So I admit I wanted to post about this yesterday but with all the Zombie Pets playing, and setting up the Christmas Village and stuff and Catching up on here I didn't get to it.....
That is about if the Internet really connects us more..... I will say this before I copy the article. I think in some ways it does. Yes it is true that often times you connect online with people you all ready know.... But look at like how ever flash mobs work... I assume that some of those people wind up meating each other and also connecting off of the web. Some shows in some cities (bigger then Buffalo I assume) have viewing parties for TV shows.... Then there are things like
has had Viewing parties (not just for Church People either) and that great Champagne Brunch... Oh and bye the way thanks to you and
they have been a great time and I'm sure a lot of work for you two.... I guess the point I'm making is it isn't the Internet it is how we use it... Yeah you can watch porn all day untill it hurts and you have no fluid left and you can order food and never go out side... But you can also find people on dating sites and chat on video and keep connections tight and find new people online. At the least you can keep up with people who you don't have time to see or call ....................................
Does Web really connect us?
Many use Internet to unite with others like them, experts sayBy Stephen T. Watson
News Staff Reporter
Published:
December 20, 2010, 8:00 AM
Updated: December 20, 2010, 11:06 PM
The Internet promises to let us connect with a stranger in Tokyo, but in reality we're much more likely to talk to a friend in Tonawanda.
It was viewed as a potentially globalizing tool. But if you look at how users really spend their time online, they interact with people who are a lot like them -- sharing the same ethnicity, hometown or class status.
"I think in part that's just natural human behavior," said Gregory R. Wood, Canisius College associate professor of marketing, who studies how businesses use social media. "Our online behavior tends to reflect, in part, our offline behavior."
Millions of conversations take place on Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other websites every day, but most are segregated from the rest. Users talk near, but not with, others unlike them.
Local users say they notice the same pattern in their own online interactions, where they mainly chat with friends from school, or back home, about what's on their mind.
"Sometimes we talk about whatever the trending topic of the day is, or an event that happened," said Ricza Lopez, a media production major at Buffalo State College. "I like Twitter for the entertainment. A lot of people go on there and complain about their lives. It's funny."
Experts say this Internet isolation is a concern because, as the problems we face and the economy become more international in scale, we need to become more global in our outlook.
The way to resolve this issue is to translate more websites into other languages and to find the right guides to nudge us out of our online flocks, advocates say.
"These bridge figures, I'm pretty well convinced, are the future of how we try to make the world wider through using the Web," Ethan Zuckerman, a senior researcher at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, said at a recent Technology Entertainment and Design, or TED, conference.
From the beginning, theorists argued that the Internet had the potential to revolutionize how we communicate by opening up people to new perspectives from across the globe.
But social media drive so much of the online conversation, and the people we talk to through Facebook, LinkedIn and other sites are usually people we've met in our offline lives.
On Twitter, where people send status updates in 140 characters or less, users start out by following people they know.
They expand their Twitter base by following people who write about topics that interest them, while Twitter suggests others to follow based on a user's location or current connections.
New technologies such as Twitter "amplify and extend who we are and our existing tendencies," said Steve Macho, an assistant professor of technology education at Buffalo State.
At noontime one Friday earlier this month, the most-repeated phrases worldwide on Twitter were "firstkiss," which encouraged users to describe their first lip-lock; "ifihadsuperpowers," a more whimsical topic; and "Xiaobo," a reference to Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese dissident who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize that day.
If you dig down into those conversations, however, you'll see that the people engaging in them for the most part share a common denominator of race or geography or interest.
Zuckerman, in his lecture, said he was surprised to see how many African-Americans use Twitter, which recently did some research on its users.
The service believes 24 percent of American Twitter users are black, about twice their representation in the general population, Zuckerman said. White and black Twitter users aren't talking to each other, however.
Citing research performed by Martin Wattenberg and Fernanda Viegas, Zuckerman points out most popular topics on Twitter are exclusively posted by either white or black users. In May, for example, the term "cookout" was posted almost entirely by black users, while the term "oilspill" was almost uniformly white.
Mate Salekovics, a D'Youville College student from Hungary, said he goes online to call friends and family back home, check out news from Hungary and interact with others who study information technology.
He said he doesn't think there's much that would make him change his habits.
"I know many other things are going on online," Salekovics said. "I do what I like."
Digital segregation also occurs in online news.
Google Ad Planner found in June that 99.9 percent of Chinese users, 98 percent of Japanese users and 93.9 percent of American users get their online news from domestic sites.
"We occasionally stumble onto a page in Chinese, and we decide that we do, in fact, have the greatest technology ever built to connect us to the rest of the world, and we forget that most of the time we're checking Boston Red Sox scores," Zuckerman said in his lecture.
Beginning in 2008, researchers noticed a trend of users seeking out websites that have an explicit point of view, and one that reinforces their own views, Aaron W. Smith, a senior research specialist with the Pew Internet & American Life Project, told The Buffalo News.
Smith isn't convinced the Internet is totally to blame.
"Is this a symptom of the broader polarization we've seen in the political world?" he asked.
Others argue the Internet has changed how we consume news, making it more interactive, and the medium is filled with information that can challenge a belief system. Liberals can visit the Drudge Report, for example, and conservatives may stop by Huffington Post.
"The key point is, I have to want to do that. It is there," said Wood, the Canisius professor.
People employ different media -- TV, radio, print and online -- to get their news, and on the Internet they "forage broadly" and rely on friends to fill in what they missed, Smith said.
But these are people you already have something in common with, so they are sending you links to issues that you might already know about.
Jeffrey J. McConnell, a Canisius computer science professor, laments that we don't just stumble across things anymore because we're always directed exactly where to go.
The search engines powered by Google, Microsoft and other high-tech heavyweights don't encourage the kind of pleasant meandering that happens when we go to a library or look up a word in a dictionary.
Data showing the most popular search terms in a particular country or community shows how inwardly focused we are.
Buffalonians using Google over the 30 days ending Friday to look up news or current events most often searched for the terms "news," "buffalo news," "wgrz" and "wivb," with "channel 2" and "channel 4" also high on the list, according to Google's Insights for Search.
Is this insularity bad? "[The Internet] helps us to not feel isolated as individuals," McConnell said. "It can be bad because we don't get a chance to find out what's going on beyond our small world. It still is a very narrowly focused interaction."
Zuckerman suggests following well-placed, internationally oriented guides who can point Internet users to ideas and people and places they otherwise might never have found.
Lopez, the Buffalo State senior, is a music buff, and this is a popular topic among her friends on Twitter. "Not only do we talk about music that we are into, but also music from other regions that I am not from, such as Africa, Europe and the Caribbean," she said.
swatson@buffnews.comnull
That is an Interesting point about the rich people that I didn't think about... Maybe where they shop could go into the waterfront. I think there needs to shops of high and low end but also places that are fun and cool to go to as well. Yes having a great waterfront would bring some people here... But what Buffalo really needs is Jobs.... Oh by the way Job Creation is Bullshit sorry there is no such thing... The exception is when you create something new then that causes new jobs.... But most Job Creation is just taking jobs away from someplace else. Yes When Verizon opens a Call Center in India or Nike Moves jobs to Mexico those are sometimes the sought after Jobs by some people in those countries (same thing works for when someplace moves to Buffalo from some other city). But all you did was move Jobs from one place to another so that things are cheaper for the company the people there get a job and Americans lose them. ........
I am not sure that rich people who live here would even think of shopping here - even if a super-high end store opened. And I am of the opinion that its the middle and low income people that make a place safer to move about and more "lived in" - not the rich people who zoom about to their next pit stop. To make a place safer, people need to come with their families and children and hang around for a good period of time. I don't see that happening with super-high end stores.
I think some nice shops for the waterfront is a really nice idea. Why argue about Walmart Vs. high end stores - I say anything substantial would be a right move for the waterfront. Even if they opened a second pricerite there, more people would come to the waterfront - even from across the border.
I get my contacts there at Sterling Optical. I should probably go someplace better because they don't have good eye exams. They do seem to be a cheap place for poor people though. I would recommend them when money is tight.
I agree that they need some high end places, but I think with those student lofts they also need some places for students to shop as well. Now with the Thursday in the Square I wonder if they can other then say "The Chip strip" turn those people into people who partake in other things downtown.....
In Connection with that if it ever gets finished I would love to live in the Hotel Lafayette. Think about how cool or maybe bad it would be to pop open your window and be able to see the square and here the music.... Granted I would need an (e:) Heidi or (e:TheSourthernya)nkee style Camera to get pictures or Video you don't like the music just close the window. Also one would be close to Bisons and Sabres games and Club Diablo.. But where does one buy food down there. Sorry But Tops Niagara is a bit shady sometimes.... Well maybe with more people it would lose or has lost some of that.......
Just to clarify, I am not saying there is anything wrong with bargain stores. I shop at them too. I just meant they probably would not attract the shoppers from the fancy lofts, business executives, etc without offering some more high end stores downtown.
@(e:Paul) You make a lot of great points.. I myself like wal-mart yes they buy a lot of stuff from where I work but it is more then just that... I get that there are things where the move into a town all every place closes but the people who shop their have the choice to shop local. The Reason they are good though is there are a lot of people who if it wasn't for Wal-Mart wouldn't have a Job... Also there is what I call the working poor and others that don't go to places like target cause they are costly.... Well those people need a place to shop... I remember a teacher I had (he was funny Mr. Opera) was talking about that thing about when you run into someone you know at K-mart "Hey what are You doing Here" it is kinda like you don't like that they saw you there but you saw them also so....... I think that fits wal-mart
Now in Terms of the Mall. You are Younger then I so I'm guessing you went later years then when I was there but that might not be right.... Back then in school I didn't have money really... But that mall was the place to be.. Clothing stores, Record store, book store places to eat that toy store..... I don't remember when the food court got added but that was what took the spot of the Court Yard Mall that place to me was just about the food........
I read an Article about the People being here for the Hockey Tournament In the Buffalo News the other day.... It talked about people finding places to eat. I'm not going to go the Hoyt route and guess at how much or little info the people coming to town have about what is around here to do... Yes there is the hockey town stuff and that is cool there should be... But what struck me is one person who they talked to who went to the Galleria mall to shop....
I Admit I love the Galleria mall I really do and if you don't want to eat there, then there are other places close by to eat that are pretty good (Famous Dave's, And Chipotle and Fudruckers come to mind first)... But the thing is that those places to shop should be downtown or maybe they shouldn't?
I Love Toronto (Yes (e:vincent) I know I should have gotten my idea a long time ago and I admit I'm fucked up in some ways and that is part of why I haven't got it). I love how they have the signs for a district and you can walk and go from one right to another. But yet somehow all of that feels like it is Downtown... Maybe that is cause I don't live there and to people not from Buffalo that is how Elmwood feels.....
I have heard there are two kinds of cities. Some have a downtown and that is what it is. People work there and if you want food or something it is in the building you work in.... Then You have the kind where there are stores and Christmas windows (you know how like Buffalo used to be).....
Maybe Buffalo should be the first one where there are no shops where if you come to downtown you come for that thing and then leave but that isn't the Downtown I want.... I want one where you come downtown (assuming you drive) and eat and go to your event and maybe do some shopping and after that if say you have a few dollars left go to the casino and play some slots or play 21 aka black jack for fun.... I just don't think Buffalo has the people to support that... Hope I'm wrong.... I think that the people we do have is only enough to support waterfront shops though.............
This is where Buffalo is way behind Rochester. They tore down their Urban Mall and are currently building a new office tower on the site for a company called Paetec.
:::link:::
To attract shoppers with money they would need to have stores those people are interested in. I was saying to (e:terry). If people are afraid of robberies and hustlers they could create credit card only stores. Its kind of hard to hold up a store with no cash. Like imagine if they put in a semi high end grocery store like the coop. I think business people might shop there and nobody else would because of the prices. It seems to work for the coop. Low prices tend to bring in low end clientelle which can be awesome for places like walmart and the dollar store, but a disaster for any other kind of business.
They again, I guess the whole atmosphere is kind of depressed there and nothing can help. Its not new though, it was kind of run down even when I was a kid in the late 80s - early 90s. We used to skip school and take the bus down there from Kenmore. There we would buy incense and then trade it back home for cigarettes from friends who stole stole them from their parents. Wow, thinking back it was always a sketchy place to me - even in middle school.