Some thoughts on Virtual Cultures

Wow ok so I've never blogged before and am doing this for a QUT Creative Industries KCB201 assessment piece.
I'd say most of my blogging to come are going to be long winded and wordy because its what I do. Hopefully something substantial will be able to be extracted out eventually...
So hello and welcome to all you fellow bloggers and especially any KCB201ers out there!

Alright this is not an official post so I'm not going to make a big thing about being scholarly or academic, but I thought I'd post some of my thoughts on KCB201 aka Virtual Cultures content so far this semester. So coming into my third year of studying media and communications some of this stuff has become so familiar to me that I just assume everybody has thought about it, knows about it, wouldn't be confused by it. Apparently not. My parents are both intelligent beings, always open to discussion about life the universe and everything, but I try and talk to them about things like DIKW, convergence, niche markets and hyperlocal(ism?), even something so seemingly simple as the social networking trend, and they look at me like I'm speaking a different language...

Maybe its just my generation, and the new generations coming, we take these things for granted. Things like computers and the internet for example. I mean wow, I can remember the day we got our first family computer. This old clunky grey box with a screen so rounded the picture would be warped from any direction you were looking unless you were sitting directly infront. I remember playing games like commander keen and pod racer. I remember clicking that space bar so hard from jumping and firing that eventually it would rattle if you so much as brushed your fingers against it! I remember the load up screen (with what was it, MSdos or something? Please excuse my technical illiteracy!) and when the technology was so slow but nobody cared waiting for the load up because it was just such an amazing thing. These days I get frustrated when programs dont open instantly, or if it takes more then about 10 seconds to load a new page. Where did my patience go?

I take things like the internet for granted. Its so easy to forget the huge technological divide that our world teters on the edge of. I can understand that if you never have something, never experience it in the first place, then you don't know what you're missing out on to miss it in the first place. But does that make it ok? Will the rest of the world ever catch up? This is not to say they necessarily want to, but in my personal opinion I think that the good that has come from technology such as the internet outweighs any potential harm it may have. Sure people can misuse technology for their own gain and to the detriment of others, but I honestly think the majority of people have atleast a primitive level of moral development that goes beyond that. Atleast I would like to believe that. Maybe I'm too naive or optimistic, but I'd rather have a world full of optimists then pessimists any day.

OK I'll admit this post is really not going anywhere worthwhile, but I'll wrap on regardless - I want to be part of this new participatory culture! I think networks should be encouraged and I think we should all do our bit to contribute to that mass of information continually building out there in the world. So maybe this particular post isn't going to do that, but who knows what is to come. Hopefully next time I log on I will have something profound or insightful to comment on. I'm waiting on some more inspiration.

Or it could be I just like the 'clack-clack' of my typing and the sound of my own voice (in my head ofcourse, dictating to my little fingers tapping away on the keyboard), whether I have something worthwhile to put up here or not...