Should we or shouldn't we?

Remember that scene from Jurassic Park when Jeff Goldblum is sitting at the table with the other scientists & he is saying that the the scientists were so worried about whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should? I kind of had that same thought when I was visiting sites from the Most Comprehensive Web 2.0 lists. In particular the Mologogo site.

Mologogo is a mobile locater site. Basically, it uses GPS to track movements of cellualr phones. At first I was like, "Cool! How many of my friends and family can I get listed on here?" But as I clicked around, I was able to see info about the people who were signed on, I could look at the map and see the last 100 places where their mobile device had been located. Then I was like "No, way!" Every little dot on the map was telling me where these people had been. Sure, it would be nice to be able to see where my people are on the map-- mom is at the mall, hubby is at work, etc... but uh... they would be able to know where I was too. That stopped me. Not that I have anything to hide. But sometimes you DON'T want to be accessible to people. I am a grown woman, I don't need my mother knowing where I am every minute. I don't ask my husband every stop he made this week, I certainly wouldn't want him to be checking to see every little place I went. And what if that friend I occassionally talk to, is tracking me becasue I am not answering her calls? So, what first was a novelty, now became an issue of privacy. Would I want my boss to be able to track my location? If I was in a work vehicle on company time, sure I can see that, but with this and my cell phone #, she'd be able to see where I went in my off time. I don't like the idea of people being able to get that much information so easily.

The advances of technology...

Well, its true right? Technology has changed our lives, it has brought us out of the paper age and into the digital age. We are free of the endless stacks of papers, the books, the bulky folders and binders full of information. Only... what happens when you're without your computer?????

I love my computers. All of them, the ones at home and at work. At work they make my job so easy, I work at top speed, I am so productive and can access just about any information int he world with a few clicks and keystrokes. But if our system goes down? Everything comes to a screeching halt!!! People stop coming in, because with out our computers its very difficult to find the information. And alot of my job can't be done without those computers.

And lets talk about home. I took 2 days off work this week, thinking I could get caught up on some online stuff, blogg and post like crazy and still get a nap in. WRONG! The first day I was so sick I went from the bed to the couch to the bed, and then to the recliner. So , even a laptop doesn't do you any good when you can't stay vertical. The second day, I am feeling better & am ready to go. My laptop is out of commission temporarily, I should be getting it back next week (hopefully!!) So downstairs to my desktop and I get into position. Only, no Internet connection! yikes! My hubby is checking the connections, sending me up & down the stairs to check the lights on the modem, restart the computer, turn off the modem, turn on the modem, check the wires on the router, restart the computer again, disconnect the phone cords, reconnect the phone cords, restart the computer, run back upstairs and check the lights on the modem.... Eventually he got it connected again, and then when I finally had Internet again, I didn't' even want to use it anymore. :(

Why do some spend so much time online?

As I sit here & ponder the meaning of life and other random thoughts, it occurs to me that the people I know who are really happy with their lives, where they are, who they're with, what they're doing, they really don't spend a lot of their time online. They get on, do what they need to do and get off. While some of the people I know who seem to spend the most time online are the people who are unhappy with their jobs, their partners (or they don't have one), they complain a lot and wish they were somewhere else. Are virtual activities acting as an escape for those people who find it difficult to make real changes in their lives?

Why didn't Zuckerberg sell?

In the article How Mark Zuckerberg Turned Facebook Into the Web's Hottest Platform it talked about Zuckerberg and the money he turned down for Facebook, I might be able to understand a bit why he didn't sell after all. He put a tremendous amount of himself into this project. Years of his life. It is a huge accomplishment just as it is now. But he has bigger plans, things he wants to see happen, ways in which he wants to see the site evolve. If he sold out and turn his creation over to someone else, he would no longer have any hand in its growth and evolution. Even with $1 billion dollars, how could you walk away from something you put so much of yourself into creating?

Kids & MySpace

I work in a public library, spending half my time in the youth department. This means children from birth to 14. The biggest draw is the computers. Once school gets out until closing, those kids are online. MySpace is where 80% of them go. There is this one family, 3 kids, they are like 8,9 and 14. The younger ones spend the entire time on MySpace. I could have sworn there was a minimum age limit to create an account. Another girl who frequents daily is 12, and gets very cranky without her daily MySpace fix. The other day I sat & asked her what exactly does she do there all day. She said, email, chat, plays games like mobster (or something like that) with her friends and then there are the babies she can create & raise. I sat with her while she explained to me how to create a baby and how to care for it. It seemed alot like DigiPets my kids are begged and cried for a few years ago then let them die because it was too much trouble to play with it.

I understand that people go to these social networking sites to meet people and communicate and have fun and all that. But I see these kids with their friends lists of 50, 100, 200+ people and can't believe it! How could they possibly know so many people, they can't all be in their classes at school. I think the whole situation leads kids to be too trusting of people they don't really know. That person wouldn't lie to me, they're my "friend"! I've known that person for like a year now! Am I the only person that this bothers?

I have had to ground 2 of my kids in 2 separate instances where they got chatting with kids and even though they have been told a hundred times by us and by teachers and everyone on the planet, NOT to give out your personal info, they turned around anyway and gave out our address and phone number over the internet to people. Luckily, the 2 people they gave it to WERE actually kids, and I had to talk to 2 other very upset mothers.

And if you're asking what were my kids doing at places like MySpace if I don't agree with kids their age using it, I'll tell you it's not that I haven't tried. Our ISP has filtering software, we run separate monitoring software that will block certain types of sites and ones we specifically choose. But through word of mouth at school, they discover sites that you can go to that safely get through the filter, that you can then within the frame, log onto sites that are blocked. We then block those as soon as we find out about those as well, but it seems never ending. Sometimes, they'll go to friend's house where there is no parent concerned with Internet activity, sometimes they'll go to the library and use the public computers which do not filter anything. I ask you what's a concerned parent to do?