Lesson 1 - Self Study Questions PDF

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These are the summary questions you should know from the very first lecture. Good practice for the midterm. ...

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INTRODUCTION TO GAL PALS WOMEN & FRIENDSHIP SELF STUDY QUESTIONS 1 1. Is Karen Eng's observation about female friendships true? Are female friendships really "the most oversimplified, trivialized, underappreciated, and misunderstood of relationship?" (p. viii) I believe her observation is true because she brings up very good points on how they’re always thought of in a way that the media portrays them. However, the connection that two women develop that is borderline romantic but strongly platonic is much deeper than that. There’re things that make or break the friendship that not everyone would understand. This “oversimplified” version of women’s friendship that everyone has come to know is not at all how it really is. 2. According to Dana Boyd, what role do "networked publics" play in the lives of North Americans? What is different about friendship online and in other contexts? What role have online social networking sites played in defining friendship? How have individuals challenged the confines of the sites? “Networked Publics” are places online that people gather based on their likes, dislikes, habits, hobbies, or anything really that they and others have in common. Friendship online in easier and far less demanded than friendship in any other context. These online social networking sites make it easier to stay connected with friends that people have lost touch with. They can make new friends and keep their old ones no matter how far they move on in life. They’re more aware of what everyone is doing and how they feel since those are the things that are most often posted about. Individuals have challenged the confines of the sites by making it so that they have these groups they can be a part of with their own opinions and their own thoughts. Being online means being on your own world and nobody can really tell you what you can and can’t post. People, especially teenagers, will make the sites into their own space with others that think like them, in turn creating their own groups and doing what they please with no rules or boundaries that are otherwise present in real life. 3. How does Dana Boyd define "networked publics?" Explain and provide an example. She defines “networked publics” as “publics that are resurrected by public technologies”. This basically means that a variety of people with something in common will use technology publicly to make a ‘group’. An example would be a page on Facebook that anybody can join which is all about animals and directly targets animal lovers. 4. According to Dana Boyd, what is a "digital native" and why are adults so fearful of them? Do they actually have anything to fear?

“Digital natives” is a term used for the new generation of kids that have grown up with technology and therefore are believed to know everything about it and use it to the point where it’s almost like an addiction. Adults are fearful of this because it’s something that they don’t really understand since they didn’t grow up with it. They see kids on social media where they can easily be cyberbullied or targeted by online predators. Online, adults have little ways to protect children. However, adults don’t actually have that much to fear because most kids although know how to utilize social media, know very little about how to do the more technical things online, like change account of privacy settings. 5. According to Sherry Turkle, why is empathy in decline today? Sherry Turkle believes empathy is in decline because young people are so addicted to their phones that they lack the focus needed to physically communicate with other people. Due to the low face-to-face communication, they are unable to pick up on facial cues and movements which would otherwise help people be able to the empathize and understand what’s going on with others around them. 6. Dana Boyd argues that social media has enabled teens to participate in "networked publics," while on the other hand Sherry Turkle argues that technology is responsible for the current assault on empathy? Who's right? I believe that in a way both are right because technology does both those things. Dana Boyd’s “networked publics” idea is correct with it comes to connecting with people sharing similar values online. It makes a community for people and makes them feel like they’re a part of something. However, when a person becomes excessively addicted to the online world, then Sherry Turkle’s idea on the “assault on empathy” comes into play where people just lose all forms of communication. In a way, it really depends on the person when it comes to technology. Some will stay in their proper limits while some will just go overboard. 7. Explain what Sherry Turkle means by the "virtuous circle." How have we placed the "virtuous circle" in peril? The “virtuous circle” is explained by Sherry Turkle as a something that “links conversation to the capacity for self-reflection”. This means that when people are confident in themselves, they are able to really hear what others have to and say and in turn they become better at thinking by themselves and improving their mental dialogues. However, Turkle claims that we’ve put the “virtuous circle” in peril because we spend so much time on our phones that we no longer talk with other people properly. This causes us to have poor mental dialogue in which we can’t even think on our own. Because we can barely talk with another person, we now can’t sit alone and talk to ourselves since we’re so addicted to what others are saying or doing online....