Digital Divide

Digital Divide can refer to the gap between people with a high access and availability to the digital technology to people with limited access to digital technology. This gap can obviously refer to people who have higher or lower income throughout the world but it can also refer to a gap on a smaller scale, mainly a generation gap. Digital information has become more accessible and is easier for a younger generation. Also what is important to adults is not as important to a younger generation. Privacy is a big issue with digital technology the generation gap. Being active on websites require a lot of users to give up some personal information. For instance to join a social networking site you first have to create a user name and password; one's user name being their email address. For some, giving out email addresses can alarm older online users. Many adults have a fear of giving out their email address online for the fact of receiving countless unwanted emails, spam, or viruses. Along with conversations, pictures, and videos that other users to see, many users upload their living address, interest, favorite movies, even their relationship status. For a young generation, this information could be put up without hesitation. However, adults wouldn't display this information or would at least think twice about what is put on their profile. Digital technology has certain perks, but there are definetly some features to this technology that will always create a digital divide.

Facebook

This past week, I was sitting in the library with two of my friends studying and having a conversation about our test coming up when suddenly both of my friend's blackberries went off because of a new message they had received. They had just both been tagged in facebook photos from the previous weekend. They began to laugh, chat and recapture the memories of the previous weekend by going through all of the photos in the new picture album at that very moment. Not having been tagged in any new photos I became an outside to their new conversation and was only left at the table sitting as if i was the only one there. As I sat and watched them go through picture after picture on the blackberry devices, I began to think of my MDIA 393 class discussion/ video we had recently watched. The video and discussion pretty much recapped how much time we really spend doing things we feel important as well as how tech savvy we have really become. With this in mind, I began to target these two girls I was sitting with as examples of our class movie. Instead of studying and working on the work in front of us, my two friends had to check their blackberries as well as their facebook the minute something new has come up. The time people spend the most with is their technology. It brings you to think what will be in store for us in the future.

Personalization

This week one thing we learned about in class was  personalization. This is the use of new media technology for your own personal use. Most web pages like google or youtube become personalized based on your past web searches or web page visits. Personalization is designed to affectively customize your experience, mainly on the web, with relative material that you have recently been interested in. In other words, personalization predicts what you might like in the future. However, we also talked about what is an appropriate  level of personalization? Is it right or beneficial to let certain software make decisions for you? If this is the case some may think that personalization will incapacitate your decision making process others may believe it is a helpful tool that helps illuminate the time you waste online. 

But then we discussed personalization on a university level or a job based level. We all agreed that surrounding yourself with tools that personalize will probably not be tolerated in the work force. When you have a boss that tells you what yo do you have to complete the task the way he wants you to. When you have a job its no longer your way, you have to move out of your own comfort level sometimes and thats exactly what personalization pushes you away from. However,  an interesting point was brought up when looking at personalization regarding your university. While attending Catholic I have had to take many courses that are irrelative to my major. ( media studies) When the idea of personalizing your class schedule came up, some suggested it would be a bad idea for the simple fact you can't always have it your way and it makes you a more rounded student. Well what if these classes drag your GPA down or you are not interested in the class at all. Since you are paying for the class shouldn't you be able to choose what classes you are taking?

IN my opinion I believe people need to explore outside of their own comfort level but in some cases personalization is necessary and all around is made to benefit you.