Is your Grandpa on Facebook?

I came across this article featuring a columnist sharing his experience with his over 80 year old grandfather using Facebook. It states that many senior citizens have been using social networking sites- "Facebook estimates that it has a few million users over the age of 65. MySpace claims to have 6.7 million users age 65 and over on its site. In fact, according to MySpace spokeswoman Jessica Bass, older users are among the site's fastest growing demographic." It is also very interesting because the author shares about his grandfather posting his own 25 random things, and how he learned a lot about him that he didn't know before the post.

This led me to think about the oldest friend I have on a social networking site- my Grandma on Friendster. I joined Friendster last year after learning that it was as popular to my cousins in the Philippines as Facebook is to Americans. So, in attempts to keep in touch, I created a Friendster. While I'm not a big fan of it, it has helped me stay in touch with my relatives more- it wasn't just my cousins- it was my uncles, nieces, nephews, and many many more. So, to make my Grandma Shirley's presence known to our family in the virtual world, my cousins made her a Friendster- they post her latest pictures up, she receives comments from friends and relatives, and while she does not know how to use it, she looks at it regularly and likes that she feels connected to everyone. It's pretty cool.

So. How do your grandparents use social networking sites?

In response to an earlier post...

So I was reading someone's post about keeping your work life and your social life separate, and I've always pretty much done that. The previous post mentioned friending your boss on facebook, which I never thought I'd do until I noticed that my boss, who isn't that much older than me, was more of a friend to some workers than others. I later found out that she was friendlier with the people who she was friends with on facebook. So I became her facebook friend and, sure enough, she started being nicer to me and acting like I was more of her equal...but then she would ask me weird questions like, " I was looking through your pictures and I didn't know you used to have blonde hair- Did you do it yourself? Do you think I'd look good if I dyed my hair?" So I realized she had looked through all my pictures and probably at my groups and profile and it was pretty weird. But it is kind of a double edged sword because, in my case at least, it pays to be friends with your boss, but on the other hand you don't really want to risk them seeing something bad in your pictures or on your wall. Just an interesting new problem for the workers of the world.

Lies on the Internet? Never.

Everyone quick! We have to save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus!
Now I know what your thinking but believe you me the Octopus paxarbolis is a very important endangered animal. These gentle creatures who reside in the rain forests of the Olympic North American peninsula need our help!
To join the fight go to http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/ to learn more about this great and noble animal.

Ok, we all know that there isn't a such thing as a tree octopus, right?.. The truth is all too many people take what they find on the internet to be sacrosanct, even if the information found is contrary to common sense. Just because its written does not make it true, and this is doubly so for the anonymous internet. This prank involving the Tree Octopus is meant to be a critic upon the fact that people assume what is on the internet is correct. The insane part is a huge number of people believed in this miracle creature and even donated money to help save them...
The point is that just because its on the internet doesn't mean its true.
Caralyle
P.S. don't forget to do your part to save the Tree Octopus!

Anthropology Online

A couple weeks back, my roommate showed me this video. Now I know it's way past Valentine's and maybe you don't care about Chinese culture, but there are other things to think about in this video.

The people who made this video are not anthropologist. They are just running an internet show, but they talk a lot about culture. They are spreading the information at an amazing speed through the net. It is like writing mini-ethnographies, but in video form. More and more anthropology can be found online. And not just from anthropologist going online to study World of Warcraft.

Watch the Valentine's Day episode here.

Or look at their website for more videos and information on the group, Sexy Beijing TV.

I wonder if I can get a date by doing anthropological research too?

-Patricia Chan

Geekipedia

Everyone loves Wikipedia. It's free, fast, and oh so convenient online encyclopedia. All you need is a computer and a connection to the internet. You can look up information from the properties of the element Au (gold) to the history of the famous British rock band, The Beatles. And the best part of it is, that it's usually up to date, because people like you and me can just go in and add information.

Wait. Maybe that isn't such a good thing. That means anyone who can connect to Wikipedia can also write in it. Not everyone is as passive as me and just reads them. People write them, which is reflected in the 2,786,712 (current) individual articles in the Wikipedia archives. And those are the only the ones in English. I have to say, that's great because that means there is probably a topic on everything and anything I want to know, but what really is written in these articles and who really writes them?

A while back, Charlie Barratt, a writer for the online gamer review website Games Radar, did a quick search of the word count some of the articles on Wikipedia. What he found really makes you think about who writes these things and what we either find important or just happen to know more about. Now, I'm not saying that all of society is like this, nor that we value something more than others. It's just amazing how much time people will devout to some articles on Wikipedia and so much less time to others. To really understand what I'm talking about, take a look at his article. He does a much better job explaining it than I can.

Read about it:
The WTF World of Wikipedia

Is the fictional Umbrella Corperation from the game Resident Evil worth 2875 words more than the real National Human Genome Research Institute?

-Patricia Chan

Online Dating

So my group is working on online dating and I am in charge of the age group 60+. It is interesting to find many people that are 60 and older using online dating websites. I would have to say that I was a bit mortified by the fact that these people are my grandparents age but then realized that they are only people trying to avoid loneliness and I think thats fair. Where are seniors supposed to find companionship besides the local bingo hall? It is way passed their time to hang out at local bars and clubs. Society just doesnt accept that and it is no longer part of their lifestyle. So where does that leave them to mingle? The answer: The internet. The internet is just a huge door of opportunity for virtually everything. Seniors can put exactly what they are looking for on there profiles on online dating websites and who ever responds is a possible match. It must be hard to be a senior and alone either through divorce or being a widow. They had that family life at one time but then could all be lost. Online dating websites are a possible place to avoid that. I found that there werent too many men and women in the ages of 75 and older. I think this is because: they are not technologically savvy, or there arent as many of them as say people in their younger years.  Internet was just coming out in their day so many never got familiar with it. Many seniors are adapting to society and learning new technology.

I think its funny that my grandma is trying to get technological updated. She just got a new computer with the internet, a new flat screen tv, blu ray player and digital photo frame. She is in her 70s. 

I think online dating is a great resource for people that cant find companionship in their ordinary ways of life.

Why Japanese gamers love avenging Pearl Harbor

This leads to a surprising facet of game psychology: Really hard-core gamers often look past the cultural "content" of a game. They're mostly worried about a more prosaic concern, which is whether the game is fun. The geopolitics of a game melt away as players, like philosophers musing on their favorite platonic solid, ponder gameplay in the abstract.

Here's an interesting article more on the topic of politics in games. Medal of Honor: Rising Sun allows you to play as a Marine stationed in Hawaii during the Pearl Harbor attacks, survive said attacks, and wreak havoc on the deployed Japanese troops. Interestingly enough, the game sold extremely well in Japan, where the reviews shined even brighter than those coming from the US.

The article itself talks about various reasons why this phenomenon is likely the cause of a "rebellious" streak or even, as the quote above states, a question less of the content of the game and more regarding the quality of the game and its ability to immerse the player. Effectively, it says much about our culture and its need for an alternate world, regardless of the type, setting, and otherwise defining qualities of the virtual world.