Week 4 Participation

This week I completed the following tasks for class participation:

• Completed all week three assigned readings.
• Posted four blog entries (this makes five).
• Read all my classmates' blogs and the official class blog, and posted comments on ten separate entries.
• Read week four discussion board content and contributed seven comments.
• Researched online communities for the observations paper and wrote said paper.
• Still checking into outlets for my produsage project and still haven’t made a decision, even though I know the clock is ticking…

Pro-Ams

The discussion board threads this week led me to think about pro-ams in my line of work. As I’ve mentioned before, I currently work in the field of mental health and suicide prevention. Obviously, psychotherapy and the prescribing of medications must be done by a certified professional. However, there is a lot of room for pro-ams to contribute in policy, advocacy, and community mobilization.

Since 100% of my income springs from suicide prevention work, I guess I would be considered a professional. But it was my work as a pro-am that allowed me to become a professional. And isn’t that the ultimate goal? To transition from pro-am to professional, like the tennis player cited in the class text?

Many crisis hotlines employ counselors who don’t have any formal degree but instead have been through intense training programs. This allows the hotlines to employ a lot of counselors at less cost, or no cost at all if they take volunteers.

Our field is also strongly supported by suicide survivors, or people who have lost a loved one to suicide. They have formed statewide coalitions, community task forces, support groups, and they advocate for mental health legislation. These survivors have turned their personal loss and grief into action, and many survivors have educated themselves to reach the pro-am level. They all have their own separate work for non-related businesses and organizations, but ultimately their true passion has become preventing suicide, overcoming stigma, and promoting awareness for the issue.

At first I was skeptical about the pro-am concept because it seemed like having a glorified hobby. But after considering the real-life application to my work, I am more convinced that this is a real phenomena and extremely valuable to the success of my field.

Week 4 Prompt Response

Judging expertise on the web can be tricky. Generally, if I am looking for sound, reliable information, I look at the author and the source. Is the author a well-known, respected professional in the subject matter? Have they been published or quoted by their peers? However, if the source is considered reliable, then I will usually deem the author reliable by proxy. For example, if something is printed in The Economist or The Christian Science Monitor, I take it for granted that the publication wouldn’t risk their reputation by printing bogus material.

That being said, not all information on the web needs to come from an expert for it to be useful. I tend to look at reviews for almost everything on the web, and I know that most of the time the reviewers are not subject matter experts. I trust reviewers to give me lots of supplemental information that I wouldn’t be able to get strictly from the original websites. For example, before purchasing clothes from OldNavy.com I always read the reviews to see what kind of “fit” the clothing has; is it true to size? I read movie reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and Netflix before going to the theatre or renting a DVD. And I could spend hours reading a plethora of product reviews on Amazon without ever making a purchase. If the original websites don’t host member reviews, then I can usually look on Facebook and find a page dedicated to product discussion. I also use Wikipedia a lot, despite warnings on how unreliable it may be.

Judging expertise in person is different. When in person, reputation and word-of-mouth tends to bear heavily on my opinion. If my boss or colleague speaks highly of someone then they automatically win points with me. Work history is still important, but I think a strong recommendation can speak volumes for credibility.

So, judging expertise online and in person does differ. I think when searching for official “sources” online I scrutinize the information out of fear that I might quote wrongful data. I also think that many people are distrustful of online information because you can’t see the publisher, and we’ve all heard horror stories about people misrepresenting themselves on the web (reference: To Catch A Predator). However, it seems like many people (myself included) could stand to be more skeptical when judging in-person, because we tend to get swept away by the sensory experience of the actual meeting and have an inherent instinct to trust.

In follow-up to Shirky's chapter about Web 2.0 helping to solve social dilemmas, check out this CNN article.

Chavez claims to help nearly 288,000 Venezualans through Twitter

Are You Digitally Addicted?

Check out this really interesting blog posting from Psychology Today. Here's an excerpt:

"A recent social media addiction study by Retrevo reveals 27% of those surveyed under 35 years old admitted to checking their social media pages such as Twitter and Facebook more than ten times a day. Thirty-six percent of the 35 and under group admitted to updating their platforms right after having sex while 40% in this same age group admitted to updating while driving."

Week 3 Participation

This week I completed the following tasks for class participation:

• Completed all week three assigned readings.
• Posted three blog entries (this makes four).
• Read all my classmates' blogs and the official class blog, and posted comments on 12 separate entries.
• Read week three discussion board content and contributed three comments.
• Read some blogs on Web 2.0 and marketing, including investing in your audiences.
• Researched online communities for the observations paper. Began lurking/participating in said communities.
• Researched possible formats/hosts for my produsage project, including checking out a few leads from my fellow classmates. At this point, I haven’t made a decision though.
  

Has Facebook Changed Your Life?

According to this article, sometime next week Facebook will reach 500 million users. To celebrate, Facebook will launch a visual memorial to all the ways that the social network has changed people’s lives, such as through finding love or documenting natural disasters.

I give kudos to Facebook for being able to attract such an overwhelming following to their social utility, but I also find myself somewhat skeptical to the idea that Facebook has actually changed lives. Our lives are altered by momentous experiences such as being accepted to college, getting married, having children, losing loved ones, being diagnosed with illness, etc. Does Facebook really qualify as one of these life-changing experiences? I’m not so sure. Perhaps there are a handful of people who did fall in love through a Facebook connection or landed a job because of their social networking skills, but I can’t imagine that the majority of those 500 million users would fall into that category.

Has Facebook changed my life? Somewhat. Now, I have an excuse not to travel to my high school reunion because I can stalk all my old classmates on Facebook. Now, when I go out to dinner with friends I have to make sure that I don’t let anyone take pictures of me a martini in hand because those pictures will surely end up tagged on Facebook. Now, I have to monitor my privacy settings in case potential employers or old boyfriends decide to look me up on Facebook. For me, Facebook is a double-edged sword. I enjoy the connectivity, but I don’t enjoy that increasing levels of personal information are floating around in cyberspace for people to access.

Would you say that Facebook has changed your life in a positive way, negative way, or not at all? What about other social networks?