Ellis6b

All the issues of digital quality and information overload that we have been reading about amazes me. I don't find surprise in very many issues, but just the fact that there are so many issues people have about the Internet yet these issues are very rarely brought to light in day to day conversation. Until I started reading "Born Digital," I had no clue about some of the things that are happening involving the Internet all around the world. Such as when the book states "A South Korean game addict died after playing nonstop for 86 hours" (pg. 187). Who plays a game for 3 1/2 days straight? Why would you want to? Do you have no other responsibilities? Like I said in my first sentence, amazed!

Ellis5blank

Even though there is no assigned blog post this week, I know there is one next week, and to my tidy soul, just the thought of going from Ellis4b to Ellis6b gives me the jeebies, so here we are. This week has been a learning experience, not just in class, but also about my self. Probably the first thing I came to realize was that I should read instructions completely and not just panic when I see the word ESSAY. Which is exactly what I did. I thought I had one week to write a fully developed essay about one subject. So glad that point was clarified for me before I started my writing.

Ellis4b

 Well, another week down. It is definitely starting to get a bit more intimidating, with the week 5 assignment getting closer and closer to it's due date. This essay is already giving me a run for my money. I haven't written an essay in so long, and I'm positive I've never even thought about writing one in this academic format that is required.
 I can only try my best. And I will, of course. So far the hardest part, believe it or not, has been deciding on a topic for my paper. All these issues and I have to pick one that interests me. I've never been good at making decisions. Decisions, decisions, it seems that's all there is these days. I sure do miss being young, when all our decisions were made for us. Oh well, time to put the nose to the grindstone.

Ellis3b

The more I read of Born Digital, the more questions it raises. Such as can we really be safe online while protecting our privacy? I'm not sure that the answer to that is yes. In order to protect our children I think that you should have to have more stringent security measures when on a networking site, an example would be to have to scan your thumbprint when logging on to make sure that you are who you portray yourself to be.

 The problem with that is you lose all sense of privacy, you add to what Palfrey and Gassed refer to as your digital dossier. Your not just leaving an IP address for someone who knows what they are looking for to find, you are literally leaving a digital fingerprint of who you are and what you were doing. I find it scary to think that privacy and safety can't seem to co-exist.