Empathy 140 characters at a time

--Originally published at kimberlyuribe.wordpress.com

If you’ve ever felt victimize by your social networks asking “What’s happening?” or “What’s on your mind?” is either because you’re an independent strong user who needs no interface to ask you anything about your day or because you can’t actually reduce your “complicated millennial mind” to fit a text box. Ok, or maybe you don’t care at all. Whichever the answer is, what those boxes ask us is way deeper than we think.

This boxes challenge us in different ways according to the nature of the platform. While Facebook’s phrase addresses our own thoughts, Twitter asks about facts, about things happening in that moment. Of course we skip all of this interaction and just tweet about how hungry we are (as if spending all of our money in pizza isn’t enough). According to “Social networks that matter: Twitter under the microscope“; a study that explores the relation between followers, followees and friends, networks that matter in social media are those that are made out of patterns of interaction between people rather than those made of people the user claim to be friends with (like adding someone to the friend’s list in Facebook). As a reflection of the findings, to figure out the size of a network that matters, one must consider users who actually communicate through direct messages with each other.  This research found out that people using Twitter only keep in touch with a small number of the people they follow. As a conclusion, it questions the point of view of scholars, advertisers and political activists who believe that online social networks help as a propagation of ideas and formation of social bonds.

Although(thru a basic and lame skimming of the paper and a fast Adobe pdf highlighter tool) mathematically the study makes sense, some educators have a different point of view. Social networks including Twitter, make a great difference in how we perceive the place were we live (hello! mother earth, duh) and people whom we read have an important role for us to build an opinion and impress your crush with facts and knowledge.

New generations are most likely to get informed by social media (Facebook, Twitter or even Snapchat visiting the discovery section) than what they are from other “oficial” media. Information we take from social networks stays in our brains all day long (including all of those memes from 9gag). We can actually know how many people have seen our tweet complaining about traffic jam (omg, never ever go out by 8:00 a.m.). So, how could we change the world if we consider the content we post every day? One brain-full woman and cute mother called Maha Bali (Long Story Short I met her thanks to a cool Google Hangout session you can watch here. She’s a Professor at the American University in Cairo, passionate on the process of learning and teaching and is one of the co-funders of Virtually Connecting. Oh, and a blogger). In one of her posts she talks about promoting empathy and social justice online. Some of the most important things I read in her post where that:

  • Some of the most important works from people who want to achieve this social justice state that raising consciousness about oppressive conditions may actually cause freedom.
  • Question power structures!
  • Social media empowers people to stand up for their opinions and believes
  • Make people aware of what’s happening thru social media
  • Share virtual space with others, regardless of geography

After reading her article two things popped out in my head: being and feminists and a vegetarian. These are two things I’m passionate of talking about. Nevertheless, sometimes I remind silent because most of the time people will only react with things such as this:

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Ok, sometimes those jokes are funny, I have to admit. But my point is that, I don’t want to change people’s habits one talk at a time, but if people ask my reasons on why am I vegetarian, I want to raise awareness on topics such as food ethics or animal cruelty. I really don’t want to have a beef with no one (ah ja ja! see what I did there?). Just when I was about to give up on giving my opinion whenever I feel like, something happened. I’m fan #1 of making remarks and jokes about “The Patriarchy” or heteronormativity. You know, those things you can actually hear like “Doing [whatever] is boy’s stuff” that men tend to ignore or categorize as offensive. I’m so triggered and pissed when these phrases catch my ear. And my friends know it. Almost all of my friends are men, which is great because I think there’s a big learning process between me learning what is like to be a boy, and them learning what is like to be a girl. So after a month or so of hearing my constantly complains about the topic, what surprised me the most happened one lovely Friday afternoon: “Ok, so can you actually explain to us what do to mean by  <<The Patriarchy>>?”

This is not a drill people! A group of men actually where interested in feminism! The Suffragettes would be so proud of me! 

After explaining what all of those terms mean, and giving examples on how we see things as normal when they are not (making “You kick like a girl” offensive when it shouldn’t), my friends had bunches of questions. I was surprised. Sometimes when we hear all of these anti-feminist comments or when someone says we are Femi Nazis, we get so pissed off that we actually ignore ignorance. I got surprised to realize that maybe, just maybe, most of the times people say something against feminism is because people actually don’t know what it stands for. How did I know my little conference about “The Patriarchy” worked? (If after 3 times that you just read the term “The Patriarchy” you aren’t reading it in a gloomy and scary voice, you’re doing it wrong and start over reading this). I knew it worked because my friends now point out any anti-feminist comment. They start to realize which comments where heteronormative; from zero to hero. The moral of the story is that now I feel like I actually made a difference on how people (coff coff men) see feminism and understand them.

Going back to the social empathy, justice  and social media, Social Networks that matter are not those whose interactions are made from people talking to each other, but those who speak to the world. This type of networks aren’t exclusive of the XXI Century, the rise of social awareness thru what we write has been popular since… ever. Virginia Woolf, a writer, essayist, editor and feminist is considered one of the most outstanding figures of Modern Literature and of course, Feminism of XX Century. Virginia aside from writting novels, wrote some damn good essays like “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” which is one of the most quoted texts in the Feminist movement. Nowadays, Virginia Woolf’s works is on point, thanks to a couple of blank pages filled with the voice of the oppressed. New generations have easier ways to communicate with each other. We don’t have to wait for someone to publish our books in order for people to read what we are up to. Twitter is a great tool not only to complain or retweet Tumblr quotes, is a way to talk about What’s Happening?, give your opinion in 140 characters and why not? making someone think about your tweet and create reflexive content online. Sometimes, people just need a little bit of information to change how they see things. I wish Virginia Woolf to be alive, her tweets would be LIT.

 

 

 

 

 

 


Last of the week

--Originally published at Digital Identity

The End by aftab., on Flickr
The End” (CC BY-NC 2.0) by aftab.

So before getting into my final thoughts of the course I would like to thank the teacher that made this course posible, Ken Bauer. I quite enjoyed the whole experience, and I feel it actually made a difference on me. I also want to thank Dave Cormier, Laura GogiaLee Skallerup, Alan LevineAmy Burvall, Autumm Caines , Bonnie StewartSundi RichardMaha BaliDiego ZavalaRebecca Hogue and Helen DeWaard for sharing their views on the subject at matter. I really appreciate that you took time of your day to talk with us. You helped build a really great experience, so thank you for that.

Now, into the reflection. The reason that I like this subject is because my digital identity has been cut into two since I started leaving stuff in the internet. Recently, I decided to continue on in the internet with only one persona. This course helped me notice what I really wanted, how to do it, and what would imply to me, and the people around me. It also made me think about stuff that never came across my mind. Like when Ken mentioned that it’s okay to use your laptop on your lap, because after all, it is called a LAPtop. That completely blew my mind. In a more serious note, the course made me notice how important it is to be aware of what is said or posted about you in the web. To a certain point I thought that keeping a different personas would make things all good, but in reality I don’t actually want that. I want for people to know who I am and make sure they know what my work is.

This course helped me decide that I want to keep blogging. I want to get my weird thoughts out there, because maybe someone will be able to get something out of it. It also helps me keeping myself as sane as I can. I’ve always loved writing. It’s even therapeutic. Now, I’ll just post a selective few and share it with others.

I will probable keep updating this blog ever so often, but there’s only so much that I can talk about the subject without just getting out of subject.

So, yeah. Thank you for reading.

 


Persona

--Originally published at Digital Identity

Today was the last of day of the digital identity course with Ken Bauer at the Tec de Monterrey Campus Guadalajara. Today we were lucky to half a talk with Rebecca Hogue and Helen J. DeWaard. They were nice enough to answer a question related to one of the main concepts of which I wanted to get into the course. Anonymity, and alterante internet personas. You can check out that whole thing right here:

So, as you can see because of my nickname, and also I’ve mentioned it in another post; I didn’t always went by as my real name in the internet. When I started to be more active in the way I preferred to create a different identity for myself. An alter ego even. That’s when Drag was born. At the time, Drag represented who I wanted to be, but this idea was really far from my actual personality in real life. In high school, as I started to become friends with people that heavily used social media my internet persona started to mix with my personal life. It even got to the point in which my friends started to call me Drag instead of Alex, and to this date my closest friends still do.

It wasn’t until recently that I had my digital life pretty much really far apart from my physical life. Now, the only disadvantage that I find of having a different identity out there is that I will probably not get as much recognition for the work that I do publish out in the web. Another reason is because it started to affect my mental health. It got to the point that I would sometimes identify as Drag, and other times as Alex. Because of this reasons and others I decided to get this two entities together. Hence the full name Alejandro “Drag” Güereca.

In its self it’s not wrong to try to be anonymous or have another persona in the internet. But whatever you do, no matter by what name you go through, be proud of your work. Because if you think that it should be out there, chances are at least a few people are going to feel identified with your thoughts.

Also today we did a cool exercise with video editing. So we goofed around a little bit and pulled this gem:

So that’s it for the week. However I do plan on posting tomorrow what I learned, and final thoughts of the stuff that we looked at. So be on the look out for that.


The end…

--Originally published at MY BLOG

Como lo especifica el titulo de i blog… llego el final de esta semana i, creo que que no pude haberme inscrito a un mejor curso que a este, ya que en lo personal a mi me gustan mucho las aplicaciones y diferentes herramientas tecnologicas con las que nos podemos llegar a topar en el internet… realmente estoy agradecido con el profesor Ken por las ensenanzas a lo largo de la semana y espero poder a llegar a tener otro curso similar a este!

 


Day V

--Originally published at Identidad digital

What’s up people,

Today was a bittersweet day for me: it was the last session of our semanai. I was satisfied, tired and sad. I have learned a lot this week. It felt really good to explore topics that have little to do with my everyday life and studies.  Besides I finally started blogging. I really like writing and blogging is an activity that since a few years ago has gotten my attention but I had never tried.

After this week I have decided not only to continue this blog but also creating another where I can write about the “philosophy” (I guess), history and ideas behind the pictures I take and post on Instagram.

A thing I liked about blogging and the “Digital Identity” course is that it has helped me to clear my mind and think about what I have learned during the day. I hope that if people read my blog they can get something from it, fun, a lesson, encouraging words, or whatever they are looking for. Anyways I’m sure I can get lots of good stuff from it. During the curse I have learned to be less scared about sharing a bit of my life on the internet. Besides if I post something that later on I will not like or agree with I can always erase it.

On the other hand the session of today was quite helpful because we learned about expressing one’s self through video. Diego Zavala showed us several websites were stories were told though videos. The one that I liked the most was about a boy and his father, it really touched my heart, I actually wanted to cry but I was too embarrassed to do it.

Ken, if you ever read this, thanks a lot for this week. It has been the best semana I for me so far. From my experience you are a great professor, having you as a full semester teacher must be super dope.

Cheers.


Último día :(

--Originally published at Semana i ITESM gda

El día de hoy fue la última sesión de nuestro curso de identidad digital. Tuvimos un pequeño workshop con Diego Zavala que nos enseñó cómo hacer buenos vídeos. En mi equipo hicimos un pequeño corto de nuestro recorrido cada día para llegar a nuestro taller de semana i.

Fue una semana muy buena en la que aprendimos muchas cosas, como lo importante que es cuidar lo que publicamos en nuestras redes sociales, debido a que esto es un reflejo de nuestra personalidad en internet. Esto es de suma importancia porque lo que está en internet cualquier persona lo puede ver.

Además algo muy importante es que si alguien tiene un buen perfil personal es más fácil conectarse con personas que tienen tus mismos intereses. Por ejemplo si publicamos acerca de lo que nos gusta o apasiona de nuestra carrera, podemos encontrar a gente que también le guste y así crear una conversación muy interesante y aprender más desde otras perspectivas. Y esto es algo que debemos de hacer un hábito para cada día actualizarse en conocimientos.
Este curso fue genial, nuestro profesor invitó a muchos expertos que nos hablaron de todos estos temas, lo más padre fue cómo creamos una gran comunidad digital en 5 días, con 100 estudiantes, un profesor y varios especialistas. Me encantó y mil gracias a Ken Bauer por la experiencia de este curso.

 


Último día :(

--Originally published at Semana i ITESM gda

El día de hoy fue la última sesión de nuestro curso de identidad digital. Tuvimos un pequeño workshop con Diego Zavala que nos enseñó cómo hacer buenos vídeos. En mi equipo hicimos un pequeño corto de nuestro recorrido cada día para llegar a nuestro taller de semana i.

Fue una semana muy buena en la que aprendimos muchas cosas, como lo importante que es cuidar lo que publicamos en nuestras redes sociales, debido a que esto es un reflejo de nuestra personalidad en internet. Esto es de suma importancia porque lo que está en internet cualquier persona lo puede ver.

Además algo muy importante es que si alguien tiene un buen perfil personal es más fácil conectarse con personas que tienen tus mismos intereses. Por ejemplo si publicamos acerca de lo que nos gusta o apasiona de nuestra carrera, podemos encontrar a gente que también le guste y así crear una conversación muy interesante y aprender más desde otras perspectivas. Y esto es algo que debemos de hacer un hábito para cada día actualizarse en conocimientos.
Este curso fue genial, nuestro profesor invitó a muchos expertos que nos hablaron de todos estos temas, lo más padre fue cómo creamos una gran comunidad digital en 5 días, con 100 estudiantes, un profesor y varios especialistas. Me encantó y mil gracias a Ken Bauer por la experiencia de este curso.

 


Thanks

--Originally published at Juan Pablo Hallal

30 / September / 2016

This week was full of learning. I learn about how my digital identity has a presence on the Internet and how to take care of it, as well as how to use it responsibly and with precaution; but also as myself, using my very own voice.

I would like to thank all the guest speakers we had: Dave Cormier, Laura Gogia, Lee Skallerup, Alan Levine, Amy Burvall, Autumm Caines, Bonnie Stewart, Sundi Richard, Maha Bali, and Diego Zavala. And I also would like to thank our mentor throughout the whole week, Ken Bauer.

Thank you all for your time, experience and dedication.


Day 5 #semanai #iTecGDA

--Originally published at Digital Identity

Today was the last day of this long but very interesting week. Today, day 5, we had as guest speaker, Diego Zavala, in person, something new because all our conferences were on a video call. Diego was talking about how we could make different kinds of videos. 

Later on, we had two guest speakers Rebecca Hogue and Helen DeWaard talking about blogging and the fact of other peopople, and about digital literacy and practice. Here is the link of the conference of Rebecca and Helen, I recommend you to click on it and watch it. Link: https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=If80p4tGNPI

We were ask to do a video of ourselfs doing something we are passion about. Here are my videos, as you can see, I love playing football, it is my passion and it will always be. ​

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​This was a great week full of learning, thanks to our mentor Ken Bauer. Thanks ken. 


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Goodbye iTecGDA

--Originally published at Untitled.

First of all, I want to thank our proffesor Ken Bauer and all the guest speakers we had during this week-long course for their time and knowledge. All of them were very nice, taught us a lot and motivated me to keep making me present online!

I learned a lot this week. Now I know what Digital Identity is (or should I say Digital Presence). It made me reflect on everytime I post something online or when I interact with someone I do not know online. I learned that what I post online is a part of my identity and that I should be careful with what I post online, so I do not hurt others or I give a bad image to myself.

But my final conclusion is that as a person, I should be more invested in being a resident in the social media I use because that could bring me a lot of good opportunities, from meeting new people to making my voice heard.

Finally, I want to thank everyone who read me during this week. I do not think I will keep writing because well, writing is not my thing, but I love to tweet, so you should follow me on Twitter (@thecokemermaid).