We are at the point of no return. I have just been looking for your embrace. You are very impressive at first glance. I find myself having thoughts about you that I need to share with everyone. It’s almost a compulsion. I had had this conversation with one of my roommates and our friend about them.  Last weekend when you thought it was a good idea to post a twitpic of you and your friends at the club? That’s now public domain for everyone and their mother (literally) to see.

You can follow anyone, but I chose you. I feel the desire to know you. It will be interesting to see, in a few years, how yummy and delicious you have become.

This was my first website I made, and within a year, I went from desire to obsession. I personally have set my social networking sites to private, where you cannot search for me unless we have mutual friends. Simply because I prefer my privacy. The actions we engage in as young adults – delicious.This should not be blamed on the government, but I saw the pictures you were sharing in the chatroom.

Smile, You’re on camera,

Big Brother :) <3

Remixed by: Liz Finley &&&&& John Casey

Red text from John’s blogs, black text from Liz’s blogs. :)

Photo: icanhasacheezburger.com

I found Parry’s Ubiquitous Mobile, Persistent Surveillance article interesting. The whole concept of the government or any other persons monitoring our interactions and communications on the internet is something that I know in the back of my mind, but something I don’t think about all that often (if at all). Maybe I don’t consider my internet interactions very high-profile. As the first chapter after the introduction in Parry’s work said, it’s not about specifically who gets monitored in depth, it’s the fact that technology is advancing and that we have the ability to look into the private lives of everyone.

The thing that I did not know is that these people who monitor internet connections can make up 99% of the data about a person with only 1% of actual information. The actual accuracy of this algorithm is not stated, but again, Parry makes the argument that that is not the focus of the situation; it’s that the technology is there, and that it will only improve over time.

We are at a point of no return when it comes to this problem. Almost everyone has some form of social communication on the internet. Facebook, Twitter, chat rooms, email; the internet is a part of our lives. It is a form of communication that is a double-edged sword. On one hand, the internet is crucial to communication for classes and for work-related activities. On the other hand, however, the way we represent ourselves on Facebook and Twitter, even our friends and followers, are all out in the open for others to interpret however they wish.

The most popular types of accounts, of course, are those that wish to increase their number of followers by posting only humorous and entertaining tweets. My boyfriend, for instance, is a great example. He has admitted that the only reason he has a Twitter is to be able to tell jokes at all times of the day and have an audience that enjoys them. He even has all of his tweets forwarded to Facebook so he can increase his audience. One of my friends created a fake account. Everything he tweets is made up; even so, he has over 200 followers that read and respond to his tweets daily. There are still other accounts that tweet for the followers, but have no face or name behind them. One of my favorite Twitter accounts is The Batman (@God_Damn_Batman). Although some people might find it strange to create an account and post as a fictional character, you can find them all over Twitter. While I was searching for other amusing accounts, such as Santa Claus (@loadedsanta), I even came across some fictional accounts that were created for online role-playing. Some of these have a secondary goal of obtaining more followers, and some couldn’t care less.

Not all Twitter accounts are created with the goal of having as many followers as possible. I use my Twitter to publish any random thoughts I may be having that I would otherwise tell a friend standing next to me. I also tweet anything that I find particularly hilarious. While I enjoy learning that my followers find some of my tweets amusing, I think I have only ever looked at my followers twice since creating my account, and if you asked me how many followers I had, I couldn’t give you an answer. Another of my friends admits to having a Twitter, and although she checks it daily, she has never once tweeted. She uses her Twitter solely for the purpose of following and reading amusing accounts, news accounts, and anything else she deems worthy of her time.

Every Twitter account is different. Some are hilarious, some are drama-filled, some are depressing, some are fake, some are filled with promotions and discounts, and some don’t have any tweets at all. Everyone has a different reason for tweeting, and after having divulged your private life to the public (or not), I guess the only question left to ask is: Why do you Twitter?

Twitter is a party. It’s a virtual/cyber room where every friend you know, every celebrity you want to know, and every athlete you look up to sits in the same place and talks to each other. Some people take to the corner of the room and only correspond with the few people they’re comfortable with, others try to gain the attention of @KimKardashian; there’s always that one follower that just observes and never talks (my mom), and we can’t forget the #personwhoyoucantstandbecausetheydontknowwhattheyredoing. The party never ends! Twitter is a streaming, changing, window into the world of the people that we now know way too much about.

Everyone’s favorite subject in life is themselves. Each person’s story is their masterpiece. Along with this obvious but quickly denied idea, people love to stick their noses in everyone else’s business. Starting to sound a little bit like a party? You walk in having to listen to one person talk about how they did this amazing thing. You get annoyed at that but find yourself rambling on about your dog and and how hard school is. When you catch yourself, you can’t help but eavesdrop at who your two former best friends are going on about. Starting to sound a little like Twitter?

Twitter gives us the ability to talk about ourselves. Listen to what our friends have to say. Listen to what people are saying, while they don’t know we’re listening. Twitter lets us laugh, explore, judge, connect, and express. All in 140 characters or less. While many people spend lots of time dogging Social Networking and how it is changing our world, it’s probably a lot more fun to just join the party.

Time Magazine and the NY Times produced two equally insightful articles on the newest social media trend Twitter. Steven Johnson for Time writes, “How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live“. Written in 2009, when Twitter was still sort of brand new and “not really out there” Johnson basically discusses all of the benefits of Twitter along with an explanation on how to use it. Well, Johnson was correct when he wrote this article almost three years ago. Here in 2012, Twitter has changed the way we live. Well it has changed the way we #TwitterAddicts live. For us #TwitterAddicts out there in the “Twitterverse” we need to constantly update everyone on our lives, achievements, favorite quotes, articles, fortunes, and misfortunes. Why? Well, not only because of the fact that everyone else is doing it but because it gives us some assurance. It gives everyone a quick glance into our life. Every time something exciting happens we want the whole world to know. Aced an exam? — tweet about it. New car? — tweet about it. Or if your like me and tweet about your every day actions and associating them with a hashtag you’ll stumble upon something like this on your Twitter time line,

“Having three computer screens on my work desk is not enough#firstworldpains“

In Peggy Orenstein’s, “I Tweet, Therefore I Am“, she writes,

“Each Twitter post seemed a tacit referendum on who I am, or at least who I believe myself to be.”

“On Twitter or Facebook you’re trying to express something real about who you are”

For some of us, this means displaying the true side of you in under 140 characters or less. Not only do we want the rest of the Twitterverse to get a glimpse into our lives but sometimes we want to show how exciting or boring our lives are. And as for companies, Twitter allows them to appeal to society as a “person” and not just a brand.

The Twitterverse is an exciting place that can be absolutely swell and at times be quite awkward especially when someone you follow reveals an unnecessary amount of information on their life. People need to be updated and informed, Twitter fulfills this desire and the #TwitterAddicts just keep tweeting.

Image Credit: Paddy

On the last page of the article, he begins to discuss the innovations that come along with a site such as Twitter:

Since the mid-’80s, a long progression of doomsayers have warned that our declining market share in the patents-and-Ph.D.s business augurs dark times for American innovation…

But what actually happened to American innovation during that period? We came up with America Online, Netscape, Amazon, Google, Blogger, Wikipedia, Craigslist, TiVo, Netflix, eBay, the iPod and iPhone, Xbox, Facebook and Twitter itself. Sure, we didn’t build the Prius or the Wii, but if you measure global innovation in terms of actual lifestyle-changing hit products and not just grad students, the U.S. has been lapping the field for the past 20 years.

What we see today are entire industries being created online. Twitter alone is a hub of smaller industries coming together to form one big industry through tweets.

There are now people who are paid for the sole purpose of maintaining a Twitter feed. Most every corporation has an employee, often a marketing or PR expert, who fills the role of “social media manager” or some other relatively new position.

Even in an economic downturn, the Internet is thriving and creating jobs in a time where unemployment is featured at the top of every news hour.

Only a few years after its creation, here we are learning how to brand ourselves on Twitter and how that branding will take us further in life.

Sure, many – perhaps most – people see Twitter as ‘just another network’, but the fact remains that Twitter is an industry for those who want to broadcast their message to the masses.