A Face to Face Experience

James Cavanah
DTC 375: Language, Texts & Technology
Dr. Farman
Word count: 805


The growing popularity of Internet blog sites has grown huge with the immersion of Facebook.com over the last few years. Facebook gives bloggers there own site to customize and share information with each other and for many people it is an extension of how they live there everyday lives. I believe that this application has changed and will continue to change the way we see other peoples cultures and interact with others around the globe from are home or phones.

There are many reasons people using Facebook and in many ways holds a deeper meaning. Facebook to me is a way I can stay in contact with family members from England. It keeps me connected to them and gives me a chance to see what is going on in there everyday lives. It was just the other day that my uncle said “ I can’t believe I am talking to you all the way from England”. I think this is a main contributing factor for the popularity of Facebook. Not only can you chat with friends and family but also you can message them, send them party information, give them Electronic gifts and even play online games with each other. For a while we forget that we are just typing words into a computer and believe that we are actually face to face with are friends. In the article “Remediation” by Bolter and Grusin they give us this idea of hypermedia that says “ The excess of media becomes an authentic experience” (Grusin 54). In a sense people are using Facebook to relate and convey their feelings through pictures and text forgetting that they maybe two thousand miles away from the person there talking to.

The way we communicate in are regular day also impacts the way we communicate on sites like facebook, such as text messaging. The way we type on Facebook, for some of us, is the same way we would type a text message to our friends, which uses different words and abbreviations. Through these small changes in words we can see how culturally different we are. For example when I look at the way my friends in England type to each other I know that other people from different countries would have a hard time understanding what they are trying to say. If I were typing to a friend from America I would say something like “ Yo! hey wat you up to later. ttul” and if I was typing to my English friends I would say “ Alryt pal u up town toneet, give a bell in a bit”. Just through these small fraises we can see how are cultural text evolves and differs from one another. What is also amazing is how these fraises affect the way we talk on the phone to each other; it’s a circle of inventiveness, which has only just started. Many of are peers would say are generation talks to each other with improper style but it’s just a way for us to say something with as little words as possible. This is an example of how fast are technology changes the way we communicate and Facebook is a prime example of that. As we continue to move into are digital age we will find that these sites will be utilized more than are home phones and even are mail system but I don’t think we will forget about are past remediation.

With are past readings of Essential Mcluhan we were introduced to the idea that “ for every media there is a remediation” (Mcluhan 152). In essence we wouldn’t have a computer with out the phone and the phone I believe is the remediation for the computer. The way we talk to each other on the phone is clearly shown in are text and has evolved into its own communication type. We have defiantly built off of a solid foundation but we will continue to improve are technology with the applications of other media. Facebook, for some, is the ultimate tool for expression and this intrigues people so much that they are willing to give strangers an insight into their lives. People enjoy the idea that they can create a different persona for themselves, helping them to convey feelings and ideas to other people. The fact we use are public profiles to convey all are personal information shows how powerful this media has become and are acceptance into a new age. Sites such as Facbook will continue to grow into there own communication marvels and with the mixture of all cultures gives us endless possibilities of how text and Internet blog sites will become there own language.

Works cited
Bolter, David. Remidiation: understanding media.
Mcluhan, Marshall. Essential Mcluhan. perseus, 1996.