In this blog I am going to talk about how I make use of modern day technology to keep in contact with friends and family. I also look at my concerns of facebook, and also define how much I use the various communication services.
Facebook, the networking site that enables me to view what my friends and family are up to, and also re-establish communication with old friends. I'm really thankful that the site exists as I travel a lot and so do my friends, so it's a great way to stay in contact. For example now I'm studying in Australia after having lived in Denmark for 12 years. Which basically means that all my friends are back home in Denmark or somewhere else in Europe studying. It may sound a bit odd, but the site helps making me feel less home-sick as I still can follow their lives even though I am physically not there. Facebook also allows one to upload pictures and keep friends updated.
On facebook I'm not worried about people "lurking" and viewing my profile, but I am concerned that if companies were to view pictures of me partying etc., it may give a dimmed image of who I am. As I would consider myself a person that enjoys partying but at the same time also likes to focus on my studies. Therefore certain images may give the wrong impression of who I am academically.
Another great service that I use is Skype and MSN. I use it to keep in contact with friends back home in Denmark. And before I left Denmark I set up Skype on my mum's computer, so she also knows how to use it now. When chatting with my mum we also use webcam, as she wants to see how I am, which she feels she can do better if the webcam is on. The fantastic thing about Skype is that you can "multi-chat", so at times I am sitting and chatting with 5 of my friends back home. It's great it "nearly" feels like one is sitting with them. That is one thing that I was surprised with and that was that there is no delay or lag at all when chatting with my friends back home (although the webcam images are a bit choppy).
SMS'ing is something that I also do often as it is a small text message, which is fast and quick. It's great when arranging gatherings as you can multi-send an SMS message. And of course I use the mobile for not only SMS'ing but also making phone calls.
Last but not least is blogging as a communication technology that I use. Today we learnt how to create a link list, which basically is a list of blogs that you keep an eye on. Before the class of New Communication Technologies I had never created a blog before, which I now realize is actually a good way to keep track of events and things that have happened to oneself. It also is another way of keeping your friends up-to-date on what's happening with you.
To summon up I use MSN-chatting the most and have used it for several years now. I would spend roughly 30-60 minutes on MSN chatting everyday. Skype on the other hand I haven't used untill roughly 4 months ago as I used to use another voice chat program called Ventrilo (www.ventrilo.com), but would now use the program roughly 10 minutes a day. It works in another way, one has to be hooked up to a server, therefore one can't make direct calls to someone like one can in Skype, but on the other hand it uses less bandwidth as it is a server hosting the connection and not oneself. I would probably send 5-10 SMS's a day.
All-in-all I would consider myself an avid user of new communication technologies as it is easy and simple and its a great way to keep in contact. Definitely Internet > letters!
No comments:
Post a Comment