Research Journal Based on Personal Experience and Observation - Assignment Example

? Research Journal Based on Personal Experience and Observation Research Journal Based on Personal Experienceand Observation Subject 1: My mother’s friend, who had visited our home Date: Wednesday 26 September 2012   Situation: Texting messages using the phone, while watching American Idol, and chatting with friends on Facebook Old Media: Basic cable television and Text Messages New (social) Media: Facebook TIME OBSERVATION NOTES 5:00PM She has arrived from work, sat on the couch, while enjoying a soft drink, watching American Idol, and still she was logged into her Facebook account using her laptop. I was sited next to her on the same couch watching television, thus I could observe her very well. 5:20pm              She received a text message on the phone and she had to read it, therefore she opened her phone, and the message was from her friend Damien, who was asking her to join him for dinner at their house. The message drew her attention from the television, and she began to reply. 5:23pm After replying, she took her laptop and opened the tab where she has logged into facebook, and found more than five people have already initiated chats. She commenced replying to their chats, and before she was done with it, her attention was drawn by the television. Therefore, the television distracted her from continuing with the chats on Facebook; in fact, she did not respond to some of the comments from her friends. In the meantime, she was also waiting for her friend to respond to the message that she had sent earlier, via the text messaging. 5:35pm Her friend replied through the phone messaging services, and this drew her attention again. The message seemed to be more interesting than the television: due to a reflection from her smile as she read through. Before replying to the message received, friends on the facebook drew her attention, and she decided to reply to three of her friends. It is evident that both messaging and Facebook seemed to be more interesting to her, than watching American Idol on the television, since every time the messages were received, she was drawn from watching the television. 6:01PM 6:10 PM 6:15 PM 6:18 PM She was not paying attention to the television anymore, since she was concentrating on her laptop, while typing on Facebook chats. Therefore, she was not able to pay attentions to the television and Facebook at the same time, though the phone was also demanding attention from her at various instances like reading messages and replying. At this moment, she remembered about her drink, she took it, though her mind, and eyes were focusing on the laptop. Another message was sent to her through the SMS, and this drew her attention to the phone in order to check the message. She replied to the message, thereby taking about three minutes. Finally, her attention was drawn to the television, whereby she stopped typing on the laptop, and commenced watching an iphone 5 commercial on the television. The features of the phone were exiting to her in a way that drew her attention, thus making her to leave all other activities and concentrate on the television advert.  MY REFLECTION During my observation, I was able to identify the way people have been sending and receiving messages in the past using the phone, while comparing to the new social media, Facebook. It is evident that, the new social media is allowing accessibility of numerous people through different avenues of communication at the same time. My subject seems to be distracted while watching the television, since she had to check on the messages received from her friend, while still chatting with her friends on Facebook. However, the new social media offer an opportunity to enjoy watching the same program on the cable television, while chatting with friends, hence reducing the interruption. Subject 2: Myself Date: Monday 10 September 2012 Situation: Texting message using my phone, while chatting on Twitter    Old Media: Phone messaging services New (social) Media: Twitter TIME OBSERVATION NOTES 9:00AM I had arrived from my friend’s apartment and after taking a hot shower; I sat on the bed and decided to inform him that I had arrived at my apartment through a text message. 9:20Am              After twenty minutes, he replied, but at that time, I was chatting with some other friends on twitter. I decided to send him another message to enquire about the venue of a meeting that we were to hold the following day. 9:35Am 10:01AM While waiting for his reply, I decided to continue chatting with my friends, by posting my views and my friends were responding with various comments. He later relied and informed me about the venue and at that moment, I was feeling drowsy. REFLECTION This experience facilitated an understanding of the difference in the use of the old social media, text message using my phone and new social media, twitter. In this case, twitter is offering a platform, whereby I could communicate to numerous people at the same time. However, the phone messaging only enables one line of communication that entail one recipient and sender, hence the new social media can be considered effective. Subject 3: My Uncle Date: Friday 14 September 2012 Situation: Chatting on Facebook while watching cable television Old Media: Cable television   New (social) Media: Facebook TIME OBSERVATION NOTES 2:04PM I went to visit my uncle on a Friday afternoon and I met him watching his favorite television program, while chatting with his friends on facebook. 2:15PM              He seemed to concentrate on the television, but kept on embarking to his chats frequently. There were five friends online, whom he was extensively involved in chatting with them. 2:40PM Minutes later, he had already regained his concentration on the television, though, he was distracted by the chatting every time a message was delivered. 3:13PM REFLECTION We later engaged into a conversation about family issues, but he was more focused on facebook than the television or the conversation. Facebook is offers a chance for the user to interact with different people at the same time and this is very interesting. This is the reason why my uncle could not concentrate watching the television, and the conversation that I had initiated. Therefore, new social media is considered more interesting than the old social media such as cable television. Subject 4: My Brother Date: Wednesday 19 September 2012 Situation:  Watching cable television while messaging on Nokia phone and chatting on Twitter Old Media: Cable television and messaging on Nokia phone New (social) Media: Twitter TIME OBSERVATION NOTES 8:00PM We were watching television in the living room together as a family as usual and I had a chance to observe my brother as he was chatting on twitter and at the same time texting his friends through his Nokia phone. 8:20pm              He received a message from his friend asking him about a party that was to be held during the week at one of their friend’s house. 8:26pm He was concentrating opening a tab on his laptop where he had been chatting with his friends in a discussion. 8:41pm 9:20PM REFLECTION He received another message through his Nokia phone and he had to stop watching television and read it, and later embarked on his computer to continue with his chats. Therefore, Twitter seems to draw his attention from watching television and he has to reply to the messages he received through his phone. The new social media, Twitter, seems to draw his attention from watching television, which is an old social media. Moreover, Twitter is considered better than text messaging through the phone, whereby it offers a chance for the user to communicate to different people at the same time. Therefore, new social media has contributed significantly to effective communication. Report There has been a significant growth in use of Facebook over the past years, whereby numerous users are communicating and interacting using the services offered by its applications. Facebook is a social media platform offering a chance for users to connect to their phone inbox for messaging services; they access the messages that are sent to their phone using their computers. Therefore, this eliminates time consumed in accessing messages delivered either in the phone or in the social media platform, while facilitating communication on the same platform, at the same time. Facebook also offers applications that enable streaming of embedded videos, thus one can view the American idols at the same platform, while chatting with friends. In this case, one can access all the services at the same location, hence reducing the chance of missing things due to disruptions. In fact, the main objective of the essay is to compare old social media; text messaging and cable television and texting and the new social media; Facebook and Twitter. Facebook chat offers a small chatting box at the right bottom corner, where the user can select friends from a group comprising of all of those, who are online. Facebook chat also offers a chance for the user to create emotion icons and it has a capacity to hold numerous chats simultaneously. These features are also available in other modern social media platform such as twitter. Contrary to this, old social media platforms such as text messaging cannot offer such features or application in their communication. Old social media, such as the cable television, is not very interesting compared to modern social media platform; the feeling offered by modern social media such as Facebook is very good, whereby one can create a communication relationship with the sender or receiver of the message. On the other hand, the text messaging service offered by the phone is limited to one sender and recipient at a time, an issue well addressed in the modern social media platforms. In this case, Facebook can be considered an effective way of communication, compared to the old social media. In the observation above, there is ample evidence to the disruptions involved in the use of the old social media platforms, whereby the user has to switch their attention from the television to the phone, in order to check on a message. This disruption continues to a point of losing the interest on one thing. Therefore, the problem is solved through the integration of the service offered by the old social media to the new social media through the development of more advanced applications. In addition, the subject lost interest in old social media, and decided to continue chatting with friends on Facebook, instead of texting. Moreover, new social media like Twitter and Facebook is compared more effective than phone messaging and cable television. Other subjects seem to prefer using the new social media to the old social media. Therefore, this is the same reason that has been facilitating growth in the use of the new social media over the past few years, and there are expectations for increased in the growth in the future. The issue that stands out for me is the ability to communicate to different people simultaneously, through different channels. Moreover, if I had financial resources, I would invest in social media application development, as is the case in the development of Facebook. I would invest on applications that would offer users of a chance make phone calls through the social media platform to phones, such as Skype. Additionally, I would seek to establish an application through which, users of the social media would access the channels offered by the cable television. This would be advancement to the current social media platform, aimed at addressing their weaknesses and realizing new advancements. Therefore, if I were the owner of the company making these devices, I would concentrate on establishing an integration of communication with entertainment, which would draw numerous people to the social media platform, hence address the problem of divided attention to the social platform users. However, if I were a teacher or a parent, I would focus on ensuring that children, who are users of Facebook, do not interact with people that have bad influence on their behaviors (Sacks & Graves, 2012). This would be achieved through ensuring that their friends and morally upright in respect to their contributions on the various issues presented on the platform. Conclusively, the paper has compared the old social media: cable television and text messaging services to the new social media, Facebook. This was facilitated by an observation that was made of a period of one hour and eighteen minutes on subjects using both the old and new social media simultaneously. A reflection section elaborates on the use of the new and old social media, in order to compare the services offered by the new media that are not in the old social media. Moreover, the new social media offers all the services offered by the old social media and addition of other new services due to advancement of technology related to application development. References Sacks, M., & Graves, N. (2012). How Many “Friends” Do You Need? Teaching Students How to Network Using Social Media. Business Communication Quarterly, 75(1) 64– 67. Read More