First time meetings at Conventions

I wouldn't say I'm against this whole thing with people being friends with people only through the web and never meeting in real life until the day of the whatever convention but from what I saw on Frontline, these people need to get a life! They talk about how long they stay sitting on their computer chair all day playing online games without breaks like they're proud of it, which I think is ridiculous! I know as an ATEC student I should probably be proud and supportive of all this especially since I'm more of an indoor than outdoor person but still I believe there are limits to how long you keep yourself glued to your computer. Hello people, it's Spring now. Get up! Get out! Enjoy the awesome weather of Texas! No sarcasm!

This week's Frontline: Digital Nations

The first thing I recall from this video is the part where the army uses video games to recruit kids as young as 13. Now I do believe this is a progressive way to get children interested in joining the army but why at such a young age? I mean, I don't think kids are dumb enough to not be able to differentiate between the game world and reality and think it's okay to go out there and start shooting people. There are many similar first-shooter games out there but they are rated for older audiences for a reason, at least I believe so. Kids should stick with playing more peaceful, bright, colorful jolly games instead of those violent and aggressive ones the army is having them play because kids can just get brain-washed so easily and can be sensitive to what their minds absorb and bloody war games should the last thing they should be thinking about. You don't want to hear you're kid saying, "I wanna shoot people's brains out!" when asked what they want to be when they grow up. If you ask me, I'd be on the rebelling parents' side and yell out whatever it was that was written on their posters.
The second part is the Korean kids gluing their faces to the computer screen in the gaming center all day. I think it really has caused a serious disorder and more psychiatrists should acknowledge its threats so more parents can be aware of it as well. I'm not too sure if the camp idea is helping much because according to what Frontline was showing us, all those kids were thinking nothing but of going home to their beloved computer games. But what they're teaching the second graders (especially the song) is a good start and hopefully the next generation's kids will find better ways to spend their childhood lives than just playing games all day.

Culture Convergence Conclusion

I must admit I did quite a few skimming through some of the chapters because it was just getting way too redundant! I wasn't really surprised to see the same concept of how great collective intelligence is in the online world rephrased for the last time in the book's afterword and conclusion.
The only difference I see between each chapter is that the author just uses a different example just to support the same idea over and over again. And like someone had mentioned in class, the reader most probably would've been able to understand what the author was trying to say in just one paragraph for each chapter. Yes, the whole the book could have been summarized in just one chapter.
The only thing I learned pretty much is that there are some CRAZY fans out there that will do anything to get their hands on almost any type of information. Jenkins did more than a good job with his supportive examples to express his thoughts on that.