Group Project- Myspace/ Facebook

My group and I had to show instances of how Myspace.com and Facebook.com can be considered radical. I feel that most people just go on these websites to "talk" to people, but few actually take time to analyze and think about the impact that the sites have on face to face interactions. When my group started to think of how we could use these websites as a text we were completely lost, because we were not actually reading books about Myspace or Facebook, nonetheless our class presentation was very well done. In our first group meeting, in which we discussed how we were going to relate Myspace and Facebook to our class theme the ideas were few and very broad. I suggested that we incorporate the actual website into our presentation by having one of us log in to Myspace/Facebook and have our presentation on our profile. Although, we did not use this idea for our presentation, it immediately got us thinking about the differences and similarities between the two websites. I also brought up the idea that Myspace/Facebook, and the internet in general, allow everyone to express themselves the way that they want to. I gave an example of how even gangsters, thugs (or whatever you want to call them) are able to have their own language and also bring their lifestyles into a public sphere through the internet. This prompted my group to discuss internet vernacular and why it is used as well as what the effects of it are. The internet relies on speed therefore, causing people to abbreviate words and phrases and to ignore the conventional rules of grammar and punctuation. This in itself can be thought of as a radical idea because no one can stop people from writing the way that they want to, and why should they? Websites such as Myspace and Facebook also cause people to write the minimal amount of words, or characters to express their thoughts. When people use minimal words and post quick comments it depersonalizes information. It was my job, for the presentation, to discuss, or get the class to discuss internet vernacular.