The Internet – You’ve been warned!

via myconfinedspace.com

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Filed under: Criticism, Social overload, Uncategorized

Posterous just went awsomesterestestest

Posterous has rolled out themes. And I am jumping up and down screaming out of pure joy. I haven't been this thrilled since…since… Let's just say I like it.

Love it, I mean.

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The problem with @mentions on Facebook

The @mentions on Facebook is live, but I can already see a problem here. I will never use it. The reason is simple: I am the geekiest in my social circle on Facebook. My friends and contacts aren't mature enough to start using @mentions. They are still growing up using status messages as we did in the birth of microblogging: "Eating with hubby", "Having dinner with friends", "Tired, going to bed". Just imagine the pure shock if someone suddenly would tag you in a message?
Oh my god, what do I do? What does he mean? Should I reply on this?

Facebook should slow down in their way to kill Twitter. The majority of the world isn't just ready for it.

(image pirated from Mashable…)

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Screencast: Yahoo! Meme

Okay, Yahoo! Meme is not very impressive and I doubt it will ever be. Might look slick in a way but at the end of the day it is just a bit of a Tumblr rip-off. And we have seen it all…

 

 

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Why the real-time web messes up my work

There is something weird going on. Everything has been shortened and everything is much faster than it used to be. And there is something weird going on with people as well. Probably not shorter, but they sure are faster. This can't be good for the community health, can it? Those who were stressed before are probably on the verge of collapsing today. Still that's where we're headed – towards more speed, more information in lesser time. I believe this is against the nature.

1. We love slow

You can ask anyone and they all would answer the same thing: the favourite time of the year is holidays. Good answer and it shows the nature of us, humans. When we are off work for a longer period of time we feel pleased with ourselves and we can relax and slowly heal our sore bodies. Just to be able to break them down again as soon as we start working after those weeks of holiday. During holiday we are happy. We can do things we really like to do, we can full-fill dreams and we can spend our days dreaming up new dreams. We walk, we talk and we do things in a nice slow pace that fits us. We simply love slow because it makes us happy.

2. Stressed out

I don't know how many times I have wished for that magic finger that lets me snap in the air and the two hour train-ride is at end. Wouldn't that be great? That would save me a lot of time, time I would spend in bed instead on a shaky train. As soon as I wake up I dress myself in a dress that has STRESS written all over it (except on holidays). My weekends don't count any more since that stress-dress is still attached to my body. When we say "Thank God it's Friday" we actually mean "Soon it's Monday again". As a teacher weekends often mean time for, well, work without being disturbed by students. 

My phone is beeping. New text message has arrived. My Twitter app is constantly updating itself with new Tweets. Gotta read them all. Text message reads: "Sry, cant, must wash car, cln house nd prep 4 Monday". My reply: "Ok. Phaps find time 4 coffee nxt year?" At work my students produce essays containing proof of what this entire article is about:

My summer was good. 1st week we went 2 Greece 4 holiday. So cool nd I want 2 go bk! When we came home I mostly sat by PC playing games. I<3 WoW! Im like uber now, pwning evry1. Got leathershield nd lvl12 sword last nite nd my pally is like full epix.

3. How the real-time web and new technologies ruins my work

The above snippet of text is made up. I wrote that to illustrate what kind of texts my students produce today in school. Most of us adults would give that a thought thinking that "now that's terrible, now what's the time, where's my coffe, shit I'm missing the bus, bye hon, see you at eight". How would you as a teacher read and correct and mark an essay like the one above? Well, normally it would be cluttered with red dots and marks, but even this a teacher's task is changing. Some have given up already. It is impossible for some students to learn how to write properly. If you think it's weird to listen to teenagers speaking today, there is a big chance that the same teenagers will grow up and twenty years from now sit on the subway discussing:

- Do we have numbers rdy? Gd gd. We need to sell, can't wait for reports. LOL, dat wud been cool tho. 

- It's a risk tho. If we not wait, we be pwnd.

- Tru dat, but WTH, now or never, rite?

- Yeah.

Last night I received a text from a student: "Sick. Home 2morrow 2." If this was ten years ago I would have gotten a phone call instead and someone would have explained the situation and I would have been able to give him a little homework. But no, everything must happen now, right now, and everything must happen as short as possible.

Our patience has moved to a different planet. I can't even trace it. It is particularly noticeable in teenagers' behaviour. 

- Okay everyone, read chapter one and then answer the questions at the bottom on page 12.

- OMG!

- What? 

- It's booooring! Reading is hard….too much text…too long sentences… I am tired!

I am seriously thinking about writing school books in SMS style.

4. Summary

So what the heck do I mean when I say that the real-time web messes up my work? Let me explain. 

We are more or less dependant on the Internet nowadays. Actually we might even be addicted to the Internet. Imagine a month without ever using the Internet, is that even possible? No WiFi, no email, no Twitter, no Facebook, no text messages, no MSN. The web is aiming for speed and shortness. Everything must happen right now. A microblogging service that can't offer real-time updates is doomed. The biggest social networks and services are soon to be included everywhere. It is just a question of time until MS Word will see a tiny but visual sidebar with your latest tweets or your Facebook friends' statuses. Everything is about speed and keeping it short. For a teacher this has turned out to be a real challenge. The effects this has on kids and teens are bigger and more serious than me might think. Not only will this make a world that suffers from stress overload, even more stressful, it also affects how we communicate, how we write, our use of language. 

We have a choice here. Either we could live with it and try to keep up or we could try to fight it. From a pedagogical point of view the best thing would be to live with it and find other ways to cope with the situation, but that wouldn't be of any help to a world that suffers from stress symptoms. Perhaps the most descent thing to do hear is to just realize that this is the way it is going. This is what the Internet and new technology bring us. Among all the How To-guides helping us to cope with stress, work loads and multi-tasking I am still searching for that guide who tells me how to put up with a life that is almost outrunning me and that I can't keep up with. Now, that would be a bliss to read. And well needed.

 

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