Social networking sites do not enable more friends

An Economist article (http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13176775) from a couple of weeks ago highlighted something about Facebook and other social networking sites that I believe is quite true: these sites are primarily for keeping in touch with acquaintances and have no effect on the actual number of close friends. While the number of "friends" on Facebook averages around 120 the actual number of close friends with whom people have frequent conversations is between 6-8. What does this actually mean? First, as I pointed out earlier social networking sites are primarily for keeping in touch with acquiaintances. Second, is that most social networking sites inaccurately use the word friend. A lot of the people who are listed as my friends are really more acquiantances. Very few people on my Facebook friend list would I go if I had serious problems. This isn't to say that I don't get along with people on my friend list or have something against them. We just aren't close friends - and that's okay. A lot of people have gotten fixated on the idea of having lots of friends for absolutely no reason. I think in a lot of cases people have lots of friends on Facebook either because they aren't very selective of who they consider friends or acquiantances or they have low self esteem and need to see that they have lots of friends to make themselves feel better.

Testing is the key

Tuesday's class was about internet viruses and malware and it reminded me of health class in junior high when we talked about STD's. The structure of both classes really was very similar.

• Step 1: Scare people about how bad Internet viruses or STD's are to your health
  
• Step 2: Inform how you can prevent viruses (i.e. virus checker, firewalls or condoms)
• Step 3: Avoid risky behavior (i.e. don't go to sites or open suspicious emails
  

Aside from this comparison I will say Tuesday's lecture brought up a much more important point that companies have to think through their data management policies. This can have far reaching implications from who has access to view what data but also to how files should be named. Without having a standard group to oversee data management the ability to identify where files are located or protect data from being used improperly becomes very difficult.

Welcome to Second Life Chad Mistwalker!

Second Life Sucks! Without any doubt the time I spent on second life was a complete waste (other than providing material for my blog and the homework assignment that I have to write).

While some may object to may harsh language to describe their favorite internet pastime I have to say that second life is about the most boring thing I have ever seen. Lets just start with the little fact that nothing ever seems to load correctly in second life (see picture to the left). This looks like some real cutting edge graphics to me. I can't even tell what I'm looking at! Overall I'd have to say that I don't think I'm ever going to use Second Life again and I'm going to be deleting the program off of my computer ASAP.