Stealers, Keepers

With the accessibility that is the Internet becoming easier and easier, the fine line between sharing and stealing has become thinner and thinner.  Stealing, as most people would be able to define, is wrongfully taking something from someone else without the right to do so.  The term “sharing”, however, has taken on a slightly different definition since the birth of the World Wide Web.  We are now able to access anything posted by anyone else to use for our own purposes.  Rules do still apply in the Internet world, but it’s no problem to be able to take whatever you want online, even if you’re not supposed to.

Many would say sharing on the Internet still holds its Merriam-Webster definition: to partake of, use, experience, occupy, or enjoy with others.  Sharing on YouTube means uploading music videos and being able to watch them with thousands of people around the globe.  And if I can listen to them online, I can download the mp3 and listen to them on my computer, right?  That’s where sharing gets questionable.

With all the opinions and ideas on the Internet, it’s hard to find anything totally and completely original.  At some point, people have ideas that happen to already be out there.  By mashing together other people’s ideas to try and create something original, another fine line has to be drawn between a new thought and a stolen one.  Even though something is posted publicly on the Internet, it could still be considered private intellectual property of the one that posted it.  When using ideas found online, people must remember to take in that opinion but not use it as their own.  If you’re not creative enough to think of your own thing, cite your sources and everyone’s happy!

In his book Program or Be Programmed, Rushkoff is convinced that unless we learn how to program computers, they will begin to program us.  By that he means that we will be slaves to what we think are the limitations of the computer until we realize that we hold the capability to control a computer’s every action.

Although I see and understand his many points, I am not totally convinced that Rushkoff is right.  I do not know how to program a computer, but that doesn’t mean the computer is dictating everything I do.  Even if I did know how to program, my life in interaction with my computer would not change; I would still be a slave to my Creighton e-mail and a creep on Facebook regardless if I knew how to create those pages.

With that said, there definitely are advantages of learning computer programming: you could save bills on computer repairs, build your own webpage, and look cooler (geekier) than all your friends.  The extent of benefits that Rushkoff seems to think there are though, I don’t know… I think knowledge of how computers affect our lives is important – remembering all the biases in Program or Be Programmed.  But besides realizing the machine is just that, a machine, I do not think learning computer programming is necessarily important.

Facebook, the Legitimizer

My camera – my proof that I actually do cool stuff – left me this summer to stay in Duluth on a camping trip.  Only after quite a few tears and the realization that I can no longer edit the perfect pictures to frame anymore, I got over my loss.  Coming back to school, though, brought back the phenomenon of pretty much every college girl’s focus: Facebook pics.

All of last year, I looked at pictures that my friends were posting to see all the fun they seemed to be having.  A part of me would get slightly jealous… but then I would console myself by posting pictures of my own friends and experiences.  This battle-of-the-girls is seen everywhere on Facebook: who can seem the most popular and fun through FB photo albums.  This trend basically makes the more pics tagged of you equivalent to the more friends you have and the more popular you are.

Being sans camera this year has left me with zero posts on Facebook but also with a realization: I am having a great time this year.  I’ve met a lot of new people, danced at parties, caught up with classmates, and eaten out for dinners.  None of it is recorded in film, but that doesn’t make any of it less real or exciting!

Note: he has no friends helping him.

This constant need to be taking pictures of our experiences instead of actually living them out is, what I think, a flaw of the digital age.  Having a picture of something does not make it any more legitimate, no matter what our digital culture tells us.

However, many people buy into this culture.  With the increased pictures on social media, a distance has grown between people – even those sharing the same experiences.  Instead of talking to someone, we have to “like, totally get a pic together!!”.  And instead of discussing the highs and lows of our day with a close friend, we feel the need to shorten them down to 140 characters for no one in particular to see.

This loss of real person-to-person interaction is creating a distance between people.  Being friends on Facebook seems more real than being friends outside of it.  “Proof” of having fun via pictures on social media seems to legitimize experiences and increase popularity.

Living camera-less this year, I’ve come to learn that Facebook is just another place where girls enjoy one-upping each other.  Just because I don’t have photographic evidence of my year does not mean I’m not having a good one.  I prefer memories of real interactions with my friends over online, text-filled ones any day.

All Will Remember

This morning as I sleepily flipped open my laptop to check the regulars (Facebook, Pinterest, and e-mail), I was updated and reminded by Yahoo! News of what today is: 9/11, the tragic event of the twin towers’ fall.  Instead of pinning a new wedding cake idea, today I actually stayed on my home page.  Only half dressed and unready for the day, I clicked on a link to the live stream of the 9/11 Memorial Service going on at Ground Zero, NYC.

For an hour and a half, I was caught up listening to names being read by uncles, daughters, brother-in-laws, mothers, and friends of people that died that day.  Each reader said about 10 names before they arrived at the one of their lost relative or friend.  They honored that person with a small speech before another set of readers came up to continue down the list of 2,977 victims.

Two things struck me the most about the people standing at the podium.  One, almost every single one cried.  The emotion of this day, even 11 years later, is no less prominent.  The people that were lost have never been forgotten.  Secondly, there was such a difference in age, background, and relation between the readers.  There were a few children who had lost their mom or their dad.

Some still recognized their loss without remembering or even having met their parent.  There were also grandmothers and grandfathers remembering their children and grandchildren.  There were people with a strong New York accent, and there were people who were struggling with the English names through a Spanish, German, or Swedish accent.  Each individual was so different from the next.

The diversity of the readers reflected for me the massive and diverse impact this tragedy had on the American people as a whole.  Although it was not a homogenous group of people based on background and age, they are all grouped together by the fact that they died for being in America.  Even the non-Americans – which included 372 foreign nationals – sacrificed their lives just for being in this country.  Attacked because of hate against our country, these people are all united as Americans.

As I watched the Memorial Service this morning, I saw people different than night and day gathered together to console each other and remember the loved ones that they lost.  The tragedy of 9/11 brought our nation together as one 11 years ago, and it continues to do so even today.  A proud country, a united country, we will never forget those lost on that day and will continue to preserve their memory under the flag of the country these people died for: the United States of America.