New blog name and plan of attack

My first year as a PhD student is quickly wrapping up…a little too quickly considering the workload I have left. But I thought I’d write a brief post to let people know (1) I’m still alive after somehow surviving my first Michigan winter, and (2) I plan to revive this blog to early 2008 levels over the summer.

First, you may notice the blog rename. I had grown tired of the “welcome to oblivion” name, as it had no relevance to my writings and was merely an obscure reference to a sci-fi book I was reading when I first started this blog. Thanks to @whatknows for suggesting I go with something more simple and “academic-y.” Next time I see you, I will be bearing cookies. The reason for the new name is rather obvious: (1) I study social phenomena, albeit only in relation to technology; and (2) I am obsessed with my name.  As many media outlets are now so kindly pointing out, I must be a narcissist since I have Facebook and Twitter accounts.

So what will I be writing about in the upcoming months? Most likely my primary focus will be on social gaming, specifically MMORPGs. At some point I want to put up some background research I did last summer for the Pew report on teens and gaming that did not make it into the final version. I’m also working on two projects currently that focus on identity and interaction in World of Warcraft. Otherwise, I hope to stay on top of current tech news related to social network sites, with maybe a post or two related to social capital (another summer project) thrown in here and there.

But since I’m already procrastinating by writing this post, I should probably hold off on writing any more until the second week of May. That is assuming, of course, I survive the next three weeks. Sigh.

Too bad “pluggies” never caught on … maybe the yuppies ate them

So I just came across a chapter in the book Culture in an age of money: The legacy of the 1980s in America, which refers to pluggies, “those who are plugged in but tuned out” (p. 84). Basically, it is referring to the rise of “me” technology in the 80s that allowed people to lock themselves in their homes and be completely asocial. This includes the rise of VCRs, video games, and computers.

I think the term makes complete sense, and as it is not encompassing of an entire generation, it may be more fitting than the typical response of, “that’s all of Gen X” or Gen Y or Gen Now, or any of the other innumerable names for those of us in the 18-35 age range. However, when I did a google search for the term, it only came up with ~2500 results, which means “pluggies” never caught on. Maybe the idea of yuppies, which originated around the same time, just overwhelmed people’s abilities to divide society up into groups so much that people couldn’t afford another denomination. Or maybe society just agreed the word is kind of silly.

So has anyone else ever heard of pluggies or come across the term in reading?

Is social media making me meaner?

I was chatting with a colleague earlier today and he asked for my input on something he had recently heard. Basically, he suggested that social media is making the population snarkier. The reasoning goes a little like this:

(1) If we assume that the reason most people post status updates, comments, Tweets, etc. is to get attention, and

(2) If we assume that snarkiness is more likely to get attention than otherwise banal posts, then

(3) Logically, people should be increasing the snarkiness of their postings.

Since I am rather obsessed with observing these media outlets, my friend asked if I had noticed this. And I had to really think about it. The logic does have a degree of face validity. It makes me think of Generation Me, a book I bought a year or two ago that I still haven’t read (I’ve been busy!). The book looks at people born after about 1970: a generation of people who are more self-absorbed and have less respect for others than their forebears. For the me generation, it often is about “me, me, me,” and social media support the projection–and sometimes shouting–of that individual’s identity throughout the world.

Look at Twitter. I will admit I am an avid user, and I use it for a variety of purposes, from keeping in touch with friends to posting news links to venting frustration (in 140 characters or less!). But if we break Twitter down to its most basic question–What are you doing?–it perpetuates the idea of me! Me! ME! The same can be said of Facebook status updates, which can be updated innumerable times a day if one so chooses.

But moving back to the question at hand, I have a hard time believing that social media are reshaping users’ identity in such a way as to make them snarkier, meaner, or posting solely to get attention. Obviously, these sites let users play with identity in a way that is more difficult–or even impossible–in an offline interaction. But why be mean to a friend on these sites when they know where you live? With Facebook at least, a key difference in these interactions from more anonymous sites is that the vast majority of Facebook “friends” constitute pre-existing offline relationships (see Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007 for empirical support).

We can also look to other forms of media as introducing snarkiness into our daily lives. The two examples that pop to mind immediately as homes of snarky content are someecards and lolcats. So then, the question becomes: are sites like these a response to increasing snarkiness or are they making snarkiness more acceptable? Or both?

For me, the most basic question I come to is, Is snarkiness even a problem? I am about as snarky as a person can be, but I generally constrain my snarkiness in such a way as to make it clear that it is a part of my sense of humor and not a comment to be taken seriously. I also find myself evaluating my relationship to the individual before commenting on a photo or status update or responding to a tweet, and the snarkiness only comes out when I know the person will appreciate (or at least understand) the joke. But do I do it to draw attention to myself? Without probing too deeply into my subconscious, I would say not really.

So while I think this rationale for posting is feasible, at this time I don’t think it is necessarily the case. As ubiquitous as they are, SNSs still have something of that new car smell for many users, who still get excited when they find an old friend or when someone posts a picture from back in the day. People are genuinely interested in the conversation and interaction, much more so than getting their 596 friends to notice them. While I hate the saying, “you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar,” it is true for many people. Then there are people like myself and several of my friends, who gauge the closer of our relationships by how deeply we can insult each other (it’s harmless fun, I swear!).

Regardless, I think I’ll be taking a closer look at my Live Feed over the next week to see if any patterns of postings jump out to support this idea.

Blog Rename

While it originated as an obscure reference to a sci-fi/fantasy book I was reading at the time, my blog name tends to be a bit of a downer (unless you think my blog is all about the Elder Scrolls game, to which you would be thoroughly disappointed), so I’m thinking of renaming it to reflect the more academic nature of it. I mean, some may argue that grad school, especially at the doctoral level, could be conceived as oblivion (right now I’m thinking more along the lines of the third circle of hell, since I’m obviously a glutton for punishment), the subject matter I typically write about it not exactly apparent from the blog’s name.

Because I am braindead most of the time thanks to the stacks of reading I have, I’d like to get reader input. So please, send me your suggestions for a new name for this blog and why you think I should change the name to your choice. Or, if you think oblivion is the perfect name, tell me why I should keep it as is. And if I decide to go with one of these suggestions, maybe I’ll even send the person some delicious Vitak baked goods! (If you are unaware of my baking skills, (1) shame on you and (2) read this post and/or this post.)

So come on people, tell me your ideas!

Is our attention spread too thin?

A Wired post today brought my attention to a new book coming out this fall, Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age, by journalist Maggie Jackson. The book focuses on the Web 2.0 world, where the pressure of an infinite number of technologies has forced us to be at all places at all times, both real and virtual. Phone calls, email, meetings, IMs, Facebook messages, Twitter updates…the list goes on and on. And in our attempt to “keep up” with the ever-changing methods of communication and interaction, we are instead losing a good part of the content, and maybe ourselves. Or, at least that’s what I get from the sensationalist-driven, doomsday-is-upon-us title.

Linda Stone, a well-known technology consultant I had the pleasure of meeting during my tenure at Pew, would call this “continuous partial attention.” In the technologically driven world of 2008, we have no choice but to divide our attention between tasks. It is not only a skill to have, but expected–and sometimes demanded–of us in our daily lives. Whether it is juggling a full-time job and a family life or struggling through a PhD program in hopes of becoming the best professor and researcher out there, we can no longer afford the luxury of focusing 100% on a given task. There are too many demands on us to even contemplate such a life.

Is this a bad thing? Maybe. On the other hand, maybe it’s just not the right way to look at the situation. From the little I’ve read regarding Jackson’s upcoming book, she is right on in many ways. Sometimes I feel stretched so thin that any further addition will surely break me into a thousand pieces. But we are humans, and we can change our future. We do not need to be slaves to technology. Instead, maybe we should consider new ways of harnessing technology to give us the ability to not only step away from it for a few minutes, but maybe even turn it off for awhile.

Turn it off, you say incredulously? Yes, I am just as scared as you. But as much as we let technology be a part of our lives, we should never let it take over our lives.

And that, my friends, is your daily food for thought.

Strangled creativity?

I haven’t blogged much since starting my PhD studies. In large part, this has been due to my busy schedule and, in general, adjusting to a new and very different lifestyle. But I don’t think that’s the only reason. I’ve been feeling less creative lately. Maybe my head is overcrowded with everything else I’m trying to retain, maybe I’m just too tired all the time to think creatively, but either way, it’s not a good thing. I think it’s about time for me to sit down and re-evaluate some things. After all, thinking creativity should in turn benefit my critical thinking and writing, right? Grr…

Regardless, I should probably try to blog more, if for no other reason than to try and respark my creativity.

Wow, this school thing is hard.

As I enter my third month of my PhD program, I am finding each day brings me a new challenge. Unlike my previous educational experiences, I can no longer blow off projects until the last minute. Rather, more often than not, I feel like I am barely treading water, even though school is now my only “job.” I don’t know if this speaks more strongly to the easiness of my previous educational pursuits or the difficulty of a rigorous PhD program, but the level of work required has been quite a surprise. Maybe I was just naive to expect myself to have a normal social life with plenty of time to read books for pleasure and pursue other pleasures like road trips (and, um, World of Warcraft). Instead, I am working on a conference paper at 1am on a Saturday night, with the realization that I have gone out a total of two nights in almost three months.

Don’t get me wrong. This has been an amazing experience thus far, and I feel far more intellectually stimulated than I have ever been before. But, as I am coming to learn, adjusting to the life of a doctoral student is neither quick nor easy. (If it was, there would probably be a lot more PhDs out there.) Whereas you may have previously been the top dog among your friends or colleagues, you realize upon beginning your doctoral education that you really don’t know that much, certainly not as much as you thought you knew. Furthermore, you must learn to accept the fact that you will never accomplish everything you set out to do; however, you cannot waste time worrying about that or else you’ll fall ever further behind.

Most of all, my experience over the last three months has been a — at times painful — experience in humility. I have a lot to learn, which is why I’ll be spending the next four to five years trying to take in as much as possible. I am lucky in that I am surrounded by some of the best and brightest researchers in the field. At the same time, their brilliance makes me all the more aware of my lack of knowledge.

I guess it’s for the best. After all, people always tell me I’m too cocky. 

Meaningful Play @ MSU

Just a quick note for anyone in the East Lansing area who’s interested in video games: MSU is hosting a conference through Saturday titled Meaningful Play. I’ll be speaking today (Friday) at 2:30pm, offering a synopsis of Pew Internet’s recent report on teens’ gaming habits.

So come out and let’s talk about who has the bigger collection of original Nintendo games (I’ll bet it’s me!).

Happy birthday Google!

Consider this: Google has officially turned 10 years old. Ten! It’s not even a teenager yet! But can you imagine your daily life without Google, or everything it has impacted in the development of Internet search? I can’t. I was trying to remember my search engine of choice back in the day and can’t clearly remember BG (before Google), although it might have been AltaVista. Does anyone even use AltaVista anymore?

Anyway, in honor of their birthday, Google has brought back its oldest version, from which you can search its database as of January 2001. I tried googling myself (because I’m a narcissist) and only had three results, compared with the 650 or so I get when I search my name now. Pretty cool, even if none of the links for me actually worked.

I don’t care what other people say about you trying to take over the world, Google. I still love you. Happy birthday!

New Pew Internet report looks at teen gaming and civic effects

During my last six months in DC, I worked almost exclusively on the Pew Internet Project’s most recent report, Teens, Video Games and Civics, which was released Tuesday. This report looks at the gaming activities of 12-17 year-olds in the U.S.: the types of games they play, how they play them, and the social aspect of gaming. Furthermore, the report found positive connections between gameplay and civic behavior.

Having been a gamer since about age 6 when I would play Space Invaders and Breakthrough on my parents’ Atari, this report is very near and dear to me. Gaming is now ubiquitous — 97% of teens play video games. this means that girls are now playing games about as often as boys, which was certainly not the case 20 years ago. I remember being one of the only girls in my gradeschool who actively played video games on a regular basis; while it didn’t seem to bother me at the time (because finishing Ninja Gaiden was too important!), I am heartened that kids share games to a larger degree now.

Based on the data in this survey, I think we can safely say that video games are not the devil-spawn that some more of the more outspoken conservatives like to proclaim. Gaming, like everything else out there, has a good and a bad side, but in my opinion, the good tends to outweigh the bad. Kids who game are not missing out on life, but are instead interacting with their peers, and in some cases, learning from their experiences and getting more involved with their community.

Learning the rules (the hard way) in WoW

When I moved to Michigan last month, I decided that one way I could bide my time while waiting for school to start would be by checking out World of Warcraft. Not only am I an avid RPG fan going back 20 years to the days of the original Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy, but online gaming research is a hot topic within my PhD program. So not only would I be having fun, but I’d be advancing my academic knowledge, I told myself. (Fabulous excuse, I know.)

At first, I started a character on a random server, not really understanding the whole concept of servers and how your character is locked to that server (unless you’re willing to pay the relocation fee). In fact, I didn’t really ask anyone for advice or look up anything online at first, choosing instead to just dive in. The game is rather self-explanatory on a basic level. As you get into the nuances, however, it can become very complicated. Especially when you are interacting with other players.

So I’ve been playing for almost a month now and have several characters on different servers so I can play with various friends. When playing alone in the last week though, I’ve had a couple rude awakenings that have shone me a very fascinating aspect of WoW community that surprises me, even with my research focus on online communities.

One would think that with so many players (10 million +), people would not be very organized. At the very least, one would expect there to be a high degree of things like flaming and lack of courtesy. This, however, is far from the truth. Instead, it is I, someone who thinks of herself as a generally courteous and polite person in the real world, who is repeatedly committing offenses and being reprimanded for not being “nice enough.” This amazes me. And people have no sympathy for my ignorance either.

Take tonight, for example. Two other players asked me to join a group. I didn’t need to join, as I was finishing a low level quest, but I accepted because I thought that it might speed up the process. For a reason I am not aware of, they set the looting option to free-for-all. I didn’t notice, because the only other times I’ve ever joined a group, it’s been set so that it is spread out among the group members. Yes, I should have realized this was not the case when I could loot all the enemies, but I just assumed since one of the two players was a high level player (level 65) and the other wasn’t jumping to loot the enemies, that they had gotten what they needed. When I got the item I was looking for, I asked if they still needed my help, they said no, and I left. Five minutes later, I am assaulted textually by one of the group members about how rude it was that I ninja looted everything when he needed an item (the same one I was trying to get coincidentally). I apologized and said that I had asked if they needed help. He proceeded to get very angry about it and how horrible what I did was. I said I was new to the game, not aware of all the rules, and asked why no one said anything as I “ninja looted” away. He decided to ignore this question and continued harassing me for a good 7-10 minutes, mainly just to drive the point home that I was horrible. I kept saying that if anyone had said anything, I would have stopped. Finally, I told him that now I know better and basically thanked him for reprimanding me. That seemed to placate him, and he wished me well. Very weird.

What I perceive from this interaction is that it is very important to the community of players (and perhaps critical to the world’s stability) that these unwritten rules of interaction be followed. Deviation from these rules needs to be punished quickly to ensure that no further infractions occur. This other player, who didn’t know me, had no reason to pursue the matter so far. I can’t imagine I affronted him to such a degree that he wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight, yet he still carried on a long conversation with me. And I actually felt bad afterward! Mission accomplished, I guess.

I also think it’s pretty safe to assume that the vast majority of players have been playing the game for a long time and thus know the “rules” inside and out. So maybe it made sense for this other player to assume that I was a veteran player who was simply taking advantage of the situation. This makes play even more difficult for new players like myself who may be venturing through the game without someone to guide them. While I certainly don’t forsee this instance of WoW “hazing” (for lack of a better term) to deter me from playing the game, it certainly does not make me feel like I am being welcomed with open arms. I guess in the realm of WoW, respect must be earned in hours of play. And I’m thinking I probably need a few thousand more hours of playing before I have half of it figured out.

Tired of their kids’ $1200 cell phone bills, Congressmen stick it to mobile providers

I used to be anti-texting. Why send someone a poorly worded, 160-character-or-less message when you can call them (if it requires an immediate reply) or email them? Texting encourages bad grammar, is impersonal and can sometimes be downright annoying.

That quicky changed, however, once I began graduate school. For all intents and purposes, I was forced to get a texting plan on my phone after my new-found friends started texting me. A lot. It wasn’t a lot of texts compared to other people I know, but $0.10 per received or sent message adds up very quickly. My first month at Georgetown, I noticed my cell phone bill was $15 or so higher than normal, so I caved and got a 500 texts per month plan for $5. Even then, I was surprised at the priciness of texts, as I was pretty confident the transferral of such a tiny amount of data between phones was not costing the phone companies that much.

Since I’ve been on a texting plan ever since (and now on a data plan too with my Verizon Voyager — I’m so hip), I had no idea that rather than prices for texting decreasing, they have instead been increasing over the last year. The price of sending or texting now costs $0.20 per message on each of the four major carriers (Verizon, Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile). I can only imagine the first billing cycle after the price increase in many an American home: parent opens phone bill, sees their 12-year-old has decided to become hyperactive with her texts at exactly the wrong moment, and now has to pay nearly $100 extra on the phone bill so her kid can engage in conversation via text with the person sitting next to them. What’s up with these kids anyway? Haven’t they heard of whispering? And what kinds of pressing secrets do 12-year-olds have anyway that need to be communicated via text?

Anyway, it seems that the ridiculosity of these increases has reached Congressional notice, and one Senator (hopefully) plans to do something about it. Herb Kohl (D-WI) has sent a letter to the presidents of the four majors, demanding an explanation for their outrageous texting prices.

Who knows if this discussion will actually lead to any pricing changes for the millions of texters in the U.S., but I must say I am looking forward to reading their lame attempts at justifying their pricing plans. It seems pretty obvious to me that these companies thought they could get away with jacking up prices because of the exponential increase in demand over a few short years, but they must have forgotten Moore’s Law along the way, which when applied to data technology, says it should be half as costly now than it was just two years ago.

Read the Ars Technica article here.

I’m baacckkkkk!

Okay, so I took a two-month break. Sue me. I was enjoying every precious second I had left in the glorious city of DC. Now I am living in the less-than-exciting state of Michigan (although it has yet to become the icy wasteland I previously predicted).

On the bright side, school has begun and I’m enjoying it so far. I’m studying social networks and online communities Michigan State’s Media & Information Studies PhD program. I cannot begin to express how amazing it is to work with experts in your field, where you no longer have to second-guess yourself because you have no one more knowledgeable about the subject matter than yourself. Now I am not only being taught by experts, but in some cases, by the people I cited most heavily during my thesis research (i.e., Joe Walther, Nicole Ellison, Cliff Lampe, Chip Steinfield, among others).

So keep your fingers crossed that Lansing grows on me like a dirty fungus and that I don’t crack under the pressures of “PhD paralysis.”
I’ll be trying to update this blog regularly with interesting posts related to my research.

Idiot of the Day: American Family Association confuses people’s names and sexual orientations

The auto-replace function can save you a lot of hassle when writing or editing a paper. You want to change all ampersands to the word “and”? No problem. You realize you’ve left a letter out of someone’s last name? Easy as pie. You think people with descriptive last names actually embody those names? Umm, yeah…

The American Family Association, according to their website, is for people “who are tired of cursing the darkness and who are ready to light a bonfire.” Does that mean there will be s’mores? If so, I’m all in. Oh wait, they’re also attempting to take us back to the “better days” when people appreciated “traditional family values” — you know, like sending your “crazy” daughter to a mental institution because she thought for herself, or imploring your local pastor to “heal” your gay son. It’s that kind of organization. Nevermind about the s’mores then, you’d probably poison them to get rid of “radicals” like me.

Anyway, for whatever reason (their attempt to be PC I guess?), the AFA website has an auto-replace set up to replace all instances of the word “gay” with the word “homosexual.” Nice attempt guys, EXCEPT that Gay in not an uncommon last name (as for Gaylord, would that become Homosexual Lord? because that would be awesome). So when Tyson Gay won the 100 meter Olympic Trials this past weekend, the AFA website ran the headline “Homosexual Eases Into 100 Final at Olympic Trials.” Whoopsies.

I mean, I know they’re anti-gay, but do they really want to be anti-Gay? What did Marcia Gay Harden ever do to them? Furthermore, what if this goes further? Will Lewis Black now be referred to as “Lewis African American”? Will Mr. Green from the board game Clue now be referred to as “Mr. Dirty Hippie Tree-Hugging Environmentalist”? Stop the insanity AFA!

[Thanks Boing Boing!]

As if the chance of accidentally sending love letters to your boss wasn’t enough, new study finds 1/3 of IT admins read your work email

It is always embarrassing to have private information about yourself shared in a public manner. For example, if you share a secret with a friend, who then gets drunk and regales everyone at a party about the time you [insert highly embarrassing "secret" here], that really sucks. Or how about the time you accidentally reply to all to an email thread, and badmouth one of the recipients? Yikes, that could be painful.

In my six or so years of working in offices, I have *luckily* not had any highly embarrassing slip-ups, but I have had friends make such mistakes and even heard about large-scale accidental email sharing. For example, my department had an internal address that included the 10 or so of us in editorial. One coworker sent accidentally sent an email intended for his girlfriend to the internal address instead of hers — understandable because we each sent at least 30 emails per day through this address, but also pretty embarrassing for him. He asked that we just delete the email without reading it, but being naturally voyeuristic, of course we all read it! An even more damaging story comes from an employee many years ago who actually sent an email to his girlfriend over the wire (i.e., out to journalists with real news stories). It’s bad enough getting called out for having a pet name of “snookie bottom” by your coworkers, but having hundreds — if not thousands — of people know this would probably be pretty damaging to one’s ego (and most likely to one’s career as well).

Because of stories like these, I have always avoided sending personal information via my work accounts. The chance for mis-sends is high, and I prefer to avoid explaining to a future employer about why I was let go from a previous job for inappropriately using work email.

Seems like I had the right idea about this, as we now have another reason to not use work email for personal interaction: In a recent survey conducted by tech company Cyber-Ark, 1/3 of respondents (all senior IT employees) admitted to using their admin passwords to read confidential or sensitive information. What this means is that if you have managed to draw attention to yourself by either being too attractive, too important, or too annoying, the chances are pretty good that admins are reading all your email. And if you fall into the annoying category, they’re probably not only reading your email, but they’re trying to find a way to use it against you.

So leave off the work emails kids, or your next job may not only have no work email, but will probably require you to ask “Would you like fries with that?” about 500 times a day.

Thanks to Josh for sharing this with me from Techdirt.