CMC Midterm - Article Example

CMC Midterm Word Count: 515 (2 pages) In thinking about both the idea of hybrid forms of community and issues of identity, think about an online community that you are participating (do NOT exclude your social network website use in this consideration). 

1. What online community are you in? The online community that I’m in is on Facebook. Currently Facebook has about 800 million users as of today.2. 
a)Is your community purely online, or The community is not purely online, as I regularly socialize with people who are my Facebook “friends.

” Not everyone who is a Facebook friend is necessarily a friend of mine in real life; some people are family. 
b)is it an extension of the traditional community? 

 This is somewhat of an extension of the ‘traditional’ community in the sense that there are many family members of mine who are on Facebook, and that is how we communicate—instead of phone, fax, email, or other methods of communication.3. 
If a), how do you and your members communicate to maintain and promote the membership?


 Regular status updates keep myself connected with those people with whom I don’t meet with regularly to socialize.If b), whats the benefit of having an online outlet? Is online factor helpful/harmful to your traditional community? The benefit of having an online outlet is that one can vent one’s frustrations with certain social issues and so forth. The online factor is helpful because it shields one from the verbal barbs that might come with face-to-face parlance. 

How do you think your real life gender affects your participation in CMC?

It doesn’t affect my participation in CMC at all, not that I’m aware.Are there online spaces youve been to that definitely dont appeal to you? Yes, I have been to Second Life and that really didn’t appeal to me at all. I just found it weird and unfriendly and not welcoming at all. Also, Twitter doesn’t appeal to me for various reasons.Is this, in part, because of any gender stereotyping you do of yourself? No, I don’t think this has anything to do with gender. Just the format of these various sites did not appeal to me at all, and I don’t necessarily think it had anything to do with the gendering of the sites or not.

Visit some FEMININE sites. Also visit some MASCULINE sites. 

Provide the URLs that you found:.. 
How did you find these sites? 
 I knew about these sites beforehand. How do you know that they are gendered? SecondLife is very colorful and filled with a lot of images (especially of women) that use a lot of bright colors, while Twitter seems more geared towards men. Twitter’s homepage is blue, which many people typically associate with the male gender.What visuals and text-based cues are on the sites that gender them?


 Visuals include colors. For example, brighter colors are gendered towards women, since, in olden times women had to have better color vision than men in order to complete the task of food-gathering. Women are also appealed to by text-based cues like pretty or girly fonts, whilst men are appealed to by the usage of simple fonts and basic colors.Do you prefer sites aimed at you re gender or sites aimed at another gender? I do not prefer sites which are aimed at one gender over another per se.

However, I do find the sites geared towards men more appealing, perhaps because they are more simply designed. Why? 

Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experiences, or observations. I would say that the color blue most closely resonates with everyone, not just men. Blue is most peoples’ favorite color, and so it would make sense, for example, that Twitter’s homepage would use blue as its primary color.
 Think about the debate whether IAD exists.

Internet Addiction Disorder definitely exists. I know because I’m proof of that.Think about your own use of the Internet (recall the IAT test). 
 My use of the Internet is frequent, but it’s difficult for me to tell if it’s an addictive behavior.Does the Internet have addictive characteristics? 
 The Internet certainly has addictive characteristics, but that doesn’t necessarilymean that it’s bad. People like information, and this is primarily what the Internet is about.Now search on the web for online therapy sites.

Analyze them for quality, reputation and discretion. 

Would you engage in online therapy? 
Why or why not? I would not engage in online therapy because I believe it’s a silly concept. First of all, just because one likes to absorb or read information does not make one an addict. An addict does drugs. WORKS CITEDSecondLife. (2012). Retrieved 16 March 2012 at: .Twitter. (2012). Retrieved 16 March 2012 at: .