we can haz blog?

lilroto18 (7:58:11 PM): hey girl hey
magpie1052 (7:58:24 PM): well hello
Auto response from lilroto18 (7:58:24 PM): you can be my alphabet and i will be your calculator.
lilroto18(7:58:36 PM): how are you
magpie1052 (7:59:02 PM): alrighty, a bit busy..you?
lilroto18(7:59:40 PM): same i have a ton of homework i still have to do
magpie1052 (8:00:00 PM): are you planning on going to the bball game?
lilroto18 (8:00:17 PM): no, i was going to go to the library i think
magpie1052 (8:00:38 PM): have fun walking in the snow
magpie1052 (8:00:47 PM): i cant believe my stupid car got stuck again
lilroto18 (8:01:32 PM): i know!
lilroto18 (8:01:42 PM): i haven't even tried to get my car out
magpie1052 (8:02:32 PM): ya, i wouldnt if i were you
magpie1052 (8:02:50 PM): ps, we have to make some plans for the steelers game soon
lilroto18 (8:03:20 PM): yea, i want to make some kind of dip or somethink
lilroto18 (8:03:28 PM): something*
lilroto18 (8:03:47 PM): i was thinking vegatarian buffalo dip
magpie1052 (8:03:53 PM): loser, you would
magpie1052 (8:04:33 PM): but that may be good, ill make some non-vegatarian dip hehe
lilroto18 (8:05:01 PM): i tiff wanted to make regular buffalo dip
lilroto18 (8:05:34 PM): sorry, i think tiff wanted to make the dip
magpie1052 (8:05:49 PM): o ok
lilroto18 (8:08:49 PM): so you can get your meat fix
lilroto18 (8:08:50 PM): hah
lilroto18 (8:08:51 PM): a
lilroto18 (8:09:25 PM): but, i gotta get going
lilroto18 (8:09:32 PM): too much work to do!
magpie1052 (8:09:59 PM): oook ya i gotta get to my im bball game
lilroto18 (8:10:31 PM): good luck against those coaches
magpie1052 (8:10:44 PM): thanks!
magpie1052 (8:10:56 PM): see you home soon!
lilroto18 (8:11:03 PM): kk byyyye!!

The idea that I focused on from Always On by Naomi Baron in Chapter 4, was her attempt to define Instant Messaging as either more closely related to the way we speak or the way we write. This speech-versus-writing question becomes difficult to distinguish in messaging on-line because their are components of on-line communication that tend to be more formal, that is closer to the way we write, and also more informal like in the way we speak face-to-face.

As I was IMing my friend, I thought that afterwards it would be interesting to analyze our conversation based on the information from the chapter.I also thought it was important to include the timestamps so that it was clear how much time was in between each answer and to note that the conversation lasted about thirteen minutes long. There were however, long pauses in our conversation, relating back to the idea of multitasking or becoming distracted. This makes the name of this communication medium, instant messaging, to become a bit questionable. How instant are these messages?

As one section of the chapter talked about closings to the conversation I noticed that our closing statements lasted for about two minutes and took seven lines of typing. Like stated in the chapter, saying goodbye in a face-to-face conversation could be similar to this closing. Not only are endings to conversations more similar to speaking than writing, but so are many more aspects of instant messaging such as average turn length per person and chunking utterances into multiple sequential transmissions. However, females tend have more "involved" or "social" discourse rather than "informational". In this talkative manner, females tend to have IM conversations that are more related to writing style. The question really ends up being, is there any clear or correct answer to this speech-versus-writing issue or is it more an individual difference? Quite honestly I hope that the way I communicate online is different from both the way I speak and write.

The truth is, as popular as instant messaging and other means of computer mediated communication, each person use it differently and all aspects of their lives including race, sex, and socioeconomic status play a major role in these differences. Baron helps to explain the differences in communication between males and females through instant messaging in Chapter 4, and Hargittai's article more closely examines the relationship between other cultural characteristics that make up the population of certain computer site users.

One other interesting part of the chapter was finding out that lexical issues (abbreviations, acronyms, contractions, and emoticons, along with spelling mistakes and self-corrections) were hardly as popular in instant messaging conversations than depicted by the media.

Here is a song containing some common media portayals of instant messaging:

For as long as I can remember, everyone's always told me that females are good at English and males are good at Math. Who knew the same qualities would apply to the way language is used in Instant Messaging?

Since the other two blog entries were about Chapter 4, I decided to respond to "Whose Space?", the study on social networking sites. The hometown pride part is just a bonus ☺ (both Northwestern and UIC are located in Chi-town...woo hoo!)

To seem a little more legit, I did feel an interest/connection to the topic. I have used 3 out of the 4 main sites studied (Friendster I’ve heard of but never actually used…and what the heck are Orkut and Beebo?!) and I found myself comparing my own personal experiences to their results.

Note: Personal opinions are first and kind of long, you can skip to the actual study part if you want…I’ll make it bold or something.

Oh, and here's a timeline of when SNS'es came out just so you can see em all (I highlighted the ones in the study). Click to make it bigger.

In chapter 8, Baron brings up the idea of the "linguistic whatever", a generation that cares much less about the form of language. Many people argue against this informal attitude and believe that the Internet is the cause to this distruction of language. However, abbreviations and word changes have existed way before the time of new technological communication. These previous changes have not been attacked but are rather deemed as reflections of the current custom of that time. Now however, many people view this informality of language as a bad thing and believe that Internet language goes along with American society as a whole becoming increasingly more informal. My question though is, what makes informality a bad thing? If people are constantly monitoring presentation to others formally with dress, language, and politeness than are we really seeing a person as themselves or are they only playing a part? Maybe these more casual behaviors allow people to have more individuality and allow people to actually get to know people better for who they really are. Why does human language have to have laws, consitent patterns, or rules? If we as humans have constructed what is acceptable and proper, than can't we change the boundaries of this construction?

Maybe I am just one of those students that Baron introduces that say, "What's the big deal." I am, in fact a part of the "whatever" generation. But, although new language seems as if the one central improvement is speed and that American's are so focused on finishing quickly, can't we also think that these new abbreviations, presented by technological communication, actually broaden our world of words?

In Baron's 9th chapter, Gresham's Ghost, Baron finally finds a place to talk about the history of writing and print. A big part of me wonders if this chapter was misplaced in the book. It may, perhaps not in its entirety, but in some form, have served its purpose better at the beginning of the book. In any case, this was just something I observed, what really struck me was the section about the reading and writing test scores.

Chapter 8 of Always On really hit home for me. When Baron discussed how "lettan" and "lætan" both just became "let", I began to think about the words most commonly misspelled that I see. Besides words just being incorrect, I think that confusing the right word for a homonym is something that plagues writing, academic or otherwise.

Jumping back to things such as Facebook, I will admit that I definitely have bumper stickers related to the common mistakes.

I feel as though mistaking words is not simplifying things or advancing to a new age of language, it's just incorrect. They have different meanings, changing them all to the same spelling could lead to a lot of confusion, even though people do still get them wrong today. "Your the best." "Their going on vacation to" ARGHHHHH!!!!

I like the way the Crystal started off this chapter "Why do they do what they do?" because it is the first time that we see the answer technology is all about. When previously we have talked about how this technological world has controlled our lives, we now see a simple answer as to why we do it, simply put, it is fun! This idea allowed Crystal to bring up the idea of playing with language which goes beyong speed and efficiency to creating difference and distinction between language. It is not as if playing with language is a new thing, as Crystal's example shows, the Gadsby novel written by Ernest Wright in 1939 left out the letter e throughout the entire book. This shows that texting is just another form of language playing and that it continues to be competitive because players are continually 'upping the ante.' The only difference is we get to be a part of this language game and each individual can create their own rules to follow.

I really enjoyed the part of the chapter on text-poet Norman Silver. First off I thought it was interesting to even hear the term text-poet because I have never heard of such a thing and I also really enjoyed his 'txt commandments.' #7. "u shall abbrevi8 & rite words like theyr sed" was one that I liked because there is such a stigma against abbreviations when really it is just new creative ways to write out (type out) words in unique ways that do not change our spoken language.

I was fascinated by the new world that Crystal opened up for me in Chapter 4 of Txting. Who knew that an entire genre existed just for works using SMS? I didn't that's for sure. A lot of the works he discussed in the chapter were from other countries, so I decided to do some yahooing and see what I could discover.

As I sit here in pajamas and sweatpants with un-brushed hair, hunched over my computer with an energy drink, I am able to appreciate the convenience that CMC and computers in general offer.

It has been a commonly used joke that you can surf the net or go shopping in your pajamas, or even underwear, etc, if that is your desire. The ability to use the internet for communication allows us to remain in the privacy of our own living spaces if we so choose, which I think is a valuable tool. Also, I can do it any time, day or night. I don't have to blog at a normal hour of the day; I could do it at 4 am if I wanted to.

The study done about computer-mediated communication in students who were enrolled in face-to-face courses was an interesting one. I thought it was a good area to study, because CMC is definitely not something just used for distance learning, though I do see a lot of those "Earn your degree online in just 6 months!!!" ads.

This seems like a study that will become outdated quickly, and I wonder if the data collected today, only 3 years later, would be much more swayed towards CMC as it has increased in integration.

Before you go to the main part of my blog entry, though, I think you should check out this wonderful illustration I found about CMC.

As you can see, CMC involves kindness, wise thoughts, comparisons, investigation, and everyone involved has a smile on their face. What could be better?!

In "Emotional Expression Online, Emoticons Punctuate Website Text Messages", I was not really surprised to find out that emoticons were placed in normal conversation breaks where punctuation, breathing or laughter would normally go. Since it would be a huge interruption to conversation to laugh in the middle of a sentence and emoticons represent an emotion such as laughter, it would be an obvious interruption to the flow of a statement to put an emoticon in the middle of a phrase. Was anyone else thinking the results should have turned out differently?

At the beginning of Provine et al. the punctuation effect is described which is used to help explain laughter in conversations as being "filled with laughter." The difference in speech then as they suggest, is that laughter is not randomly distributed. In this way, when having conversations through CMC, emoticons occur where punctuation would normally occur. This study observed emoticon usage in three different placements including alone, before or after a statement, or during a phrase. After analyzing emoticon usage on certain message boards, the most frequent use of these emotions was at phrase breaks.

The question that I was wondering is why are these emoticons used and why is the placement so important? This article addresses these questions in an interesting way by referencing laugh tracks in television shows. Laugh tracks are added in shows most often after sentences or during phrase breaks. This idea is related to the emoticon placement in computer mediated communications. The use of these emoticons is to let the audience or other party know that the comment is supposed to elicit humor or an emotional feeling. However in face to face conversations do we use these somewhat awkward emotional responses as much as it seems we do in CMC?

These symbols as Derks et al suggests do not tell us what a person actually emotionally experiences but rather the motive behind the comment that is being made.

Why is there such an urge for people to share emotions and since we do not know how the opposite party reacts, are these emotions actually just reassuring the sender of their own emotion? Do you think that people who use emoticons for an emotion such as laughter are actually received as funny people in person as well or are they more often trying to be funny.

The Provine et. al article about :) ;) :( emotional expression was very interesting. :) The study itself was pretty standard, :-/ but they got extremely :-D robust results. (which were semi-expected?) But what I really :-))) enjoyed about it were the parts :-P which didn't really deal with the experiment itself :-O.

Alright, looking back at that, I want to kick myself in the face. Ugh... that's so awkward and terrible. I definitely understand the whole punctuation thing...especially because I read this in my head as me speaking it and all the emoticons just keep interrupting the flow of what's happening. I guess I could see an occasional smiley after a phase break at mid-statement such as with a comma, but other than that... Ew... that was rough.

The article brought up a lot of different applications and examples which I thought were valuable, such as the use of canned laughter on TV shows to indicate to people when they should be laughing or when something is funny.

The idea of higher-order versus lower-level processes was also cool. Even though deaf individuals were not limited in their actual vocal tracts to limit them from laughing, they still placed their emotional content as punctuation, rather than something in the middle of statements.

The way Bauerlein continues to refer our generations as revolutionaries makes me think that I should start looking behind myself while sitting at a computer and thinking about taking cover. But I guess that would actually be what Bauerlein is suggesting is going to happen to the bibliophiles of the world when us technophiles begin to take over.

I will start my discussion on Chapter 3 where Rachel has ended it by thinking about the last question that she poses on changing the way we view intelligence. This struck me most on page 94 when Bauerlein says, "they navigate the multimedia like pros...they know remarkably little about the wider world, about civics, history, math, science, and foreign affair...". At this part of the chapter, like Rachel has mentioned, I just wanted to ask, why can't we change what is considered intelligent? Intelligence and the categorizes that fall under it have been constructed from somewhere and if half of the population no longer fits the mold of what was considered intelligent, then why not restructure it? Or, do you think it has already changed except for some people beyond this generation who disagree with these differences?

On the topic of libraries and the elimination of books, I have different opinions than stated in this chapter. I do agree that library books seem more deserted than they had been before computers and other technology but this is because most often, on-line articles and sources have the most recent information. Looking at books from ten years ago, especially for a topic in college courses such as Psychology, will leave a student behind and have outdated information. I do understand, especially because I would rather read something on paper, the differences that concrete text and on-line information have but, I also can see advantages of the access and current availability that the internet offers.

Also, reading a little further Bauerlein mentions internet terminals in public libraries rising each year. Although the internet may not always be used as an educational tool, I feel as if it is a good thing that so many people are using libraries for something.

One thing Prof. Knupsky said to us in our last class really stuck with me. After a certain point, having an excess of statistics loses your reader as well as the meaning/argument.

Reading through the first several pages of Chapter 3 once again featured statistic after statistic, and I don't know if it was because of my less than ideal state of sleep deprivation that my attention span and cognitive abilities are limited, but I feel as though I could have skipped the first ten pages without any real trouble, as he doesn't get to his own argument until "That's the claim" on page 84. Did we really need 12 pages of introductions and statistics before he got to what he really wanted to talk about?

Anyway, I, like Rachel, found that my reactions to this chapter were somewhat choppy and therefore may require some bullet points.