Laura Hayes

[kristysblogfornow-blog]

[lauraemilyhayes]

kristysblogfornow:

“Doctor Google’s School of Medicine”. Danger Kids. http://dangerkids.net/

Prior to this blog post, I tried a little experiment of seeing what condition the internet may diagnose me with. I discovered a website called ‘Healthline’ which required me to simply select a few symptoms I...

Kristy in this post highlights the reasons we should be sceptical and worried about the internets involvement in online health diagnoses, but there is a point where we have to take responsibility for our actions. Sure enough the internet can tell us that a mild headache, sore throat and achey bones could either be a common cold or flu, a virus or it could be meningococcal. But whether we freak out and decide that, yes we are about to die, or we act rationally and either go to the doctors, or use common sense to relate the symptoms back to the more likely outcome of it being a flu.

Sure the internet may be the cause of a few unnecessary freak outs, but I can't help but feel that the blame should lay more on the person that could easily jump to these conclusions without using any common sense or intelligence, and not the internet. 

[lauraemilyhayes]

Week 6 Readings

As much as the scepticism against the trend of online diagnoses is relavent, I find the availability and practicality of the internets role in our health is somewhat overlooked. There is indeed the risk of everyday people taking the role of the internet a little too far and replacing it for our general practitioner, but I'd like to believe this is an extraordinarily small percentage of people that could fall pray to this. In all likelihood, and looking at this practically, the internet is used because it is quick, easy, straightforward and incredibly accessible, which unlike the doctors is not always.

As much as our society has progressed in our health services this has done nothing to change the fact that people still get embarrassed about illnesses. Regardless of how common, there is still an apprehension to seek medical advice for the more private illnesses. Seeking out information may not always deny our fears, although that does happen, but it also may show people that they are not alone and going to the doctor will not amount in shock from their side. 

People also experience common occurences within themselves that maybe without the internet could play on their minds and work even worse in the 'hypochondriac' dilemna, than if they did a quick search and realised that small bump is most probably just a pimple. This shift towards personal responsibility for our own health, as Lewis wrote about, does not always mean we are becoming irrational and hysterical, but simply being aware. 

References

Lewis, T. (2006). Seeking health information on the internet: lifestyle choice or bad attack of cyberchondria? Media, Culture & Society, volume 28, issue 4: 521-539

[lauraemilyhayes]

Further relevant readings from Week 4

This is an incredibly interesting article I read recently that I thought may be relevant to the Shirky (2011) article. It is an interview with Daniel Ellsberg, better known as the leaker of the Pentagon Papers in 1971. He speaks about his feelings of relation and sympathy to Bradley Manning, who is currently being held in a military prison, accused of "illegally downloading hundreds of thousands of secret military and State Department documents and giving them to Wikileaks" (Fantz, 2011). He faces life in prison or possibly execution (Fantz, 2011). 

[lauraemilyhayes]

Week 4 Readings

When reading through the first reading of this week on the connection between politics, social media, and the connection between the two, I could only wish I had a 1000 word limit rather than 200 for this. The importance of the connection between the two is, especially right now, incredibly prevalent and important in society today. One cannot help but relate what is being spoken about to the continuing drama that is Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange. Using the internet, and more specifically social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, Wikileaks seeks to bring classified and previously hidden information on governments and their workings to the people. The affect social media has on political change is undeniable. Even if, as Shirky says, the overall success of social media as a tool in political change is not mesuarable for it's ability to not always succeed, it still influences future action groups to take charge and demand change through this online tool (2011).

In regards to the reading Ethics On The Internet (Hamelink, 2006), specifically as I read it straight after The Political Power of Social Media (Shirky, 2011), a topic I feel rather passionate about, I at first found the argument about the ethics and moral standards of lying on the internet a little inferior to the first topic. But as I continued to read I remembered the documentary I watched recently, Talhotblond (Schroeder, 2009) in which a young man lost his life purely through lying and deceit on the internet. Hamelink may speak about the most prevelant moral issues on the internet being "censorship, lust for power, treason, stalking, lying, gossiping, peeping, stealing, cheating, seducing, breaking promises, insulting, and being unfaithful, unreliable, uncivilized, or abusive" (2006), but we have to realise that although this may be one part of lying on the internet, it can go so much deeper.

References

Shirky, C. (2011). The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change in Foreign Affairs. Volume 90, Issue 1;  pg. 28, 15 pgs. 

Hamelink, C. (2006). The Ethics of the Internet: Can we cope with Lies and Deceit on the Net? In Ideologies of the Internet, K. Sarikakis & Daya Thussu, pp. 115-130. New Jersey: Hampton Press.

Schroeder, B. (2009). (Writer & Director), & Answers Productions (Producer) (2009) Talhotblond. United States, Paramount Digital Entertainment.

[lauraemilyhayes]

Interesting and relevant video Kristy posted about the way in which the internet is bringing together something as broad as a Symphony Orchestra. I remember seeing this on a TV show not long ago and thinking about how interesting it was, and noticing just how appreciative some of the people from smaller or less fortunate countries were able to participate in something as large and forward thinking as this. Many thanks to Kristy for reminding me of it.  

[lauraemilyhayes]

Week 3 Readings

The world is progressing in many ways with the help of new technologies and the internet. One category that has progressed hugely with this new media is that of entertainment. There is a whole new world of opportunities that have been created for the different forms of entertainment we rely on with the development of new technologies and the progression of the internet. 

The first reading spoke on the value placed on the iPod, it's connection and representation of our identity, and the way that music moulds these. The idea of music snobs, or elitists, are nothing new, but as Levy states, the fact that we can now transport these devices around and with a flash of our iPod library, we can broadcast our own musical tastes (2006, p. 23).

The second reading covers the way in which Bollywood film studios are expanding the way in which they release their films and in turn making it easier for fans all over the world to watch their films. Not only will this new venture make it easier for consumers but the producers will benefit greatly, such as the figures shown that a quarter of the film Vivah's total earnings were brought in by the web release, equating to $4.5 million (Singh 2008).

References

Levy, S. (2006). The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture and Coolness, New York: Simon & Schuster, pp. 21-41.

Singh, M. (2008).  Bollywood's Viral Video in Time International (Canada Edition), Vol. 171, Issue 1.

[lauraemilyhayes]

Week 2 Readings.

The concept of this weeks readings and overall topic can be explained as broadly as the simple notion of our identity on the internet. As a user of tumblr for over 2 years I've made a surprising amount of friendships and connections, some superficial and some lasting and incredibly valuable, through this website alone. Tumblr has built itself around the concept of creating your own individual and personal blog that is a reflection of your own personality. As a longtime consumer I've grown numb to how large a part tumblr has played in my life, as a social tool and as a branch of myself. This combined with my facebook, twitter and last.fm, made it eye opening to be reminded of my and others unwavering belief of the online world as a legitimate social arena.

The way we go about our lives in these online social theatres really can be seen as performances. We write about our lives, or give across information about our personalities as if we're doing it for our own personal gain and satisfaction. But why then are we doing it so publicly? These people that say there blogs or last.fm's are used as just a collection of things they enjoy are lying through their teeth. We enjoy knowing we're being looked at from the privacy of our rooms. We're picking and choosing the best of our personalities, the best pictures of ourselves. We're performing as the best versions of ourselves for the world to see, because isn't it so much easier than the raw unfiltered versions of real life.