Happiness and the Internet

So this article was indeed very LONG! 😦 but in a way, it was interesting. So i’ll be pointing out some points that stood out to me greatly in the article. The first one was how the world health organization predicted that depression will be the leading cause for people in 2020, since people will be facing with more stressful situations and this just took me by shock because I would’ve thought it would be cancer, since with all the technology we have, how hard can life really be? Then it was just interesting learning how religion can bring a person happiness, because personally I do not believe in anything so when people talk about religion, I am completely lost. And then the part about youtube, how it started off as people just uploading small videos and now it is use for people to be abel to share their creations which encourages them to be more creative to share their work. The article goes on to explain other things, but honestly those other facts didn’t really capture my attention sadly 😦

For this week’s experiment, i took two days to this. So on Monday, I found happiness offline which included hanging out with my sorority sister, working out with my friends and playing catch with my floor mate. Even though the activity just seems normal, throughout these activity we had great laughs and talks.

Then on Tuesday, I stayed online most of the time and chatted with my friends on face book and AIM. On facebook, I cracked a lot of jokes with my friends and just caught up on gossips, and it was the same with AIM.

When I was comparing the two situations, I realize that I had gain “true” happiness offline than online. For some reason, I felt offline seemed more real than online? The fact that I was able to feel and touch things that had happened offline, seemed more persuasive to me? Like, online, I could be getting the wrong message. Like I may be taking it as something that makes me happy and persuasive, whereas something totally different could be happening in the other end of the internet?

I’m sorry Eric if this is kind of confusing.
And as for how i’m doing, I guess I am doing better than before. I feel as if it was my fault that my parents are like how they are, because I left away to College. A lot of emotions are just going through my mind, and I’m currently at the stage of denial. I always tell myself no they are going to be fine soon and etc. I don’t know, I guess it’s also hard because in front of my friends or in class, I feel the need to put on a front.. such as.. I’m a happy person.. and everything is okay. I don’t know. But i know I will get better! Thanks for asking though! =]

Makeup assignment for “Online Dating

Support Online Dating
I tend to support online dating, for similar reasons to why I would support online friendships. I mean from my experience on match.com, i had clicked on guys that I found attractive, so in a way that was first impression, but I feel it wasn’t much, because after clicking on their pictures I would read about their profile, and if it was something that I can’t find any common interest with, I didn’t “wink” or message him. Even though, there was some sort of first impression to that, I still feel as if in person impression can be way worse. Like if I were to go on a blind date, I know I would not be myself, therefore If I were to have a great amount of common interest in that guy, it would not be shown through the date. Anyways..going back to online dating.. I feel that once you get to know someone based on who they are in the inside, (through messaging & such for a certain time period) you would get a good picture of who they really are. I just feel it’s an important factor to actually get to know someone based on who they really are in the inside than the outside.
Many people fear that there might be pedophile out there, or people making fake profiles and it’s just dangerous. But I would need to object to that because, when you meet someone online, it’s all really depending on you, if you do not write a lot of information about you online, then that creep would not be able to reach you in any way. And if that creep/ person wants to meet up, then be smart about it and just meet in a big and public area, or even bring a friend. It is inevitable that there are people who will post up fake stuff on their profile, but it is once again, it is really on the person. If you are smart and not be so gullible then a lot of that trouble would be saved. The bottom line is, i feel that online dating is actually better because first you do not get judged based off first impression. Then second, you can get to know that someone based on their inner beauty and not outer. Third, as you are talking to the other person online, you do not need to be wearing something fancy and such, until you decide to really meet up. Fourth, you can be yourself, and once you get comfortable with that person you can actually meet up that person. And when you do meet up with that person, things would not be weird because it’ll feel as if you already know them.

Do not support online dating
Well this is going to be hard, because I already have my mind set that I am supporting online dating, but I will give this a shot. Well I would not support online dating because of all the stories I have heard from my parents as a child, of kids being abducted and such. Or another reason would be, since i’m always online, then I feel as if I would loose my social skills when it comes to the real world. Honestly, those are the two things that I can really think of.
Since I wasn’t really able to think of any good ones, I decided to ask my floor mates for some of their ideas. One girl whom I will Ting Ting, openly admitted that she regretted meeting up with the guy she met online (I could tell she was a bit embarrassed to tell the story) because they had hit it off really good (online). So she was actually very happy to meet up with him since they got along so well. And when they did, she told me he was a complete 180, since first of all, the pictures that he posted of himself was actually not him at all. Then second, his personality was completely different because, he admitted to her that he thought she was so pretty that he decided not to be himself and just be someone who she wanted. This could be another reason to why online dating would not be so good.

5/21/10

I feel that this week’s article was extremely interesting because it was about online dating, a topic that not much people would discuss about. This article was basically like an experiment with online dating, and there are some key things that had caught my attention. One of the things was, the author believed that online dating has been growing drastically because internet and computer itself is growing drastically. I mean this was an obvious fact, but that was just something that never really crossed my mind much. Another thing that caught my attention was just how people would lie online about their education, age, picture & etc. Basically this entire article was all obvious fact that i heard of, or someone told me something about it.

So for this week’s experiment I was to go on match.com and just create a fake profile. And to my surprised, i had the urges to just upload my real picture, and see what goes on. After 30 minutes of clicking around and seeing what is going on, i realize because i didn’t purchase the membership plan, I was very limited on what I could do. But it was very interesting clicking on other guy’s profile because you can tell that some people basically pour their feelings out and they are actually serious about this website. I mean i’m not going to lie, there were some guys that i thought to be extremely cute, but in a way I can tell that picture was probably found through google or something. But other than that, I honestly didn’t feel comfortable messaging or “winking” at another person. Maybe it’s just me, but i rather much prefer meeting someone in person than to meet them online.

Shannon Rogers

So the awesome person that I had this week is name Shannon Rogers and she is from North Hills, California. She was born on June 7. Shannon is a mathematics and education major, which I found to be very impressive. She has a little sister name Aleesa Rogers. Some things about her are, she is a really big nerd, which I find to be awesome because not a lot of people would admit that. And some things that I have in common with her are, she can’t live without music and that’s how I am also. I love also bagels, even though they contain high calories. Computer is another thing that we both can’t live without. Laughter is another important aspect for my life; it feels like when I do laugh, it eases everything up. I also love big comfy couches! I can sleep on those anytime any day! Chai tea latte is one of my favorite drinks that I have! Sadly math, coffee, art, Wikipedia, thinly-veiled sarcasm are not really my thing. I think Shannon is amazing because she basically works everywhere. She works for the UCLA math circle, where she teachers 1st-4th grade students on math. Then she also works as a research assistant for the UCLA GSE&IS. She also volunteers as a classroom assistant at the UCLA lab school. UCLA student welfare commission is another activity she does. At times she would be a student assistant for the Young Research Library where she answers the phone. Then I also found out that she had an amazing beautiful wordpress BlogSpot that I’m totally jealous of. By looking at her pictures, I feel as if Shannon is a really down to earth girl, she likes hanging out with friends then taking pictures. Then for her third year she had rushed for a sorority, which I found to be pretty cool! It’s so awesome because she also did the undie run, and that’s something I was scared of doing this year, but by looking at her pictures, it seem so fun! So basically Shannon is an amazing, smart, well-rounded and adventurous girl!

The Benefits of Facebook ‘‘Friends:’’ Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network Sites

Since I forgot to post a blog.. I decided to do it whenever I can so I won’t forget =)

This week’s reading has really persuaded me to go online and go social networking a lot more. Growing up, my parents has always warned me about the molesters online, so even today, I tend to put hardly any information about me online. In this week’s reading it was indeed very interesting because it starts off by explaining the word social capital, which has always been confusing to me. But after reading it, i realize social capitals are resources that one gains from any kind of relationships. On top of that, networking can gain other resources such as gaining useful information, personal relationships, or the capacity to organize groups. Sometimes it can even be as good as, benefits such as employment connections. So obviously, when we go online, we can sometimes get unexpectedly really helpful advices from people, compared to if we ask someone in person. For example, a question that I posted online was “Hey you basketball fans!, do you think it’s better if Boston wins or Cleveland wins?” and this was a question that I wanted to know, because I wanted to see which team would be better for the Lakers. And I have to say, I got several different responses. My first one was from a guy name Bill, whom believed that Boston would be a better match up because they suck more? Lol. Then my friend Karissa literally said “F Cavs” haha. Then there was just this one one who supported Cavs, which I found to be funny. It’s just amazing how there are so many different opinion I can get, from a single question. I still remember there was a time where I forgot my Macbook charger? So i posted a status asking “Does anyone have a macbook charger that I can use?!” Then I got like about 7 responses saying that I could, or where I can buy cheap ones and such. It was just very helpful and sometimes we receive unexpected answers from unexpected people (that we would not get in person). Anyways back to the reading, when there are positive things about something, then there is always going to be negative things. The down side to social networking is, there are less face-to-face interaction. Then the article continues to talk about how the internet might help individuals with low psychological well-being due to few ties to friends and neighbors, and this is something I agree with greatly because there are people that I know that are socially weird. But when it comes to online networking, they are a lot more less shy. So I feel talking to strangers online can actually be very beneficially. Then finally another part of the article that caught my attention was at the end when it was saying how young adults that move to college actually makes new networks there at college and tend to abandon their old high school friends. I feel that is greatly true because I notice that I hardly talk to people that are from my high school.

As for the experiment, I’ve only asked 1 question so far, I will be asking 2 more throughout the week and i’ll update it on this blog =)!

AH, I totally forgot about week 5 post due to my horrible fever. :[

Dear Eric,
I am truly sorry about not attending your class last Friday, I had a horrible fever and was not feeling good at ALL. Please excuse my sickness :[ ! By the way, I got interviewed, but when I looked at the newspaper on Friday, my name was not mentioned at all! So sad!

Anyways, here are my readings and my experiment.

The Huxleyan Warning wasn’t as interesting as other readings for some reason. But there were some parts in there that caught my attention, the first one was the quote “He was trying to tell us that what afflicted the people in Brave New World was not that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking” this quote caught my attention the most because just last week in Sociology 1, i learned that the Media doesn’t tell us what to believe but instead how to believe. For example the media doesn’t ask “Do you think Britney Spear is crazy?” But instead they just tell us directly “Britney Spears is crazy.” Which makes us not think for ourselves. Just like this quote said, “They did not know what they were laughing about”–meaning the media tells us when something is funny, instead of why it is funny. This article mainly just explained how powerful technology really is today that it stopped us from thinking profoundly.

As for my HORRIBLE..HORRIBLE.. experiment.
I HATED THIS EXPERIMENT AND I HOPE I NEVER HAVE TO DO IT AGAIN! I actually did it last Saturday where I didn’t use internet resource, didn’t watch t.v. except for cell phone texting. Even if I only had texting, I still felt horrible… I felt so disconnected from the world, I felt so depress and sad! I didn’t know how crazy of a internet user I was. Every hour that past by, I was asking myself, “What If someone left me a very important message on facebook?!” “What if someone famous left me a message on my e-mails?!” I just felt like that day went by VERY slow. I seriously couldn’t go on with the experiment without texting, cause I would’ve went crazy. For the first time in my life, I wanted to pick up a random book and read it, just so the time will go by faster. But other than that, this experiment was not fun at all. :[

“When you meet people online, people you cannot see face to face, you can be more open with them, therefore you learn more about them. In this way, you are able to connect with people who are like yourself in many ways. These are friendships that last.”

This week’s reading was extremely long and sort of interesting! So the reading was about how Cybercity is a great place to meet friends because, here race, age, nationality or religion does not matter nor does anyone get judged. Because one does not know how the other looks like, or where they live, trust is gained faster . Then it goes on to saying how in life, we may meet people in our everyday lives, but we do not usually consider the people we meet as potential friends but here in Cybercity, we do consider the other person a friend. In the article, it also includes how people say that they usually have a best friend (whom they trust a lot) that’s from Cybercity. It’s not only friendship that develops from Cybercity, but rather the development of relationship may occur. This article talks about how people believe that it’s dangerous to meet with a stranger that you just met online, but the article believes that if one was to meet another person with a big groups of friends, in a busy area and letting your family/friend know where you are would be a wise idea.

So aside from talking about what the reading was saying, something that I can relate to is in Middle School, when I really started using the computer for AIM, Xanga (remember that? hahaha),msn, myspace, my mother would constantly come in my room and see whether I am talking to a stranger. Each AIM chat window I had up, she would ask “who’s that?! who’s that?! Didn’t I tell you how this girl just got killed by meeting this guy online!? DON’T YOU EVER LISTEN?!” I got to admit, that was horrible. She thought everybody on the internet was like a serial killer or something! But after reading this article, I feel as if I should make her read it, so she can chill. And lastly, I just thought it was very cute how Zosma and her partner actually fell in love with each other because of Cybercity! =)

Week #2’s Reading = Amazing

Oh my god, before I start writing this paragraph I would like to say the reading to this newspaper article is extremely long but it was very interesting. It was something that I can relate to greatly and I actually had a great laugh.

This article mainly talked about how facebook started by a man name Mark Zuckerberg. And how throughout time facebook became more popular because of the “News Feed,” which had stirred up some controversy at the beginning. Because when it first came out, people wasn’t used to it and just started freaking out, but pretty soon, people started to fall in love with it. After the article goes on explaining how facebook, twitter and other websites similar to those change peoples lives. For example how twitter can actually be a beneficial thing because for Laura Fitton, when she updates her status she feels “a happier person, a calmer person.” So even if many people may think that these certain website are a waste of time, there are a lot of beneficial things to it, and this article will talk more about it in depth.

I’ve never really thought of getting a twitter because I really saw no point in it, but after reading this article, I am actually more interested in getting one! yay!

Week #1’s Reading

I had found the article Time’s Person of the Year: You to be very interesting. This article talks about how in 2006, another big innovation is created, which is called Web 2.0. Web 2.0 tends to be such a strong innovation that not only does it make the citizen watch, but it also makes them work the extra step. Because of these internet sites, we tend to take the extra step to blog, updates status and etc. And just how Web 2.0 is just this big experiment and it changes our society because now citizen to citizen or person to personal will now have some sort of international understanding. We will also honestly wonder who’s out there looking back at us over the internet.

Aside from that, I found this reading to be fascinating because this article was written 6 years ago, and look at today. Everybody is online, or on facebook. And a lot of people uses facebook to meet people all around the world, everybody is talking to everybody. And it’s so true how even if we are tired from work and such, we will find the energy to go online to update or check our e-mail. I just feel that internet now is a very important factor to human’s lives.

Keep smiling, even when times get rough.

You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: our lives
You: lol
Stranger: r so
Stranger: so
Stranger: fucked up’
You: aw
You: whats wrong?
You: =[ tell me about it
Stranger: like you even know”
Stranger: how fucked up it is
Stranger: like my boyfriend cheated on me with my BET FRIEND
Stranger: *BEST
You: no fucking way..
You: why would he do that?
Stranger: and
You: honestly, if he’s willing to do that… then screw him..
Stranger: my best friend is now dead and in the bottom of the rives
Stranger: well no
Stranger: not yet
You: omg how is she dead?
Stranger: she’ not dead
Stranger: not yet
You: wait what’s the story?
Stranger: i feel like i wanna punch someone
Stranger: the story is that my BFF is a frickin’ jerk
Stranger: and my bf is too
Stranger: but hey i guess that’s why they ‘ clicked’
You: yeah…
You: it’s okay
Stranger: i’m gonna fuckin’ kill someone
You: you can get better
You: don’t let a guy drive you this crazy… you can deserve so much better. just calm down. there are a lot of fishes in the sea
Stranger: that’s what they all say
You: and honestly, i’m sure you are a great friend.. you will find better friends.
You: you don’t need her.
You: but how is she about to die?
Stranger: she’s not!
Stranger: unless i do something…
You: DONT… you will regret it…
You: c’mon… you have better friends than that.
Stranger: yeah maybe
You: no not maybe.
You: i’m sure you do ❤
You: when did this all happen?
Stranger: last weekend
Stranger: that's when i found out
Stranger: it seems they have had this 'thing' going on between them for two months
You: wow
You: and how long were you and your boyfriend together?
Stranger: and by 'thing' i mean SEX
You: wow.. how did you find all of this out?
Stranger: 'cause i fuckin' caught them in the ACT
Stranger: and then my bf tried fuckin' explain everything
Stranger: but it's too late
You: OMG..
You: that must be terrible. did you slap him atleast?
You: i mean that's what he deserves!
Stranger: slapped him and threw stuff at him
Stranger: but he hasn't suffered enough yet
You: wow
You: i'm sure he's suffering.. cause he lost a precious person like you.
You: your bestfriend is nothing but a sex toy. so don't trip.
You: you are worth so much more
Stranger: well thanks for your kind words
Stranger: i need to go
Stranger: i'll atleast try cope with this bullshit
Stranger: that i've been going through
You: thanks
You: do u want to talk more?
Stranger: no
You: alright better better<3 .. don't do anything rational please.
Stranger: thanks i'll try not to
Stranger: bye and take care
You: take care also!
Your conversational partner has disconnected.

(This conversation may not be as long because she was taking awhile to answer)

Even though I didn't put on a false online persona,( or anywhere in the conversation did i speak of my identity) I felt this conversation was worthy of posting, because it shows how open people can be when they are online. And how it just takes one person to change someone's mind, just like the girl, she wanted to resort to violence but I was there to open her eyes and explain to her how that wasn't the answer. I mean this conversation is a bit private but good thing it was an anonymous. If we were to observe this conversation, not only could you pick up emotions but also the struggles that she is probably facing. There's so much more to this, therefore I feel it's worthy of posting.