Online Communication, Business Assessment

     For my business assessment I decided to choose Psyonix. Psyonix is a video game developer that has created one of my most favorite games of all time, Rocket League. At the top of their main website Psyonix.com, there are links for home, careers, support, and Rocket League's website. It then has the image I've posted at the top of this blog. Under that it has an about section that clearly states what the company is "Based in San Diego, California, Psyonix is a critically-acclaimed video game developer behind some of the most entertaining video games in the industry, including the hit sports-action hybrid Rocket League." Below this is another link for careers, a company history, and an about San Diego section. There is not much more to the site which I found interesting. It states all the information you need without much flash. The Rocket League site itself is much more engaging and attractive. 

    Their social media is also interesting. Their Instagram has absolutely no posts. It only has a link to the Psyonix website. Their Twitter is just retweets from the Rocket League Twitter. It seems that their main focus is posting things through the Rocket League social medias. I found this interesting because I could not figure out easily what other games they've developed. According to their about me they've created other games but only their Twitter listed them. They are @ARCSquadron and @SARP_BattleCars. I believe they could do a better job promoting these games. 

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

     According to Prensky the digital immigrant/native divide are those who where raised on technology (natives) and those who are learning how to use it (immigrant). Prensky talks about how teachers need to change the way they are teaching because students have changed the way they are learning. In the article Prensky states that students who have "Digital Immigrant instructors make their education not worth paying attention to compared to everything else they experience." I would say maybe this was more a problem back when the article was written in 2001. If using Prensky's definitions, I would consider myself a digital immigrant. I did not have a smartphone until I was a senior in high school. That was back in 2009. But I did have the internet on my computer since middle school. I noticed back then, it seemed like the internet was a scary tool my teachers would avoid. Going back to school now it is practically impossible not to have the internet or knowledge of it implemented within your classroom. On this website:https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/chart/internet-use-by-education/ there is a chart that shows a graph of internet usage by those at different stages of education through the years.

    I enjoyed Kirschner's article which argues against Prensky. Kirschner states that just because a student knows how to use technology for social media, texting, etc. it does not mean they know how to use it to further their learning. I've experienced this myself in one of my classes. I was assigned a group project where I had to add information to a "PowerPoint." One of my group members sent me an email with a link. It led me to google slides, which I did not know even existed. I felt so "old" because I had to work on this project and try and teach myself how to enter things on google slides. I'm glad I know it exists now but I couldn't believe I did not know about it beforehand. I think it is bad to assume that a student knows or doesn't know how to use, do, or think something based off of when they were born.

I'm listing google slides just in case there is anyone out there, who like me didn't know it existed:

https://www.google.com/slides/about/

Knapp's Relational Model

 

(https://www.communicationtheory.org/knapps-relationship-model/)

    Knapp's Relationship model goes through several stages of  relationships from introductions to termination. I have social anxiety so I feel that some of these stages look different for me. You can learn more about social anxiety here. I don't really have any friends and most of my relationships remain in the initiation stage, especially recently since I have been travelling and moving around. Many times I will meet someone at a bar or restaurant and we will strike up a conversation. Sometimes if I truly enjoyed the conversation I will offer my social media. However, I have noticed that I will receive a few likes on my posts from that person but a conversation never really picks up again. I feel that with social media I can see most of what's going on in their lives (at least what they want to display) and they can see what's going on in mine. I would love to get to the integration stage with someone at some point. I know I would have to work hard to achieve this because many people perceive my social anxiety as standoffish and that I don't care about the relationship. 

Oversharing Online

   I believe that all social media websites can have both positives and negatives. It depends on how a person uses the social media. I think there is a very dangerous trend that is currently happening where a user can get stuck in an "echo chamber." What I mean by this is that people can view content that they want to see which is created by people who think like them and avoid content of opposing views. This means that people are becoming more radicalized in their ideals. They are only seeing social media that is enforcing their beliefs. You can read how the terrorist group ISIS is doing this by clicking here. I do think there are positives though. A lot of my friends and family members are spread out across the USA as well as other countries. It’s nice being able to stay in contact with them as well as seeing what’s going on in their lives.

I do think social media sites should hold some responsibility for the mental health of their users. If customers at a store were constantly coming out of it depressed or angry, there would be an investigation and policies would need to be put in place to prevent this. I do think it would be tricky to figure out how a social media platform could go about doing this though. There are so many factors involved. How to censor things without censoring them to the point of some kind of agenda. For example, to say “they should block all hate speech” is easier said than done. If there were to politicians running against each other and the site blocked anyone saying something bad about either politician it goes against freedom of speech. If the site only blocked it for one of the candidates this would also be a huge problem. I believe this is why social media platforms are not held accountable yet because it is extremely hard to judge exactly what they should be doing. 

 Hello! 

My name is Cody. I am currently at the airport bar while writing this. I am on my way to Germany where I will be living for a month. While I am in Europe I will also travel to France and England. I am so excited for this. My hobbies are travelling and videogames. I had a full time job where I was a Director of Events for shows like Cirque du Soleil. I decided that this was not the path for me and quit to go back to school. I love to travel, like seriously it's a problem all my money goes to exploring different countries. I also love videogames. I just bought an Xbox series X and am trying to make my way through Elden Ring. I've never played a From Software game and I did not expect it to be so hard but I am loving it.