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Assignment 2
ESSAY
Title:
How can our net skills and knowledge be enhanced by a conceptual understanding of the internet?
Name:
James Farr
Student Number:
13715232
Unit Name:
Net 11
Email Address:
farrsy@hotmail.com
Date Submitted:
20/02/2007
Word Count:
1478
URL (if applicable):
By submitting this assignment, I declare that I have retained a suitable copy of this assignment, have not previously submitted this work for assessment and have ensured that it complies with university and school regulations, especially concerning plagiarism and copyright.
_______J.P. Farr 20/02/2007____________________
(Date/Signature)
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ASSIGNMENT 2.
ESSAY.
How can our net skills and knowledge be enhanced by a conceptual understanding of the internet?
To be an advanced internet user it is not enough to know that by clicking ‘this’, then ‘that’ will happen, or by typing in ‘that’, then ‘this’ will happen. To have a deeper understanding of the why as well as the how will allow us to move forward and continue to develop as an internet user as opposed to relying on the advancements and ingenuity of others.
Having a conceptual understanding of the internet helps us understand what the internet is, with all its advantages and limitations. To understand that whilst the net is a massive source of information, it is not a library or an encyclopedia, both of which contain information that has been checked and collated, both being useful and (usually) reliable.
“The internet is not nearly as structured and predictable as libraries and encyclopedias”.( Wolbers . 2002). Because of the nature of the internet, which has no central authority, anybody, anywhere can publish (virtually) anything, from opinion to outright propaganda, so one should not take information found on the net at face value.
An advanced internet user will seek information from a number of sources before being satisfied that the information they have sourced is reliable. He or she will understand that the internet, while being a huge source of previously unavailable and up to date information, is also “completely haphazard and unpredictable”.(Wolbesr. 2002) and perhaps should not be totally relied upon at the expense of other medium such as libraries, but used in conjunction with these other medium.
A conceptual understanding of email throws a whole new light on this asynchronous form of communication that is used by millions of people every day. To an advanced internet user it is no longer enough to bang out a few words and hit ‘send’ and hope for the best. One now becomes aware of the responsibility of the sender to take into account the possible ramifications of his or her message. Who will see it? How will they see it? Who else will see it? What are your expectations once they have seen it?(concept 2) And conversely, what is your responsibility as the receiver? The message is not complete when it hits the receivers ‘In box’.(concept 13) An advanced internet user will understand that by doing absolutely nothing after receiving an email they are possibly creating a ‘Black Hole’ (Suler.1996)
Keeping in mind the concept of the ‘invisibility of difference’ (concept 8) should serve as a reminder of your responsibilities to other users of the internet.
An advanced internet user will also understand the importance of ‘Nettiquette’ when using any form of communication on the Internet, whether it be synchronous or asynchronous. Nobody likes a rude, unthinking or obnoxious person in ‘real life” and the same applies to the internet. Having someone like this in your forum or chat room, whether their ignorance is intentional or unintentional, can cause offense to many people.
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It has become obvious through studying the current module, the difference between people who understand the concept of Reflective Communicative Practice (concept 4) and the general net-using public. The whole internet communication experience is much more pleasant and rewarding when dealing with people who understand the aforementioned concept.
Something else that has become clear in the process of studying the current module is the benefit of threading (concept 21) in asynchronous communication. After gaining some understanding of this concept and experimenting with both email lists and newsgroups, I have found the latter to be far easier to follow and make sense of because of threading, as was the case in the webct discussion board.
Another advantage of having a conceptual understanding of the internet, and perhaps the most important one, is that it opens up a whole new world of information to the user while making it clear that the world wide web is not all there is to the internet. The resources and information sourced by the average internet user represents only a fraction of what is actually available.
Through an understanding of tools such as Telnet, FTP, the deep web etc, one can access a seemingly endless supply of information that was invisible before gaining a conceptual understanding of the internet.
This conceptual understanding also makes one aware of the reasons people use the internet and cyberspace as they do.
The term ‘Cyberspace’, though it is overused these days, can be thought of as a “psychological space” (Suler.1996) in that the user actually feels as though they are entering a place or space. The metaphors commonly used to give the impression of moving through or navigating space, help the user to understand or make sense of the cyberspace experience by giving us familiar terms that can conjure up mental images that we are comfortable with and can ‘get our heads around’. (concept 15)
The appeal to many who visit cyberspace can be the imagination used when partaking in the various forms of synchronous and asynchronous communication. An advanced internet user should perhaps be mindful that as technology progresses and we are able to use the internet for more visual and auditory communication, people may not want to give up the current ‘spaces’ they are using, as the “new versions may lack the imaginative ambiguity that a non face-to-face forum has”. (Suler. 1996).
Through the course of studying this current unit I have become aware of this ‘psychological space’ when using what were new tools to me, such as chatting on ICQ and getting involved in newsgroups. No longer am I simply a ‘lurker’. I now understand the concept of creating an identity in cyberspace. (concept 20)
This would not have entered my head before gaining a basic conceptual understanding of the internet.
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I have also become acutely aware of the ‘Paradox of the World Wide Web’ (concept 28) in that, before embarking on this unit and course I was one of the millions of
casual users of the internet that was just very glad that the World Wide Web was so user-friendly, and believing that the World Wide Web was the internet.
I now fully appreciate that behind the apparent user-friendliness and simplicity of the World Wide Web there is a constantly changing and evolving medium, and the advanced internet user who has an understanding of the applications that have gone before, can move forward knowing that those past, apparently obsolete applications, are still in use and also can and do play an important role in the development and use of future applications.( Concept 27)
If planning on a future in an internet-based business, for instance if one should choose to become a producer/designer of websites, a conceptual understanding of the internet can mean the difference between designing highly successful sites, and duds.
Understanding the habits of the average internet user, i.e. average attention spans, scanning techniques commonly used etc, can help in the designing of sites that convey information as it was intended, through use of format, frames (or lack of) (concept 30), hyperlinking (concept 31)etc.
Too often, sites that have obviously had a lot of work put into them are quickly scanned and discarded because the designer has tried to be too clever and has not taken the ‘viewer’ into account, but has been carried away with too many ‘bells and whistles’, meaning the average casual browser simply finds it all too much and too confusing and moves on to more ‘user friendly’ sites.
The emergence of Peer to Peer networking is another exciting avenue for business to follow and could revolutionise the way business is conducted via the internet. But without a conceptual understanding of it’s impact on other aspects of the internet, such as the importance of understanding copyright laws for instance, users could find themselves experiencing problems of varying degrees. Take Napster as an example.
The future of the internet is mind boggling in it’s possibilities and to be involved in it’s growth and innovation, in my opinion, requires at least some degree of conceptual understanding in order to become fully immersed and adept in ones particular area of interest or expertise.
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REFERENCES.
Suler J. (1996)
The Psychology of Cyberspace
Retrieved February 10 2007 from: http://www.rider.edu/suler/psycyber/psycyber.html
Wolber D. (2002)
Lesson Nine. The Internet and the World Wide Web.
Retrieved February 12 2007 from:
http://www.peralta.cc.ca.us/laney/laney-opacs/lis85dreamweaver/lesson9.pdf
Concepts Document
Concept 2 Your audiences use of communication
Concept 4 Reflective communicative practice
Concept 8 The invisibility of difference
Concept 13 Communication is not complete upon receipt
Concept 15 Metaphors of use and communication
Concept 20 Active communication generates identity awareness
Concept 21 Threading
Concept 27 The persistence of history
Concept 28 The paradox of the world wide web.
Concept 31 Hypertext: Links of structurehttp://webct.curtin.edu.au/SCRIPT/305033_b/scripts/serve_home
