Beating a path through the digital wilderness

Going batty over role-playing

I am co-editing  a book with my friend Bala Musa on ethics of the social media, and one of the essays to be included in the book caught my attention when its title came across my desk the other day:

Racing the Vampire: Exploring Race & Identity in Second Life .

The essay is being written by Franklin Nii Amankwa Yartey, of Bowling Green State University.

Now, I know the good folks in Ohio and – from what I’ve seen – they all grew up on this planet. So I figured there must be a rationale understanding of this title.

And, of course, there is.

Young interests

The references are to two popular interests that young people have these days:

1. Vampires.
2. Virtual online fantasy sites like SecondLife.com.

For those of you who have not inhabited Earth the past three or four years, you may have missed out on the “Twilight” phenomenon, which originated from the printed page of books by Stephenie Meyer but which morphed into the movie series (three so far) starring heartthrobs Robert Pattison, Taylor Lautner, and Kristen Stewart.

(Swoons are appropriate now for teen and even early 20-something readers).

Buffy reborn

The movie series picks up on the popularity of the TV series, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and takes things a step further down the darker path.

The second reference of SecondLife.com is a site we have discussed before – maybe a year or so ago – in this blog.  Second Life is a free 3D virtual world where users can socialize, connect and create using free voice and text chat.

Second Life is one of many “role-playing sites” or RPG’s that have arisen over the past few years.

Chasing dreams

For those over 50, it is the old TV series, Fantasy Island, transported to the 21^st Century interactive Web. You not only watch other people pursuing their dream; you can do it yourself. Sort of. As long as you’re willing to do it in the virtual online world.

As Mitch Wagner, of Information Week notes:

“Second Life roleplaying is popular. It’s kind of a mix between World of Warcraft, improv comedy, and live theater. Users create characters and then improvise scenes involving those characters.

“Popular roleplay communities include Roma, based on ancient Rome; the The Road to Deadwood, based on the historical cowboy town of Deadwood, South Dakota; the Independent State of Caledon, based on Victorian Britain with a Jules Verne flair; and the vampires-and-monsters-themed City of Lost Angels.”

Vamps welcome

The last of these sites suggest there are “destinations” on Second Life involving vampires. In fact, there are a lot of them. To name just three:

• Genesis Order Horde. “Home of the Genesis Order vampire horde, a friendly, safe haven that welcomes all. It’s role-play friendly, with several active social-oriented venues including Club Se>en, a shopping area, a pier and member of several support organizations oriented toward new residents.”
• Vampyr Empire. “Transylvania, one of Second Life’s longest running communities, features a thriving, tight knit family who can offer support for new people coming into this lifestyle. You’ll find towering castles, dark corners and high-class Gothic-style shopping in this popular area.”
• Vamporium. “As soon as you land in Vamporium, you’ll feel a cold wind upon the back of your neck. There’s a whole region and shop of horrors to explore, including dark corners, haunted castles, Hell Maze, crypts and all manner of gruesome creatures. A truly dark adventure awaits!”

An old fascination

A lot of folks wonder why young people are finding vampires so fascinating today. Some parents are shuddering at the thought of their kids going any more goth than – well – they did, not too many years ago and of being sucked into the vampire world.

But then again, haven’t vamps always been fascinating to us, young and old? Today’s parents probably devoured large tubs of popcorn over 1994’s Interview with a Vampire (with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in the capes), and their parents and grandparents got to know Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney as earlier-day bat-men. And of course, there was always the TV sitcom, The Munsters.

Back to that essay

If you haven’t forgotten the initial spark that opened this stroll down Nightmare Lane, it was the question of the essay’s title, Racing the Vampire: Exploring Race and Identity in Second Life. It is one of many essays that takes communication studies into new areas.

In this case, with the advent a few years ago of these popular, virtual fantasy sites like Second Life, a lot of communication researchers and psychologists have been wondering what might happen to the individual identity of a young person who winds up spending so much time living an online life as someone else.

Like, oh, a vampire.

What’s important here?

Is race important when you’re a vampire? Is gender? Can some of the problems swirling around those descriptors be eliminated by simply living your life in fantasy land? If so, what kinds of personal identity problems are young users facing? Are sites such as Second Life causing any re-entry problems for the young cybernauts navigating them?

With the popularity of these RPG sites, others have arisen to transport users into faraway places and very strange territories. A few of them are:

• Dreamworld
• Swords and Potions
• Ministry of War
• Kaliedoscope Dating Sim
• Always Remember Me
• Fatal Hearts
• Crush the Castle

And the list goes on and on. So do the questions: what happens to the question young people deal with of, “Who am I,” when they might spend so much time breaking hearts or crushing castles in the virtual world?

Could be that critics of these sites are tilting at windmills themselves.

Familiar turf

Perhaps there is no more danger lurking here than Grandpa faced when he forced his mom and dad into buying much more Ovaltine than they ever needed just to collect enough product labels to send off for his very own Captain Midnight Secret Decoder Ring.

As in most questions regarding the virtual unknown, only time will tell. In the meantime, Beam me up, Scotty!

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A Repeat Performance

If the desire to be original is the match that lights the fire for creativity, what does the match of repetition ignite?

Let me put it another way:

If the desire to be original is the match that lights the fire for creativity, what does the match of repetition ignite?

That’s entertainment

Right. There isn’t much that’s unique about repetition, and yet millions of us spend hour after hour doing the exact same thing we’ve been doing over and over, and we call it entertainment.

It is, in fact, online gaming.

What are some of the most repetitive of these games? Does the fact that these games are so repetitive act as a turnoff for video gamers?  Here are some comments from the ardent souls so loyal to these games:

•    Spiderman: Shattered Dimensions: By the time I got to the final level, I was just about ready to throw my controller out the window. (Deadpool Stage was A NIGHTMARE) I seriously can’t think of a more repetitive game. Except maybe the Katamari games. But they had their own charm.

* Show me a game that isn’t repetitive. Every single game in existence, good or bad, will fit this description. All that matters is if you can find it enjoyable.

•    EVERY game is repetitive by nature. It’s not like you go from shooting and free roam to platforming to stealth to puzzle gameplay in Grand Theft Auto. There’s a huge difference between FEELING repetitive and BEING repetitive.
•    A more repetitive game? Let’s just use this generation. I’ll also only list a couple of the games I played and loved: Resident Evil 5 – aim gun, pull trigger; Assassin’s Creed – track down the same 6 clues that lead you to each of the bosses; Gears of War (1 & 2) – aim gun, pull trigger, hide behind wall.
•    Oh, yeah. Put Web of Shadows in the repetitive list as well. Still fun, but still a repetitive mess.
•    Show me a game that isn’t repetitive, and I shall give you Jesus.
•    True. EVERY game is repetitive by nature. It’s not like you go from shooting and free roam to platforming to stealth to puzzle gameplay in Grand Theft Auto. There’s a huge difference between FEELING repetitive and BEING repetitive.

Actually, I’d love a little explanation on this last post. Sounds like there’s something provocative in the thought about feeling repetitive vs. being repetitive, but sorry: I can’t quite see it.

Repetition as fun

What becomes quickly apparent, given the huge popularity of the games mentioned and of three of these comments explicitly, is that repetition strikes us — not as boring — but as enjoyable. (And I’ll have to include myself in that because I spend a lot of time on the game, TextTwist.)

So what might all this time with repetitive games be doing to our pursuit of originality and creativity?

One obvious answer is that these games are diverting our time and attention from other original pursuits ranging from building a better light bulb, to writing the next life-changing book, to finding a cure for cancer.

Wasting time?

We’re wasting a lot of time with these repetitive games, folks, and we’re not getting much to show for it.

Having made this assertion, however, I should tell you that I once spent half of a college lecture in an ethics class discussing some important things I had learned in all the time I used to spend playing Pacman. I must admit I’ve forgotten most of those lessons, however, so they must not have been so significant after all.

A numb world

We do enter a mental vacuum upon playing repetitive games, and that can give our mind a rest from the otherwise busy and complex world we must navigate. Aside from that, however, I’m not sure there’s much usefulness in repetitiveness.

And having made this argument, let me qualify it to the world of entertainment and not to the world of professions or even athletics. There is, in fact, a lot of benefit to hiring a professional to do a job that he/she has done over and over and over again.

For example, I would rather have my wisdom teeth extracted by a dentist who had done that procedure a few hundred times at least.

A sporting caveat

And another example: A quarterback on a football team – or any other position player for that matter – becomes infinitely better at his position if he runs that play over and over again. In fact, we often rate the quality of football players on the number of “reps” they have taken, with “reps” being short for repetitions.

Back to entertainment, though, is there any research that supports the idea that we enjoy repetitiveness? Turns out there is. Like this, for example, from a trio of researchers:

The spice of variety

“The dictum ‘variety is the spice of life’ notwithstanding, people seem to show a surprising tolerance, even preference, for repetition. Whether a favorite snack, pop song, or piece of art, people routinely expose themselves to the same liked stimulus repeatedly.

“Indeed, prior work has shown that people even surprise themselves with this preference; research on the “diversification bias” has consistently shown that people predict a greater preference for variety (and aversion to repetition) than they show in their online, immediate preferences.”

Another research study points out that, while repetition and drills have been debunked by many new-age educators who say quality teaching is found in originality and creativity, that may not be the case at all.

Not so fast

“Compare the attitudes and approaches to drill and practice by many academic teachers with the attitudes of educators who are held accountable for the competence of their students.

“The basketball coach or the music teacher needs no convincing regarding the value of drill and practice on fundamental skills. No one questions the basketball coach’s insistence that his players shoot 100 free throws every day or wonders why the piano teacher has her pupils play scales over and over.

“It is well understood that these skills are critical to future performance and that systematic practice is required to master them to the desired levels of automaticity and fluency. We would question the competence of the coach or music teacher who did not include drill and practice as a major component of his or her teaching.”

Applying common sense

There are, of course, some common-sense answers to why many of us find repetition enjoyable. For one thing, repetition connotes familiarity and that is a concept most of us find appealing. Familiarity is comfortable; we know the signposts and context, so navigating the territory is easier.

Don’t you find it more enjoyable to return to a big city years later and remember how to get around and find places than getting frustrated at the wheel and arriving at your destination with that emotional baggage (and possibly a wife who isn’t talking to you?)

Newness and cost

As for entertainment, given the high cost of a movie outing ($25 or more with popcorn and a drink), don’t you want to have some sense that the film you’re seeing will be worth all that? Is it any wonder that movie channels like AMC or TNT have a select group of movies that seem to be playing over and over again? How many times have you seen Godfather I or II? How about Goodfellas, or a Dirty Harry movie?

So whether you find repetition a curse or a blessing, the fact remains that – in the world of online games – it goes with the territory, and millions of us must find that territory fun to navigate.

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A dangerous playground

Sorry for the lapse in new uploads. I’ve been engaged in a cross-country move from Indiana to California, and have been involved in the low-tech aspects of truck-loading and driving across the Mojave Desert.

Time to get back to thinking about how new media technology is affecting our lives, though, and I thought I would do that by sharing some thoughts from a friend, Terry Mattingly, who writes an online religion column for the Scripps-Howard News Service.

Values and texting

What does religion have to do with texting, social media, smart phones and the like? Maybe the following from one of Terry’s recent columns will show that:

“GILFORD, N.H. — Everywhere computer professional Brian Heil looked
at SoulFest 2011 he saw packs of young people trying to stay on
schedule as they rushed from one rock concert, workshop or prayer
meeting to another.

“But first, there was one more text to send, one more Twitter tweet to
tweet, one more Facebook status to update, one more snapshot to share,
one more YouTube video to upload, just one more connection to make in
the digital world that now shapes real life.

“This year’s festival (Aug. 3-6) drew nearly 13,000 Protestants and
Catholics from throughout New England, which means there were about
that many cellphones, smartphones, tablets and other digital devices
on hand. The screens glowed like fireflies in the crowds that gathered
for the rock concerts each night on the lower slopes of the Gunstock
Mountain Resort.”

Who gets the praise?

Get the picture? Technology seems as omnipresent as God to many young people who happen to be at events praising one in name but the other in practice.

Heil, a digital designer who runs a workshop for parents and pastors called “Protecting the Playground,” puts it this way:

“Everyone’s connected everywhere. It’s continuous. This is how our
young people experience life today. They don’t even look at the keys on their phones anymore when
texting. …

Texting feels safer?

“Lots of kids are more comfortable texting than they are talking and
having real relationships. They have trouble with face-to-face
intimacy because they’re so used to living their lives online and in
text messages. Texting feels safer.”

But the harsh reality is that the digital world is not safer, according Heil who added, while many pastors and parents have heard horror stories about children straying into dark corners online, few are aware of just how common these problems have become — even in their sanctuaries and homes.

A few stats

He uses the following statistics to back him up:

* Two-thirds of Americans under the age of 18 have reported some kind
of negative experience while online. Only 45 percent of their parents
are aware of this.

* Forty-one percent of children say they have been approached online
by some kind of stranger, possibly an older predator.

* At least 25 percent of children report having seen nude or
disturbingly violent images online. Heil is convinced this number has
risen to 45 percent in the past year or so.  The vast majority of
children exposed to pornography first see these images on a computer
in their own home.

“This is why, if I could convince parents to make one change in their
homes, it would be to never put a computer behind a closed door. …
Keep them out in an open part of the house,” he said.

* Among teens, 45 percent report having sent or received a sexual
text message of some kind. One in five say they have sent or received
a nude or partially nude image, the phenomenon that has become known
as “sexting.”

* Among teens with Internet access, 40 percent say they have been
affected by cyberbullying activities, such as malicious changes being
made to their Facebook pages after the theft of passwords.

No one immuned

Heil notes that there are many self-professing Christian youths engaging in these activities as well, adding that cyberbullying is not confined just to wayward teens and pre-teens. He blames the free-fall world of emotions that youths find online for spurring them into saying and doing things they otherwise might not do or say.

The challenge for parents in monitoring or curtailing deviant online behavior of their children gets tougher every day, Heil notes, because the kids are usually smarter than their adult parents about how to use the social media and put filters in place to keep their comments from unwanted eyes.

There is no V-chip to keep emotionally vulnerable teens and pre-teeens off the Internet as there is to filter out unwanted TV shows or channels. So the burden on parents is to instruct their children in good values and show them how they can be applied to interpersonal relationships and communications.

If that foundation is laid, parental trust should be somewhat easier.

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Bouncing from Pong to Halo

This really dates me, but it was 1973 when I was first introduced to video games.

I had just moved into a new apartment in Longview, Texas, and I was invited to a neighbor’s for dinner. After burgers and beer, he showed me a contraption he had hooked up to his TV set that produced the image of a white bouncing blip across the black screen with a couple vertical dashes on each end that kept it moving.

The game was called Pong, it was the first game made by Atari, and it would open the door to the cultural phenomenon of video gaming.

Decades later

We’ve come a long way since then. Whether that means we’ve progressed or regressed depends on how much time you think you’ve wasted in front of a video monitor, lured into the marvelous world of repetition.

As we have transitioned from the television screen to the computer, videogames have followed us. They are firmly entrenched in the Internet universe. They have grown from the simple games of Pong and beyond to the sophisticated, online role-playing games such as World of Warcraft and Halo 3.

Each of those games boasts tens of thousands of players worldwide at any given time.

The Halo plot

Owned and published by Microsoft Studios, Halo is a trilogy of games that focuses on the interstellar war between humanity and a theocratic alliance of aliens known as the Covenant.

A far cry from ping pong.

The earlier arcade versions of video games, like Pong, Asteroids, and PacMan gave way to more sophisticated role-playing games online with early IBM and Apple machines in the mid-1980s. Games developed into a genre called multi-user dungeongs, or MUDs, which are video games with multi-player capabilities.

For communication theorists, this was when video games moved from the one-one-one mode into the realm of mass communication.

Advertising means change

A change occurred when advertisers began perceiving video games as a platform to reach large and lucrative audiences. The games became more creative and more complex, appealing especially to younger male audiences.

One genre of these online, advertising-supported games is called artificial life games. Players are put in control of a character in make-believe situations. These simulation games are structured around the social interaction of the individual characters controlled by the players.

A popular idea

It is a vicarious experience where the video game player lives the life of a fantasy character.  It’s like the old TV series Fantasy Island, only this time the viewer actually steps into the plot on screen as one of the show’s characters.

The same idea that Woody Allen had in his film, The Purple Rose of Cairo. It was also the same concept in the film of Pleasantville. Real life folks moving into a fantasy world and taking on other roles.

The platform, Second Life, is used to support these role-playing games. In them, players select an avatar (alternative identity) and interact with other avatars in the community.

The immense popularity of games like Guitar Hero even allow us to become virtual rock stars.

Good demographics

Since they have amassed such a huge audience, it is only natural that video games have become a target for advertising.  Video gamers are an attractive audience for advertisers. The Entertainment Software Association says players average 6.5 hours per week playing these games. And the players include a broad range of people, with about 40 percent earning $50,000 a year or more.

In fact, among entertainment industries, video games have leaped ahead of music in revenue rankings. A recent comparison of entertainment media shows the following relative sales:

• Books: $35.7 billion
• Movies: $32.5 billion (including DVD sales and rentals)
• Video games: $21.3 billion
• Music: $10.0 billion

Whether this fascination with video gaming – and especially the desire of many gamers to live their lives as avatars in fantasy communities – is a permanent or passing trend, remains to be seen. But for now, video games seem here to stay.

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The social side of politics

As a writer and former working journalist, I often ponder the mantra of journalism today which is, “We no longer search for the news; the news finds us.”

In those eleven words you have the recipe for how significantly the news media is doing business today in finding out where the news consumers are hiding and beaming the news to them in those lairs.

More and more, those lairs are on the social media sites of Facebook and Twitter. Reporters and editors are hanging out there, too, and using their posts to tease stories linked back to the news site.

 

“…the news finds us”
But it is not just a matter of reporters and editors taking promos to the social media sites. In increasing numbers, the actual news events — at least those that can be scheduled — are moving to Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter as well.

In the last presidential election, one social media site, YouTube, hooked up with CNN in giving Tubers the chance to interact with the presidential candidates by uploading their video questions that were then addressed by the candidates and shown on the televised debate.

It was a breakthrough in the merger of new and old media, and this presidential season it is being used again, this time with a merger of Facebook and NBC.

Meet the Facebookers

David Gregory will host a special edition of Meet the Press on the Sunday prior to the Republican Primary in New Hampsire that will allow Facebook users to ask questions of the candidates. In addition to being seen on NBC and Facebook, the show will stream live on MSNBC.com and NECN.com.

All politics is social

In a Facebook video, Gregory spoke of the NBC/Facebook merger for the event. “While it’s been said that all politics is local, today it may be more accurate to say all politics is social,” he said.

And NBC News President Steve Capus noted, “What really sets this partnership apart is that we are able to combine the reach of NBC’s audiences and Facebook’s users to connect with engaged, informed communities.”

Facebook’s vice president of U.S. public policy, Joel Kaplan, said in a prepared statement that the NBC partnership illustrates how Facebook is enlarging its role in the presidential campaigns and the country’s democratic process.

Obama opened the door

Certainly the politicians have found a home on the social media. President Obama used it more during the last presidential campaign than any other candidates, and he has continued to use it. Just a few weeks ago, he held a special town hall forum on Twitter, interacting with the public by responding to their tweets.

The special edition of Meet the Press will not air until the start of the 2012 primary season, but that’s not stopping users from suggesting questions now, according to MSNBC writer Cory Bergman. Writing in his blog, “lost remote,” Bergman says NBC newsman Chuck Todd has already held a live roundtable on Facebook’s U.S. Politics page to start the interaction with users.

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A Revolutionary Web

As I write this, it’s the 4th of July, and I’m more reminded of it than usual because I’m helping to host 20 college student leaders from Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia at my university. It’s the first time any of them have been in America, and they are having a blast on this fireworks-laden birthday for America.

Their view of America has come largely from television and the Internet, and they have learned a great deal about us from these media. Much more than we know about them, in fact, but that’s usually the story, no?

Living-history sites

So I started wondering what kinds of views of American history might be available online, and it led me to two interesting sites that I’ll describe in this post. Let’s start with the PBS site called, “Liberty! The American Revolution.”

Like many of the PBS sites, this one is a companion to the series of the same name that aired on the public broadcasting network. “Liberty!” provides a wealth of interactive information about the revolution and even offers a “Road to Revolution” interactive game for younger viewers.

Bringing it to life

When you click open the tab, “Chronicle of the Revolution,” you are greeted with individual multimedia packages focusing on the following moments: Boston, 1774; Philadelphia, 1776; Trenton, 1776; Saratoga, 1777; Yorktown, 1781, and Philadelphia, 1791.

In the first of these packages you find an original handbill from April, 1774 Boston entitled, “High Tea in Boston Harbor! Band of ‘Mohawks’ dumps 342 chests of Darjeeling tea off Griffin’s Wharf.” Clicking deeper, you can get video presentations of the tea party, and pop-ups of key figures in the protest movement including Benjamin Franklin.

Clicking open the “Road to Revolution” game, you can test your knowledge about the American Revolution (ahem, and the true location of the Concord Bridge, despite the fact Rep. Michelle Bachmann thinks it is in New Hampshire), and “navigate your way to independence.”

Hmmm…

First question from the test: “What did Great Britain create in 1773 that put you on the Road to Revolution?” Possible answers: (A) The Stamp Act, (B) the Intolerable Acts, or (C) The Benny Hill Show. Although one or two presidential candidates might pick C, the rest of us know better.

Second question: “What was the name of the local political group that organized this demonstration?” Possible answers: (A) Sons of the Pioneers, (B) Sons of Liberty, (C) Sons of the American Revolution. Since Roy Rogers was born a few years after the Revolution, you have good reason to doubt A.

The site also gives you audio/video previews of the PBS series of “Liberty,” “The Making of Liberty,” and “The Music of Liberty.”

Williamsburg comes alive

Another interactive look at 18th Century America is found at the Colonial Williamsburg site. The tagline on this site’s heading is, “That the future may learn from the past.” For those people unable to go to Williamsburg in person, this site does a pretty good job of letting you learn vicariously about early-day America.

The site’s “History” tab presents you with, “Life in the 18th Century: People, Places, and the Making of History.” It is here you can see photos of early-American craftsmen in period garb using hand tools to build such things as a baby grand piano, or you can learn the recipes for early-day dishes like the following for apple fritter:

“Pare some apples and cut them in thin slices, put them in a bowl, with a glass of brandy, some white wine, and quarter of a pound of powdered sugar, a little cinnamon finely powdered and the rind of a lemon grated: let them stand some time, turning them over frequently; beat two eggs very light, add one quarter a pound of flour, a tablespoonful of melted butter, and as much cold water as will make a thin batter; drip the apples on a sieve, mix them with the batter, take one slice with a spoonful of butter to each fritter, fry them quick, of a light brown, drain them well, put them in a dish, sprinkling sugar over each, and glaze them nicely.” – Randolph, Mary. “The Virginia Housewife.” pg.155.

Babies galore

You can also find many interesting bios of 18th Century men and women who are all a part of this country’s colorful history. Some are well known, others aren’t. One of the latter is Catherine Blaikley, born in 1695, and a glimpse of her shows the following:

“Catherine Blaikley lived in Williamsburg and was an ‘eminent Midwife who delivered “upwards of three Thousand Children,” presumably white and black, slave and free. Her husband was merchant William Blaikley, who died in 1736. During her 35-year widowhood, Mrs. Blaikley lived in the house now called the Blaikely-Durfey House on Duke of Gloucester Street. She died in 1771.”

More than java

Under the “Visit” tab on the site, you are invited to “Be Present in the Past,” and can experience sights and sounds of 18th Century America. For example, you can take a video tour of the Richard Charlton’s Coffeehouse where you learn: “

English coffeehouses appeared in the 17th century and quickly became popular. These establishments provided patrons with new beverages such as coffee, tea, and chocolate. Even more importantly, coffeehouses served as sites for the energetic discussion of politics, news, and business.

“Despite Williamsburg’s relatively small size, locals sought to emulate the cosmopolitan fashions of Europe, which included this coffeehouse culture. In the early 1760s, Richard Charlton, a local wigmaker, became proprietor of a newly converted coffeehouse near the Capitol. During the ten years the coffeehouse was open, many important political figures frequented its rooms, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Lieutenant-Governor Francis Fauquier, as well as many merchants and gentry.”

Nothing beats going to these living-history museums in person, but interacting with their online sites is not a bad alternative if information about this country’s young years is what you’re after.

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A Web That Can Betray

USA Today said it best in its Tuesday story this week on embattled New York  Rep. Anthony Weiner who was caught in a web – literally and figuratively – of his own making.

“Weiner’s news conference in a New York hotel reflected a dramatic collision between the anonymity of social media and the relentless scrutiny of public officials by partisans also enabled by the Internet,” Susan Page wrote.

Latest scandal

For anyone who hasn’t tuned in to  this latest political scandal, a very married Rep. Weiner acknowledged last Monday he has been involved in sexually-laced exchanges on the web with several women over the past three years. In the course of these exchanges, Weiner posted bare-torso photos of himself which have, by this time, been circulated publicly around the world by the news media.

It’s basic sexting

It’s a practice that has become well known over the past couple years – although more often by teens and pre-teens – called sexting.

What made this admission more grating was it came on the heels of his lying about it several times and even asserting he was being victimized by someone else who posted photos of his torso. He recanted that on Monday and admitted to lying.

Social media networks like Facebook and Twitter open up new ways for people like Weiner to get into trouble, often under the mistaken notion that their Internet communications with other individuals will be cloaked in privacy.

Exposing dark sides

But that’s not the way the Internet works, is it? The same web that allows us to have one-on-one exchanges with other persons is also the web that is often used to expose one’s dark-side dalliances.

The culture of the Internet is, after all, one of openness. You may be able to find whatever you want (good and bad) on the web, but can’t expect that search to remain private, especially if others have a vested interest in finding out what you’re up to.

Inviting, but dangerous

“Social media networks have opened up new possibilities for missteps,” Page writes in USA Today. “And for quick and dramatic exposure of such scandals.”

One of the women on the receiving end of Weiner’s messages and photos was Meagan Broussard, a 26-year-old single mother from Texas. Willing to puncture the congressman’s misplaced belief in privacy, Broussard released to ABC News several Facebook posts and photos, together with other messages, she had received from Weiner.

Together, these communications appeared to detail a flirting congressman willing to engage in a sexually explicit web relationship with Broussard. Among his Facebook messages to her, she said, was the following: “What are you wearing? What do you like? You know, in the bedroom.”

Some poll findings

The issue of sexting has been around long enough to have drawn quite a few opinions about it, and whether it constitutes being unfaithful. A 2004 ABC News survey and a 2010 survey from Pew Internet and American Life Project show the following:

* 64 percent of adults believe people who have sex talk in Internet chat rooms are being unfaithful to their spouses or significant others.

* 15 percent of adults say they have received sexually suggestive photo or video messages on their cellphone.

* 6 percent of adults admit to having sent such messages.

* 31 percent of 18-29-year-olds say they have seen an explicit photo or video message.

* 13 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds have admitted to sending an explicit text message.

The ABCs of behavior

Joseph Mercurio, a New York political consultant for Democratic candidates, told reporters, “I always give candidates a briefing on what to do and not to do with social media. But I never thought I’d have to tell a congressman to not be sexting.”

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From Twitter to Life Flight

Could Twitter help save our lives?

That’s the question addressed by a case study that was posted on Emory Healthcare’s web site recently, and it focused on an April 25 incident of an elderly woman in Georgia needing emergency medical care.

In some respects, the nature of the social media are at odds with the nature of health care. The former is built on a premise of openness and speed, while the latter is built on a premise of patient privacy and careful deliberations.

It can work

Nevertheless, the critical incident involving the family of Matthew Browning shows social media and health care to be complementary.

On April 25, Emory Healthcare received a tweet at 11:06 a.m. from Browning, a registered nurse, whose wife’s grandmother had just suffered a ruptured aorta and was facing death if she didn’t get help quickly. She was in a small South Georgia hospital that was not equipped to treat her.

Browning’s tweet read: “@emoryhealthcare NEED HELP NOW!! Grandma w/RUPTURED AORTA needs Card Surgeon/OR ASAP, STAT! Can you accept LifeFlight NOW!!?

Quick response

Emory responded within minutes saying, ” Matthew, please either call 911 or have your grandma’s doctor call our transfer service to get immediate help: 404-686-8334.”

“What was most important here was giving Matthew information he could act on,” writes Morgan Griffith, web communications and social media specialist at Emory. “When using Twitter, messages can only be 140 characters, so it as critical to include the most necessary information for him to get immediate assistance.”

Browning responded immediately that he was doing that, Emory responded with their own tweet, and a few minutes later, Browning tweeted, “@emoryhealthcare Look for STAT Transfer from South Georgia. Accept her if able and we’ll see you soon. Thanks!”

Airlift within minutes

Sixteen minutes later, the heart patient was on a lifeflight to Emory. The dialogue between Browning and Emory continued on Twitter throughout the day.  Browning had called the special number given him by Emory, which he wouldn’t have had if he had not tweeted them.

“If that doesn’t show you the power of social media, I don’t know what will,” writes Griffith. “It’s true that the same outcome may have taken place if it had not been for social media. But when a life is hanging in the balance and minutes … make the difference, the risk of ignoring social media  … is one we’re not willing to take.”

Griffith adds, “When he reached out to us via Twitter, our team had the ability and capacity to help.”

Browning himself notes, “We group-sourced something to people with a common interest and achieved a medical miracle.”

The privacy rub

Of course everything that goes on Twitter is vulnerable to being seen by anyone. That’s where the rub of patient privacy conflicts. But Griffith asserts that there are times which “common sense” and the need for speed to save a life win out over privacy issues.

“In this case, health care and social media not only coexisted, but mirrored each other in pace to keep alive the possibility of saving a life. Without the quickness of social media, that helicopter may have never been dispatched.”

Unhappy ending

Every case doesn’t result in a happy ending, however, and this was one of them. The elderly heart patient died later that evening. But the use of the social media to get her speedy help greatly increased the chances doctors had of saving her life.

Some of the responses that came to this story, published on Emory Healthcare’s web site, endorsed the use of social media, despite the conflict the pose to patient privacy. Others disagreed. Here are a few of those posts:

• “Even though I thoroughly enjoy and utilize social media, (I) have always maintained an undercurrent of doubt as to the potential intensity of serious outcomes unique to it … UNTIL NOW. Having witnessed this crisis as it unfolded and the results … was an epiphany. There is a certain brand of peace that comes from knowing one has done absolutely everything to intervene. No regrets. Awesome.” (From an RN involved in the crisis situation).
• “A fascinating story and a valuable insight to how social media and heath care can merge into something that is difficult to see today.”
• “What this really showed is the failure to have a regional one point of access to medical care. The fact that he had to resort to twitter Is both frightening, and I hope doesn’t mean that hospitals are now going to be held accountable 24/7 to monitoring every tweet with their name in it? In the future are you suggesting this is a new referral method? I sure hope not.”

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Steeples and social media

I used to think that newspapers were the slowest institution to adapt to change and find new ways of doing business. Not any more, though.  With the Internet and new forms of competition,  newspapers realized they needed to change or die.

When it comes to churches, though, I’ve sensed they haven’t gotten this message. Except for a flirtation with the idea of “drive-in” churches (pack up the kids and go as you are because you won’t leave your car anyway), I’m not sure churches have changed the way they do business much.

Changes in size

Certainly some churches – dubbed megachurches – have gotten much bigger, and the denominational walls have been punctured, if not obliterated in some places. So some change is occurring at some churches. But there are also a lot of near-empty and decaying traditional structures that used to house the overflowing First Methodist or First Presbyterian Church in any city.

But changing size isn’t necessarily changing practices.

According to the 2011 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, it looks like a lot of these churches should think about doing things differently. The reason is that membership is declining in mainline denominational churches and has been doing so since the 1970s. In some cases the decline is small but, when you factor in the country’s population growth during that time, the decline has actually been very steep.

Pews not as full

The Presbyterian Church (USA) has posted the largest membership drop, followed by the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Episcopal Church, and the more conservative Lutheran Church/Missouri Synod. The giant Southern Baptist Convention and the Catholic Church show figures that are relatively flat. Pentecostal churches like the Assemblies of God and the Church of God are faring better.

I was thinking about this the other day and that led me – where else – to the Internet and specifically to the question of how churches are using the social media like Facebook to boost membership.

Turning to social media

Turns out, there are more changes afoot in churches than I realized.

One story I came across involved a Rev. Alex Lang, associate pastor of Pine Street Presbyterian Church in Harrisburg, Pa.

Lang is one of a growing number of pastors who are becoming more tech-savy in taking their churches online.

When Rev. Lang realized his 153-year-old church needed to attract new members, he turned to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, and other social networks to increase interest and awareness in his church.

Reversing a trend

“Like many mainline Protestant churches, we are experiencing a declining members,” Lang told Pennlive.com. “We wanted to reverse that and attract new members, especially in the 20 to 45-age group. A lot of people that age think we are too traditional and locked in our ways. That’s not the reality at all.”

To prove it, Pine Street Church took to the social media. From announcements about upcoming services, to news of bake sales, to tweeted prayers, and intercessions, , the church is taking advantage of the powers of social networking.

Here are a few other discoveries:

•    A lot of churches are using FB to make their members and guests feel more connected to the church and its membership.
•    The average Facebook user has 130 registered “friends,” so if just 20 church members use Facebook, that’s potentially 2,600 people who could read posts about your church. One hundred members with Facebook could touch 13,000. Many pastors have done that math and like the results.

•    Facebook makes it easy for churches to start and run pages, with its “Create a Page,” feature. FB also offers helpful advice to churches on how to connect with their community.
•    Church is, by definition, about community and relationships. So are social media.  This idea comes from Jon Swanson, creator of the Levite Chronicles. Swanson writes, “If you take what Jesus said about what we know as church with some seriousness, it is a set of vertical and horizontal relationships. It is about the people. And so it is with social media.”
•    Swanson was part of a team that went to Gulfport, Miss., to help in the reconstruction of the area after Hurricane Katrina. “While we were there, we put pictures on flickr, audioblogged with hipcast, and just blogged. People back home were able to look and listen and read. People put our links on their church websites,” he says.
•    Pastors keep up to date on illnesses and hardships of their members by scanning their Facebook pages to see how they are doing and what milestones are occurring in their lives.

Catholics on board

Also discovering the power of social media are Roman Catholic Churches, even though the Vatican governing powers are not always seen as the most modern or worldly group.

Nevertheless, in Pope Benedict’s message last January to the church’s World Communications Day (which arrives on June 5), he called Facebook, Twitter, and the other social media a “great opportunity” for developing dialogue, respect, and honest relationships.

I suppose if a 2,000-year-old institution can change, so can the rest of us.

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The Daily Me: Then and Now

Nothing is more nebulous than trying to predict the future of the media.

That has been a recurring theme in these blog posts since I began doing them about 17 months ago. Still, it is interesting to see where one concept is now, where it has been, and where it may head.

The concept is personalization.

Dated Predictions

In 1994 I wrote a book called, The Age of Multimedia and Turbonews, trying to forecast where the communication media were headed. Some of the predictions then never came true, while others that weren’t even visualized, are now reality.

Facebook, for example. Youtube, for another.

Still, there was one idea rolling around then that seems to be making a comeback. Citing from the above 17-year-old book:

Newspace

“One of the products under development at the (MIT) Media Lab … is an electronic newspaper called Newspace, which could join the worlds of mass media and personal computing. Newspace would offer a broadsheet-sized electronic news presentation to the reader, complete with state-of-the-art graphics and human interaction. Much of the product would be built around individual users’ habits, interests, tastes, hobbies, and lifestyles. “

This was before the age of online newspapers obviously, and those products have underdone several evolutions trying to get to the stage that Newsok.com is now. But it’s the personalization aspect – or the so-called Daily Me aspect – that is the focus here.

Trove and Livestand

The current March/April issue of the magazine, News & Tech, features an article headlined, “Personalization making 2011 resurgence.” The article, written by editor chuck Moozakis, notes that the concept seems to have finally gotten some traction.

Moozakis focuses on Trove, a news aggregation service that will let users build their own news site from more than 10,000 news sources, and Livestand, a tablet service that funnels content to consumers based on their interests.

Trove is the brainchild of The Washington Post, which launched it in March on the Web. Livestand comes from our friends at Yahoo.

An open letter from Post CEO Donald E. Graham on Facebook explains what Trove is all about:

Reflects User Choices

“Trove harnesses smart, flexible technology that learns from the choices you make. Some have called it ‘Pandora for news,’ and the serendipity in its suggestions, pulled from around 10,000 sources, makes Trove a powerful tool for information discovery.”

Essentially, Trove users are meant to have the ability to develop their own information channels. They can then utilize those channels to follow anything, anyone, or any place that interests them.  Trove uses Facebook Connect to deliver a range of possible channels to users, based on their individual interests.

A “Social Experience”

Says Graham, “Trove is … a social experience; you can share your channels with your friends, engage with fellow site users using the conversation boards featured on every channel, and interact with Trove on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.”

And, since the world is moving to mobile devices, you can take Trove with you on your Android, iPhone, or BlackBerry. An iPad app is on the near horizon.

Trove and Livestand follow, by just a couple months, the launch of Ongo. This service is backed by a consortium including The Post, USA Today, and The New York Times. It is a paid service that lets subscribers select the content they want to read on their mobile devices or computer screens.

600 Daily Stories

The content comes from more than 600 top news stories daily from the above news organizations plus the Associated Press, Reuters, and Financial Times. It costs subscribers about $7 per month.

Almost two decades past the MIT Media Lab experiment in 1994, personalized news channels started making a comeback with MediaNews in 2008. This company sent up a trial balloon then in the form of an “individuated newspaper,” called I-News, which was tested in Los Angeles and Denver before being put back on the shelf.

The Future?

Will the trend toward personalized publishing continue?

How can it not? We are all tailoring the Web to our individual, personal needs everyday. The direction such personalization will go, however, is open to question.

“It’s still a moving target,” says media analyst Peter Vandevanter. He sees personalized media following two different – but parallel – paths:

1. Initiatives such as Trove that depend on keywords and algorithmic searching.
2. So-called crowdsourcing services, of which Facebook is a prime example. Here, users read what their friends and trusted sources recommend.

Back to the Caves

I have always found it ironic that the Web is a culture of openness where anyone can find anything they want, yet so many of us only scratch the surface by going for narrow kinds of information that interest us personally.

What could be a tool for a gigantic common pool of information is, in a way, a trail that leads each of us back to our individual caves to read the paintings on the wall.

 

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