Internet Addiction, are you addicted?

Dr. Young (1996) developed a brief eight-item questionnaire which modified criteria for pathological gambling to provide a screening instrument for addictive Internet use:
1.    Do you feel preoccupied with the Internet (think about previous on-line activity or anticipate next on-line session)?
2.    Do you feel the need to use the Internet with increasing amounts of time in order to achieve satisfaction?
3.    Have you repeatedly made unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back, or stop Internet use?
4.    Do you feel restless, moody, depressed, or irritable when attempting to cut down or stop
Internet use?
5.    Do you stay on-line longer than originally intended?
6.    Have you jeopardized or risked the loss of significant relationship, job, educational or
career opportunity because of the Internet?
7.    Have you lied to family members, therapist, or others to conceal the extent of
involvement with the Internet?
8.    Do you uses the Internet as a way of escaping from problems or of relieving a dysphoric
mood (e.g., feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety, depression)?
Patients were considered "addicted" when answering "yes" to five (or more) of the questions and when their behavior could not be better accounted for by a Manic Episode.

I guess that I am kind of addicted cuz I answered yes to question 1 3 4 5. I have to check facebook thousand times everyday because people may update their page every second. Its becoming a compulsive action of myself to refresh my page like within few seconds. I know there is nothing to do on the Internet but I just don't want to get off line.

CHINESE INTERNET CENCERSHIP vs. GRASS MUD HORSE

This video from CNN news introduced a very interesting phenomenon, that is how chinese netizens react to the censership of government.

“The grass-mud horse is an example of something that, in China’s authoritarian system, passes as subversive behavior. Conceived as an impish protest against censorship, the foul-named little horse has not merely made government censors look ridiculous, although it has surely done that.
It has also raised real questions about China’s ability to stanch the flow of information over the Internet — a project on which the Chinese government already has expended untold riches, and written countless software algorithms to weed deviant thought from the world’s largest cyber-community.
Government computers scan Chinese cyberspace constantly, hunting for words and phrases that censors have dubbed inflammatory or seditious. When they find one, the offending blog or chat can be blocked within minutes.
Xiao Qiang, an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, who oversees a project that monitors Chinese Web sites, said in an e-mail message that the grass-mud horse “has become an icon of resistance to censorship.”
” NewYork Times

After "Grass Mud Horse" and "River Crab" becomes famous, there are also other "mistery beasts".
鹳狸猿（guan li yuan）sounds like "internet administrators"

 

尾蜃鲸 （wei shen jin）sounds like（sanitary towel）

达菲鸡 （da fei ji）sounds like “male masturbation”

法克鱿（fa ke you）sounds the same as “F*** YOU”

BLOGGING BRINGS US.....

         This blog is talking about the negative influences that Internet and blogs bring to China’s generation Y. To start with, some Gen Yers spending too much time on writing blogs and becomes disconnect with family and even the outside society. Then, privacy issues caused by posting personal information and emotion are inevitable. Before starting the argument, clarification of what China’s generation Y is has to be explained first. China’s ‘Generation Yers’ are the Chinese youth born after 1980s till 2000s. The statistic shows that in China there are approximately 367 million people under age of 18, Gen Yers composed of approximately 200 million individuals between the ages of 15 and 25. These young people are the first generation of the one-child policy, as the globalization and liberalization together with Internet technology arrives in China, by experiencing both economic reforms and open markets policies, the Generation Yers develop culture which greatly influenced by Japan, Korea, and Western influences, but is starting to create a lifestyle on its own in result of fashion style, music and especially personal blogs.

         First of all, the use of blogs sometimes leads to disconnection with family and even with the society. Nowadays, as the development of Internet technology and as China opens up to the world, teenagers today get a million times more information than their parents did back in the old days. Unlike their parents who went through the Cultural Revolution and lived in a rather close environment, Gen Yers today receive education and information from all over the world. When teenagers find things that they do not know, they tend to ask Google, Baidu or post the question on their blogs for answers rather than asking their parents. Also, China’s Gen Yers are often the only child in the family due to the one child policy and their parents mostly experienced the Cultural Revolution during Mao’s period. Because the difference in culture and education, Gen Yers in China experience generation gap with their parents. Gen Yers often use blog as a mean to express themselves, to record their daily lives, provide links to their friends and leave comments on each other’s blog pages.  Because they have generation gap with their parents and do not think their parents understands them, instead of spending time communicating with their parents, they turn themselves to blogs. Writing down whatever they want to say, checking on friends’ blogs, leaving comments and chatting through blogs; all of these takes a lot of time and can make these teenagers lost in the online world, especially those who are afraid of talking to people face to face, blogs creates a easier way for them to communicate with other people which makes them not want to go out and socialize even more. In these severe cases, these Gen Yers may be diagnoses with autistic disorder that is a really serious psychological issue. For example, a sixteen-year-old boy in Changchun has been diagnosed as autistic disorder because he gets obsessed with the computer during summer holiday and merely talks to his parents, when he comes back to school, there is a dramatic change in his personality. He is not talking to anybody, always staring blankly, skipping classes and when he is interviewed he said the internet is the only thing that can cheer him up, people and things surround him is so bored that he is too lazy to look at. (Chang) The earlier kids starts to engage with computer, the more chance for them to get autistic disorder without the right guidance and limit.

          Secondly, another problem that blogs may cause is privacy issues. As the interviewees in the article say, they keep diaries in their blogs. It is kind of interesting where they put such a private document on a rather public platform where everybody can see. In China, the line between private and public has been blurred. So is the line of what is real and what is not. In China, there is a website resembles Facebook which widely used by Gen Yers called Renren and just like Facebook, Renren uses real-name registration system where Renren users willingly submit their personal information in order to get on this website. Imagine that this website is like a huge database with archives of people’s personal information, emotions and interests, isn’t it dangerous? Despite the danger Gen Yers are still willing to submit their personal information even detailed to their address and phone number. The loose awareness of Internet safety sometimes leads to Internet fraud. “Zhang Xinfeng, vice minister of public security, said Tuesday that mobile phones and the Internet have become the most extensively used channels for exchanging information in recent years, but some criminals also use them to commit fraud.”(Xinhua News Agency June 2, 2004 China to Fight SMS, Internet Fraud)  Criminals often use fake identities to get access to post messages under massive blogs like you win a lottery and ask you to wire tax or insurance fees to them. "Common people are easily tempted by these offers of prizes or goods, which are usually color TVs, laptops or millions in cash. If they contact the perpetrators, the latter usually ask them to remit money to a specified bank account for payment of tax, postage or insurance fees," Zhang explained.” 

SOCIAL MEDIA--CANADA NEWS WEB 2.0

     In this 21st century the tools of journalistic production- the ability to report, photograph and record events now belong to just about everyone. Thanks to "Web 2.0" technology – blogs, wikis, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter and video sharing sites like YouTube – billions of people can transmit text, photos, and video instantly to a worldwide audience at virtually no cost. The tools of journalism are no longer the exclusive preserve of journalists. The Canada News 2.0 is an online news report website. It follows the news 24 -7 cycle in order to spreading the latest and most accurate news to the audiences. The website features verities of new media strategies in news coverage, including citizen video, tweets from twitter, citizen journalists and social media. Fast response in news is necessary, but accuracy is most important element that combines Canada News 2.0. The website must ensure every piece of news that on site is accurate, even it means a bit of sacrifice on speed needs to be taken place. Here are the guidelines of three different new media strategies.

1.   Reporting rumors.

The use of rumors is always critical, whether it’s main part of news or even it’s only a tiny piece. When the news content has to contain any rumors, journalists should be careful about the source. Before use any rumors, several questions should be asked in order to define whether this rumor should be trusted or not. 1. What are my ethical concerns? 2. Who are the stakeholders — those affected by my decision? What are their motivations? Which are legitimate? 3. The possible consequences of spreading this rumor, in both short term and long term way. 4. Is this rumor too good to be true? However, even if there are some rumors can truly passed all through these questions, they are still “rumors”. Canada News 2.0 can only do the part of broadcasting and indicate the value of the news, which means every “trusted” rumor should be citied as rumor instead of an actual news report with trusted resources.

2.   Using information from Twitter.

Every tweet on Twitter should be taken carefully because of the anonymous use of unverified accounts. The tweets that come from an anonymous account can never be used as any kinds of resource in news report unless someone that can be trusted has certified it. The only exception here is that the information come from an anonymous account has a clear tendency, which might hurt stakeholder’s interests, and so people use an anonymous account to keep them safe. However, the information that published by a certified account cannot be totally trusted, these information can be used as reference. Before using any information, check that little tick on account page. 140 letters can easily make up a story, but 140 letters can never be able to clarify one. The guideline here about using information from Twitter can summed up as one sentence. Hardly use information from unverified accounts, use information from verified accounts as reference.

DIGITAL ARCHIVING

     As computers becoming an important item in our daily life, not only we need space to store real
 paper documents but also we need space to store our digital documents in our computer. We need a 
 way to organize information therefore digital archiving is invented. In the last ten years, digital 
 storage has become cheaper and smaller. Now digital content is stored locally, or can be remotely access via computer networks. Home users usually store their photos, songs, movies; and companies usually store customer information, databanks, and price points in their computers.

     Smart phones and Ipods make it possible for our digital archives to be mobile. We can upload large files and share them with your friends using for example, Megaupload and Mediafire. Google search engine is another popular tool of digital archiving; it creates indexes pages by keywords and operators. Google street view can plan your trips but terrorists can also plan their trips at the same time. Google art project is another useful function of digital archive. Google art project is taking high-resolution pictures of artworks from all over the world. Facebook is another digital archive which people can tag others in videos and pictures. Just like in the reading, Stacy Snyder gets tagged in a picture as a “drunken pirate”, and then lost her job opportunity as a teacher.

Wikipedia can also be a good example of digital archive. It is launched January 2001, founded by Jummy Wales and Larry Sanger. Wikipedia involves 17 million articles, 279 languages, 365 million users, ranks the 7^th most popular site on the Internet, and anyone can edit and make changes. It is user generated, so how accurate is it? Wikipedia is not a proper academic source but why do we still use Wikipedia? Because it’s easy to use, it’s summarized, it’s digital.

      Just like everything in the world have its positive side and negative side. On one side, digital archiving helps people in many ways. For example, medical archiving provides detailed information for both patients and doctors. Social medias like Twitter and Facebook plays an important role during natural disasters like Haiti earthquake. Right after Haiti earthquake happens, people in Haiti with access to twitter and facebook broadcasts list of people who is still alive to others who are concerned.

       As long as digital archiving brings convenience to us it also has its own issues. Digital archiving raises issues of ownership, copyright, privacy, and so on. Problems with licensing occurred and the Times magazine lost it’s Supreme Court case after it tried to make free-lance documents available online. Privacy is also an issue. Facebook users willingly submit their personal information which everyone can see. Facebook is essentially an archiving service because it saves everything we’ve posted, and the definition of privacy is changing because we are willingly submitting everything there is to know about ourselves to companies.