User talk:Evp09

Hi, I'm Eva Prikler, this is my user discussion page. I'll be using this to register my ideas for my educational assignments and also to contribute to a Wikibooks project. please feel free to add comments. --Evp09 (discuss • contribs) 15:49, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

wiki exercise 2, educational assignment
This is part of a larger project, and I'm using it to build up discussion with others about the same topic.

I’m visible on most of the popular platforms, however I try to keep my accounts private to protect my identity from the people who don’t actually know me. I don’t have an Instagram, Snapchat or Tinder profile, but I use other social media like Facebook and Twitter.

I use Facebook mostly on my mobile phone. I’m slightly new to Facebook, only started using it when I moved abroad, so that I can easily keep in touch with my friends. Now it would be impossible to quit Facebook, because my workplace posts everything important in the groups. I try to protect my personal data with the privacy settings; if someone is not my friend, they can only see my profile and background pictures, and my current city. Because I don’t share many details on my profile, people say that it almost looks like a fake profile. Even if someone is on my friend list, I don’t share every information with them, because I’ve got a lot of work contacts who are not really friends. For example, my friend list, my full date of birth my workplace are hidden from everyone. I don’t share any pages on Facebook moreover, most of the pictures I’ve got in the albums are pictures I’ve been tagged on. On the other hand, I try to make the best possible profile picture, because I have to keep my look professional for work. I don’t really use Facebook for my family members. They know what’s happening to me anyway, I usually communicate with them via Skype. I’ve only got two contacts on Skype, my mother and my sister.

I used to be on Twitter more often than on Facebook. For me it is a more personal platform, where I’ve got less followers. This account is also set to private to my details. It is easier to get a sense of who I really am on Twitter because I share personal thoughts that I would never share on Facebook.

I’ve also got a Google account that I use for Gmail which is my main email address and for YouTube. I’ve got a Google+ account as well, but I never used it.

I don’t use Netflix or Spotify, but I’m subscribed to Amazon Prime, which gives me pretty much the same experience; I can watch movies and listen to music at this platform.

The most ‘me’ profile is on Pinterest. Even though, less than 10 % of my followers on that platform are my friends. I don’t know the other people. I use it to create boards that I’m interested in and pin pictures, articles on my walls. These inspire me to create my outfits, nail and hair styles or make food. In this way, I can save things for later, I can easily look for them and share them with people who have the same interests. On Pinterest I can follow other people or just some of their walls and other people can do the same. On this platform, people barely know any personal information about me, just my name, but it can be a username as well. The point of the whole thing is the similar interest, not the person.

--Evp09 (discuss • contribs) 10:45, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Comments
I find your point about pinterest really interesting in that it is more about your interests rather than the person. When writing my wikibook article on this topic I didn't really think about my pinterest account at all, and I suppose that's probably why. However, it is interesting how our identities on some websites (such as pinterest) are designed to make us feel like we are almost anonymous. Do you think this idea that you can stay unknown from your followers makes you more confident in posting about what you like much more freely? Justalex 28 (discuss • contribs) 10:46, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Justalex 28 28 Definitely, the fact that barely anyone knows me on Pinterest helps me to pin anything on my walls that I find interesting. At first, when I started, I genuinely thought that no one would ever look at the things that I'm posting there. But I guess that's the magic of the internet, it connects you to people who are interested in the same things as you. However, Pinterest is a little bit different, even though my followers like my posts, but it doesn't mean that they would like to contact me; they're not interested in me as a person - for example, they don't message me-, but they share the same interests.

--Evp09 (discuss • contribs) 15:38, 7 March 2016 (UTC) @Evp09 Your use of Facebook got me thinking about why we are so attached to social media. In your situation it seems that for you it is impossible to quit it if you wanted to because your main contact with work is through facebook. Work seems to be your main reason for using Facebook, and because work requires a certain level of proffesionalism, does it mean that you can't fully express yourself on that platform? Your comment about pinterest also caught my attention. You described it as "most me". `Since pinterest is not a very personal SNS, I find it intersing that you have found a way to make it personal to you and to the audience that is viewing it. Toriettaaw (discuss • contribs) 13:50, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Toriettaaw True, if I didn't have most of my work contacts on Facebook, I probably would have deleted my profile already. I was never really one to share every moment of my life on Facebook, but because of work I can't allow myself to post silly things on my timeline, I guess my thirty-year-old self will be very grateful for not having any drunk photos.

Pinterest is totally the opposite for me. Maybe the liberation that no one really knows me on that platform is the reason why I decided to make my boards so personal. If anyone looks at my pins, they will instantly see the movies that I've watched, the food that I want to make or have made, the places that I miss or would like to visit one day, while on Facebook, I don't think anyone can find out anything about the person I am.

--Evp09 (discuss • contribs) 15:30, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise 3, educational assignment
This is part of a larger project, and I'm using it to build up discussion with others about the same topic.

Richard Saul Wurman uses the term 'information anxiety' to describe our attitude toward the volume of information in general and our limitations in processing it.

I can definitely feel what he means. It seams impossible to start my day without getting to the bottom of my timeline on Facebook and Twitter. It causes stress in my everyday life, because I know I should be doing something more important instead of checking social media.

In 2005, researchers W. Russell Neuman, Yong Jin Park, and Elliot Panek estimated the change in the amount of information available to a typical American household between 1960 and 2005. The study found that in 1960, the number of ‘media minutes available’ divided by ‘number of minutes of actual consumption’ was 82. By 2005, that number grew to 884. Without doubt, this number has increased even more since the invention of Facebook.

The challenge of dealing with the new level of information overload is 'in our view… not a human-scale cognitive challenge.' And because overload leads to stress, and depression, it is important to find effective ways to cope.

When it comes to information overload, for me the easiest way to deal with the distraction is building a daily routine for myself. It means that I start my day with checking my Facebook account, which is my primary account, then Twitter, and finally my emails. While for example watching videos on my favourite channels on YouTube and reading news belong to my evening exercises that I usually do after having dinner.

Apart from this, I'm constantly available on Facebook Messenger, because of my friends, on Skype, because of my family members, and I check my emails as soon as I notice that I got one and then answer back right away, because it is crucial for my job. These are my priorities.

My schedule only changes, when I have to get course work done. When I’m working on an essay, I try to put my phone away, but it's not always easy. When I hear that I’ve received a message, it's hard not respond, but I know if I looked at the message, I couldn't get on with my work.

On Facebook for instance, I don't follow everyone's timeline who are on my friends list, only my actual friends'. Also, when I like a new page, I don't always follow it. This is the easiest way to make my timeline shorter.

When I find an interesting post or article, sometimes I save it for later, when I've got more time to read it. It doesn't mean that I actually read the article, because I might forget about it, or I don't find it important anymore.--Evp09 (discuss • contribs) 09:00, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

@Evp09 I fully agree with you that there need to be found a way of coping with the information overload that constantly surrounds us. With the amount of content produced by web users on an everyday basis, it is very easy to get lost in it. I fully agree that information overload causes stress. Especially when it comes to getting your university assignments done. The Internet consumes you with pointless posts with catchy titles. I feel that social media puts us in very tricky situations. It is so rooted in our everyday life, that we find it impossible to dis-attach ourselves even for a couple of hours. The idea itself that before the internet was used as a source of communication and phones were dominant communication devices puts a certain anxiety on me. I guess this relates back to Always - on culture and how deeply attached we are to the web. I also find your way of controlling information that appears on your timeline very useful. Have you ever lived a day without a phone? Did it cause an effect on you? Toriettaaw (discuss • contribs) 10:22, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Toriettaaw Honestly, I can't remember the last day when I didn't have my phone right next to me all day, I think it was before I got my first phone. It feels like I have to be connected all the time (always-on), so that my family, friends and managers can contact me whenever they want to. If I lost my phone, I'd probably get another one the next day. Even though I try to limit my time on Facebook, it's so easy to lose track on time, and sometimes I just end up being on social media for hours, same with YouTube for example. I know that some of my friends don't have the application, they only check their Facebook accounts, when they're at a laptop, and it sounds extremely helpful.

--Evp09 (discuss • contribs) 15:47, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Comments
I found your thoughts here very interesting, I really agree with you on many of your points. I find the term 'information anxiety' very interesting and apt. I too often feel overwhelmed by the amount of information we have such easy access to online and how, even with this access to knowledge, I tend to spend most time on social media sites such as Facebook. I have realised that I definitely feel 'obliged' to have a Facebook page. Rather than feeling liberated I worry that if I ever deleted my Facebook I would feel very stressed that I would lose touch with a lot of friends, a fear that is both annoying and alarming. I never thought I would rely on social media so much but I am concerned now that it has made me lazy in terms of keeping in touch and communicating with people. I know exactly what you mean when you say that spending time on social media, when you know you should be doing something else, can cause stress. I think this links back to 'always on' culture and I too experience this when I find myself on sites such as Facebook and Twitter but know that I really should be doing something more worthwhile. EilidhNo.2 (discuss • contribs) 13:43, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

EilidhNo.2 I like the idea behind Facebook that you can connect to others, no matter where you're in the world. Most of my friends live in other countries and I love that if I wanted to I could talk to them all day long. I find your point interesting that social media makes you lazy in terms of communicating with your friends. I noticed that I tend to talk with people who are also in Stirling more than with the people who live somewhere else, even though I really miss them. It seams like we take most of our friends granted. But also, I know that messaging my friends is not the same experience as talking with them. It will never be as fun as sitting in a café and discussing how their day went. So, I think Facebook is great if you need all your contacts on the same platform, but for meaningful relationships, it's not the best.

--Evp09 (discuss • contribs) 15:59, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

last wiki exercise
This exercise will provide an overview of the Wikibooks exercise we collaborated to.

Alvin Toffler claims that “access, freedom an engagement were key factors in the spread of the popularity of online engagement”, therefore, the internet can be seen as a means of increasing access to participatory democracy. In this way, the invention of the internet allows the users to create new forms of civic culture.

The internet is a space “[w]here members believe that their contributions matter, where members feel some degree of social connection with one another.” In this sense, the internet helps the consumer to become the producer. Moreover, according to David Gauntlett “the web is about any collective activity which is enabled by people’s passions and becomes something greater than the sum of its parts.”

The Wikibooks exercise created this notion of online sharing, collaboration artificially. We were not volunteers who wanted to engage with something we are interested in. As the project was part of the module requirements, we were forced to create a page on Wikibooks, add content to it and leave comment to each other.

This is not a platform that we would use every day for sure, therefore, for our group, the hardest thing was to start writing and communicating on the page. We were talking in person or on another platform to discuss a few things, like emailing Greg about our group name and topic.

Because it was an unusual platform for us, it was not part of our everyday lives, so it was hard to communicate on it; it’s not like Facebook, where everyone is constantly available, therefore sometimes it took a day or even more to get an answer on the discussion page.

Even though, supposedly, it was easier to collect different information on the topic as a group, because everyone contributed to the project in a different way, at the end we had too much information to read through, therefore some things were on the page twice. However, it did make the research part easier that I only had to focus on my topic. This also means that we had to rely on each other that everyone will to their part in order to get enough content; we had to rely on people we did not necessarily know.

Overall, this project and experience showed us the advantages and disadvantages of online contribution. Usually people engage with things they’re interested in, in our case, it was not true. It allowed us to demonstrate how easy it is to collaborate with others online and be part of a bigger group. --Evp09 (discuss • contribs) 10:37, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments
I think it's a very interesting point you bring up that that the notion of online sharing was created artificially, and the effect this might have. Do you think, then, that as the project was not "enabled by people's passions" the quality may have been less for it, or it wasn't a true reflection of the potential of collective intelligence? I agree that communicating and debating via the discussion page was difficult. However, I think by the end of the project we'd gotten the hang of it and were able to use it to a relative degree of success. Petrichorblue (discuss • contribs) 10:49, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Petrichorblue I think the fact that it was a university project influenced what we put on the page massively. If the project hadn't been in an academic context, probably our topic choices would have been different to begin with. Not to mention that we were tied to a time limit and we only collaborated with a specific group of people; other university student. Evp09 (discuss • contribs) 17:56, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Marker’s Feedback on Wikibook Project Work
It's great to see that you have found some relevant secondary reading beyond the set texts that enhance your chapter contributions. You have also demonstrated a competence with wiki markup. There's evidence of a range of contributions and collaboration although this happens in a relatively constrained timeperiod. The wiki exercises start off very heavily descriptive, but you add further argumentation and engagement with secondary literature and they progress.

Content (weighted 20%)

 * Your contribution to the book page gives a good brief overview of the subject under discussion in your chosen themed chapter. There is a good range of concepts associated with your subject, and the effort to deliver critical definitions, drawing from relevant literature and scholarship, and your own critical voice in the building of a robust argument is very much in evidence. The primary and secondary sources you found about the chapter’s themes cover a good range and depth of subject matter.

Understanding (weighted 30%)

 * Reading and research:
 * evidence of critical engagement with set materials, although some ideas and procedures more securely grasped than others
 * evidence of independent reading of somewhat circumscribed range of appropriate academic and peer-reviewed material
 * Argument and analysis:
 * well-articulated and well-supported argument featuring variable depth of understanding
 * satisfactory level of evidence of critical thinking (through taking a position in relation to key ideas from the module, and supporting this position in discussion);
 * satisfactory level of evidence of relational thinking (through making connections between key ideas from the module and wider literature, and supporting these connections in discussion);
 * evidence of variable independent critical ability

Engagement (weighted 50%)

 * Evidence from contributions to both editing and discussion of content suggests minimally sufficient standard of engagement (i.e. volume and breadth of activity as evidenced through contribs)
 * Acceptable engagement with and learning from other Wikipedians about the task of writing/editing content for a Wikibook
 * Limited reflexivity and creativity, and a somewhat insecure management of discussion pages

Overall Mark % available on Succeed

FMSU9A4marker (discuss • contribs) 14:49, 3 May 2016 (UTC)