writing assignment #3

For my final individual project, I will be researching the uses of text-messaging and its impact it has had upon the idea of a community as well as upon society. Then I will be looking towards new technologies which have come about in Asia with relation to text-messaging and how that may indicate what is to come in the future for the United States.

My research project of text messaging definitely contributes on impacting society and how we interact with one another. With text messaging there is a new form of conversation. In terms of culture, text messaging impacts society in becoming this whole new phenomenon. From text messaging there is the introduction and creation of new lingo as well as a new language. Text messaging requires a user to be concise due to the amount of character restrictions a user can send in a single text, and there forms new ways to spell things to accommodate this.

In terms of politics and the environment, text-messaging has been able to become an outlet where campaigners as well as protesters can quickly organize to come together for a cause they all support. Politicians can campaign to the voters through text messaging making it seem more personal when it comes through someone’s personal cellular phone, and protesters can come together in a hurry by sending out text messages to the masses through their networks by means of text-messaging communities as sms.ac and upoc.com.

Impacting society in terms of the economy, text-messaging can also be seen as a means of earning revenue. Through advertisements and other services that can come about from text messaging, this all leaves opportunity for profits. From advertisements acting as a form of spam is one way to lead to profits, but by also offering other services as being able to send color pictures, sound bites, interact as form of interactive media, also leads to another type of profits. Typically to be able to use these other services and other forms of text-messaging, a user needs a cellular phone capable of functioning in this manner. As a result users also need to upgrade their phone which yet again leads to profits.

A place where text messaging seems to have a negative effect is the area of education. It has now become commonplace where a student may be found cheating because of text messaging. Because the use of text messaging is quiet, students can easily be text messaging during an exam because text messaging allows for a user to stay connected all the time. But this constant connectivity can prove beneficial for families as when there are family emergencies, a user can be contacted at all times privately through the usage of text messaging.

Ronkainen, S. & Marila, J. (2004, May). Time-out in user interface: the case of mobile text input. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 8(2). Retrieved May 30, 2005, from Proquest Database.

This article discusses the nature of text-messaging and the possibility of time lags. Though voice conversation is instantaneous in feedback, text-messaging creates a time lag and the responder can choose to respond at anytime versus right away. This relates to my topic in some of the challenges text-messaging needs to address in the future. I know this is a credible site because it comes from the proquest database which also has the backing through subscription from the University of Washington.

Durkin, A. (2005, March 8). Realeyes3D brings handwritten messaging to Samsung phones. Asia Pulse. Retrieved May 30, 2005, from LexisNexis database.

This article discusses the new technology Samsung is bringing forth. This relates to my topic by discussing what my come to the United States in the future, and what text-messaging may evolve to as well as what it has perpetuated in idea. Credibility is given to the LexisNexis database which is a well known source for news articles as well as being sponsored through subscription by many universities including the University of Washington.

Davis, Z. (2004, December 22). Asian phone explosion. PC Magazine.com. Retrieved May 30, 2005, from LexisNexis database.

This article also talks to new technologies and discusses other such features which are already put in use throughout Japan and Hong Kong. This also relates to what my come to the future of the United States as the above article. This was found through LexisNexis and is credible for the same reasons stated above.

If I were to pick another technology to explore, I would choose the ipod. Apple has seemed to have created a phenomenon with the apple ipod, next with the ipod mini, the ipod shuffle, and the photo ipod. Though there may be similar options out there that may even have more storage than the ipod, people still seem to gravitate toward purchasing an apple made product in contrast to a competitor. I think it would be interesting to see why that is so, and after hearing individual project presentations in class, and with a few students doing research on the ipod, I would have liked to see what apple plans to market in the future for the ipod, and what else they have in the making. Technology is an amazing sector, and it is always interesting to see what’s new. We always tend to think that an idea is so incredibly new, but forget that the idea most likely came years before the actual release of the product. It would also be interesting to see they types of progressions inventors went through with the ipod and what led it to become what it has today.

The most important thing that I learned this quarter through the new media class was the idea of communities as well as learning new technological lingo. Now when someone or some article mentions dreamweaver or VoIP, I will actually know what they are talking about, and has led to me be a bit more technologically educated. Things are changing within technology all the time and I think that this class was great in updating my outdated technological knowledge. It was also really important to learn about communities, and see how these networks work, and can be used for future reference.