38889344/Jay-B ) and of course defined privacy management…once. This woman went above and beyond, and there were two or three definitions of just ‘privacy’ that I wish I’d used. The simplest was Warren and Brandeis definition as “the right to be left alone”. I got a kick out that one. Also, I liked what Westin offered, “the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine for themselves when, how and to what extent information about them is communicated to others.”

As did I in my more Facebook oriented paper, McCullagh raised the point that the expectations of individual bloggers is the key. You are posting potentially dangerous information that is archived and stored for potential predators to sift through and possibly hurt you with. It is important to realize and plan for this each and every time you post anything to the web, be it Facebook, Blogspot, Twitter, Yelp or whatever.

Lastly, I really enjoyed how this article discussed why we take the privacy risks in the first place…the rewards of social interaction! I omitted this type of thing from my paper, delving more into an educational type of warning for individuals to watch their online behavior for their own sake. But as a newfound blogger myself, I wish I had a least touched on the positive aspects of SNS and blogging, cause they are real and immeasurably wonderful! : D

Ciao for now, Sharxjay.

Lit Review Topic

I am going to do my research project on the wonderful, magnificent, and in all other ways utterly amazing PlayStation 3. As it is much more than just a gaming console, this devise, one I dragged my feet to purchase, has become the entertainment hub of my household. It has enabled me to meet a variety of new friends from numerous countries, and enriched my life in ways I never imagined possible before Internet gaming existed. Since Blockbuster and Hollywood Video both closed down in Gilroy, we stream movies through this ‘gaming’ console from Netflix, PS Store and Vudu. My son and I play games. My wife shops and collects and sorts music. My daughter, who’s 3, is learning to read. It is an amazing device that has changed the daily routines of my household. So, although it needs some polishing, my research question will be something like “what is PS3 and PSN and how/why do they rock so hard?” Okay, so it needs a lot of polishing, but you get the idea…til next time, Sharxjay.