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.

Ellis2b

While I was reading Born Digital by Palfrey and Gasser, I read a section about how teenagers are able to create different kinds of identities for themselves based on what information they choose to post about themselves. While I do agree with that, I also feel that maybe when they are playing around with these various identities they are able to figure out who they really are or who they want to be.
  I don't find this to be a bad thing. If I had the technological capabilities when I was young that today's youth do, maybe I would not be a single mother with no job at the age of 29. Maybe I would of discovered things about myself at a younger age that would of helped me establish a life plan. Just something to think about.