Have the kids been netted?

A recent article on the Herald Sun website reports that according to a survey held by telecommunications giant Telstra, a quarter of children spend 7 or more hours per week on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

That’s not so surprising – the big thing in this article comes from “cyber-safety expert” Dr Martyn Wild, who suggests that computers with internet access should be moved out of children’s bedrooms and into more open areas such as the loungeroom, to ensure that they focus on their studies.

However… I find it a bit ironic that Telstra has conducted such a survey when they are one of the few mobile carriers that support 0.facebook.com, a special mobile version of the Facebook site that does not attract data usage charges.

Thanks to advances in mobile phones, it’s now easier than ever to access the internet while on the go. You don’t even need a computer to do things like tweet an update on Twitter, bid on auctions on eBay or Google search something.

Regarding the doc’s suggestions – personally I think it’s a bit of a daft idea.

Logistically the idea doesn’t work – restricting internet access to one computer in the household means it’ll be a pain for the whole family. One computer for four or more people to check their e-mails, favourite news websites, Facebook, Twitter and other online activities… what a hassle!

While I understand Dr Wild’s sentiments, I think something like internet usage should be left for the parent’s discretion.

But then again, I certainly didn’t need a survey by Telstra or research by Newspoll to tell me that the kids are on social networking sites for hours a week… the children aren’t the only guilty ones on that count :p

Flaming just got real

I’m pretty sure we’ve all done it when we were younger – log into mIRC and bag the bejesus out of someone or leave disparaging comments on some site online, all behind the protection of a nickname or handle.

But being all grown up now, hopefully we don’t do that sort of thing anymore. Aside from the the activity being childish, much of that anonymity is no longer there, with social networking allowing insights into our personals lives on a much larger level than years before.

Which is why this announced change to gaming developer Blizzard’s online forums is so interesting. Basically, users wanting to post on the forums will now have to post under their full names, or Real ID as they put it, rather than posting under the names of their in-game characters or alias.

you have to imagine The Who music playing after you finish reading this

Blizzard, the developers behind series such as Starcraft, Diablo and World of Warcraft, have a sizeable forum community to match. The decision behind the change was to discourage ‘flamers’ or people who post disparaging comments – as they’d be required to reveal their identity – and encourage more mature, in-depth and on-topic discussion.

Many users and gamers – including me – have had mixed reactions with the change. On one hand, I understand the decision; Blizzard forums are known for lots of spammy and flame-type posts (not to mention everyone whinging that their class/race/etc has been nerfed too much OR whinging that the other class/race is too OP).

But, there may be users who have something insightful to add to the discussion but do not want to have to sacrifice their identity in order to participate.

I think that level of anonymity is important to have, especially when dealing with gamers. Or maybe I’m still just stuck in the stereotypical thinking that gamers are sort of anti-social (although I’d consider myself a gamer and not anti-social… hmm).

Or maybe Blizzard are leading a changing trend, to an era of a more mature community online. I guess we’ll see!

P.S. Bring on Starcraft 2! Only around two weeks left, woohoo

I Like this, and this, and this…

A large part of my daily rituals include checking up on my ‘online presence’ frequently throughout the day: checking my Twitter, seeing if I have any new e-mails and refreshing for new posts on a forum I read frequently.

Oh, and of course, constantly checking Facebook. No I am not a stalker!

But I digress. Anyway, while trawling through the status updates and group joining notifications on my Wall, I noticed something new:

Look at the arrow if you can't spot it

Now I’m not sure when this started happening, and it appears to be the smallest of things, but it now appears you can ‘Like’ individual comments that you and your friends make.

It’s annoying enough when you post something on a friend’s wall or comment their photo and you get all their friends liking it, leading you to get countless notifications from people you don’t know.

But now the ability to like even the smallest of things Likeable – I don’t think you can get much more Like-crazy than that.

But it doesn’t surprise me that the change has been made. Ever since the good ol’ thumbs up was introduced to Facebook, we’ve seen it spread to other areas, such as Youtube:

comment from this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f67LgpJBPPE

and even t-shirts:

from CharGrilled

The ‘Like’ has almost become a cultural icon of sorts – maybe even one of the defining icons of our generation.

I don’t find it that annoying (except maybe the notification spamming part of it) but I think it’s kinda cool that such a simple thing has blown up and made it into the real world.

I expect to see this sort of thing on my uni work soon…

...and maybe a Dislike stamp for when I flunk an assessment