Internet Use Compared to Generations

Ages: 18-35
I interviewed my good friend Melissa. She is 20 years old and a sophomore in college. She is taking two online courses, has a MySpace page, and does her banking online. She also lives far out of town and is unable to connect with wireless or high speed. I have heard her before talk about the frustration she has because of her slow dial up. She says “That’s why I use the Internet whenever I can at the college (UCC).” With her situation, I got a different perspective of how this generation and many of the friends I have who rely on the Internet, can become frustrated when it is slow. She goes on to tell me that yes, she does feel comfortable communicating on the Internet for the most part. She used MySpace and doesn't talk to anyone she doesn't know to help protect herself. She also tells me that yes, the Internet has changed the way she lives her life, and she can definitely see a difference within the past few years. “I think we all use the Internet a lot more than we even did in high school!” I agreed. We both have online classes and even face-to-face classes that require the Internet and this is a very important structure of our daily lives. “Well, for education, the Internet has definitely helped. I don’t know what it would be like if we still had to use books for research papers.” Melissa makes some good points. Overall, she said she is grateful the Internet is so conveniently available (besides at her homes slow dial up). “What would we do without it?” she asked me. We agreed that in our generation, it seems that we have grown up with the Internet.

Ages: 36-60
I interviewed my step dad Tim. He is 58 years old and mainly uses the Internet for professional communication, medical information, and for scuba diving information and communication. Tim also uses the Internet for keeping in touch with friends and family on just about a daily bases. He was born in Spokane, WA with family whom he still stays in touch with and even e-mails a friend he met while attending school to become Physician’s Assistant in North Dakota. When I asked him how it has changed the way he lives his life he told me that throughout his life, he has been able to see the changes technology has made. “Even when I went to college, nobody had personal computer...the Internet has totally changed our access to education and communication.” When I asked him what is overall opinion of the Internet is he said, “It’s only going to get better.”

Ages: 61 and up
I work at an assisted living facility, so I thought I would interview a resident who uses the Internet. Some people may be surprise about the amount of people in the older generation how use the Internet. I interviewed Earl. He is 78 years old and lives pretty much independently. I have always been curious to how some of the residents at my work have used the Internet, so this interview was a great way to find out more. Earl told me that it was his son who bought him his very own computer and he mainly uses it for keeping in touch with his sons. He told me his son Richard is “very good with computers.” When I asked him how comfortable he was using the Internet, Earl laughed and said “I'm alright, there so much to know” (regarding navigation through the Internet). Overall, he says he really enjoys using Yahoo to check e-mails and to see “what’s going on.” He says he’ll check his e-mail about twice a day and when there is nothing to do or nothing on the television, he’ll get online.

I learned that for the older generation like Earl, did not grow up around the Internet and are more likely not use the Internet for as many reasons as the younger generation. Of course, I cannot say this is the case for every elder. As for the 36-60 age group, I feel that this generation uses the Internet for reasons more closely related to the 18-35 group.

The Internet in our culture has advanced enormously and as my step dad Tim said, “When I was growing up, the thought of a man walking on the moon made people laugh, now look at what has been done.” Tim relates this to the overwhelming amount of resources found on the Internet. In contrast to the younger generation, my interview with Melissa was different in the fact that she and I have basically grown up with the Internet at our side. I think that growing up with the Internet has made a huge difference in how our lives sometimes feels surrounded by the Internet, where as the older generations are not so dependent on it.

Virtual Community

I joined allnurses.com, a free Internet community for those who enjoy the subject of nursing careers. The community accepts those who are nurses including retired or presently working, as well as nursing students and pre-nursing student. Actually, anybody could join. I thought this would be a great virtual community to join because conversing with others around the globe could help me get a better idea of how nursing is being preformed all around. I have heard of online nurses communities, but never had I heard of allnurses.com.

To get familiar with the Internet community, I watched the video tutorial, which gave me a better idea of the services offered and how to go about looking and responding to forums. Something that really stood out to me was the diversity in nursing culture that is expressed throughout the forums. Sure, many are from the United States, but there are people from Singapore, UK, South Africa, and the list goes on. One of the forums is especially for nursing students, where a variety of topics such as “school uniforms” and “grading system” are discussed.

I believe I am accepted into this online community because I am a nursing student and can easily relate to many of the subject topics in both the student forum and regular nursing forum. At first, I wasn’t really sure how others felt about my presents. I hadn’t personally received any messages in response to my forum posts I had posted in the first two days of use. So, I decided to create my own thread (start a different subject). I posted a few questions on my thread including asking opinions on using human patient simulators in nursing school and if other schools use them. It seemed like almost immediately I had a response! From the attitude of this community, I think acceptance is a norm. It seems that people are very willing to answer questions and give opinions to create a comfortable environment. One persons post regarded the student nurse forum as a “safe zone” when giving another student her opinion on her schools overall performance. I think the only way someone could be driven out of the forums is if they made posting irrelevant to nursing subjects.

Reading the forum sometimes felt like I was in a room with hundreds of people all sharing different opinions! When people had an opinion that was different than another, I would often see the person respond with the previous message in quotations and the person would firmly state their opposing position. For the most part, everyone shares their opinions pleasantly and many people have the same opinions.

Many agreements and disagreements are also expressed by using emoticons. In fact, emoticons seem to be very popular and the selection is huge. I also noticed how encouraging people are on the forums. One person had a post concerning how difficult it would be to finish nursing school because she was just diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer. She has pages of responses with words of encouragement and praise for being so determined.

With some forum topics, I felt like expressing my true opinion, although I felt that I would come off rude or misinterpreted. I think this is because these discussions are being taken place in cyberspace, not face-to-face. Sometimes I feel that it can be hard to express opinions without having the message turn into a misconception. Maybe others feel the same way I do and are just not expressing as much as they would like to. I think this is the one disadvantage virtual communities have. The disadvantages that some forum posts came come off misinterpreted and this may hold back what people truly want to say.

Overall, I’m really glad I joined this Internet community. I really feel that joining this community has already expanded my knowledge and washed away some assumptions or stereotypes I had regarding other nursing schools and nursing careers.

Internet vs. Hard Copy for Research

My experience with writing academic papers largely comes from using both Internet sources and my nursing textbooks. I use the database system EBSCO to find evidence based research articles for my nursing papers. Subjects like best practice home health nursing and best practice tracheostomy care are examples. I also have many nursing textbooks that I use several times a week. The experience helped me realize some things about research using internet versus hard copies that I had not of before.

If I could only get my information for a research topic from the internet, I think I would be able to find many great sources. The only problem is there is still a lack of depth in the research. Many instructors like a variety of information that comes from sources other than the Internet. These include hard copy sources, video or audiotapes, and even interviews with a professional. Also, not every Internet source out there is reliable. Someone who chooses only to use Internet based information may find himself or herself reading contraindicating information. For example, Google can accumulate hundreds of thousands of “hits” regarding a subject, although the information may vary. In college, I have learned that the most accurate information on the web will come from resource that does not have a web address ending in “.com.” I like using EBSCO because the information is reliable, and I like using my textbooks because of the same reason.

Although I am taking this online OSU class, I go to Umpqua Community College, where I am a second year nursing student and I do spend at least a few hours each week in the library to study. However, this week I was studying in other locations for my midterm, so I went to the library this morning and finished my research by finding the hard copy book I found using my library’s catalog system online. This was something I was not very familiar with, however I did find a four page list of hard copy cultural resources just by typing in “culture.” I decided that I would choose the topic “culture” and relate it to the generation gap. This subject has always been kind of interesting to me and I can see the relation between cyberspace communications. Older generations, especially in certain cultures, tend to not be as familiar with cyberspace communication (Internet). This definitely seems to be a stigma for those in the US. I wanted to see what kind of information I could gather by using UCC’s library, which by the way, if pretty limited. Infact, I could not even find three book sources that discussed generation gaps. So, I had to think outside the book and mustered up some resources that dealt with communicating and culture.

From my library’s catalog, there was only one hard copy resource that discussed culture and generation gap. I looked through other cultural sources, and found that some books were listed, but were not even available at UCC. I then realized that the catalog was a search engine that was connected to all library systems in Douglas County. I could see how this could get frustrating for those trying to look up hard copy resources for research topics. I think this is one of the main reasons why many people resort to the Internet for the majority of their research information. Yet again, the Internet has convenience. Students type their papers on the computer, and the Internet is at the same location, so Internet resources seem most logical.

Something else I discovered at my library was the limited information regarding nursing. Other than the textbooks I own, the selection is very limited. I tried researching culture and nursing, and found absolutely nothing on the catalog. Overall, I prefer to continue doing research how I am used to. I use my textbooks and internet sources from EBSCO about equally. I do get off the couch and into the library; I just don’t browse through the library’s shelves knowing my options are far more limited than elsewhere.

As for my sources regarding my example research paper:

Evensen, D. (2007). “The Generation Gap.” Quill. Retrieved February 12, 2008 at http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=24502587&loginpage=Login.asp&site=ehost-live

“A Global Generation Gap.” (2004). The Pew Research Center. Retrieved February 10, 2008 at http://people-press.org/commentary/display.php3?AnalysisID=86

Bergfield, S. (2007). “Bridging the Generation Gap” Buisness Weekly. Retrieved February 10, 2008 at http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=26518950&loginpage=login.asp&site=ehost-live

Mead, Margaret. (1970). Culture and commitment: A study of the generation gap. New York: American Museum of Natural History.

Gabor, Ivor, and Aldridge, Jane. (1994). In the best interest of the child: culture, identity, and transracial adaptation. London: Free Association Books.

Gudykurst, William (1998). Culture and Interpersonal communication. Beverly Hills, Ca: Sage Publications.

I'm writing a letter...

This assignment was pretty interesting since I honestly can’t remember the last time I sent a long-hand letter via snail mail. I send credit card payments via the Internet, and other messages through my school accounts and MySpace. With fast responses and no cost (snail mail requires 41 cent stamps!); it seems the Internet has become the prime source for communicating over snail mail.

I decided to write to my sister, my twin sister Courtney who lives in Eugene, and my half sister, Chalase, who is 33 and lives in Minnesota. Both of my sisters are very computer literate and does much of their communicating online, so I thought it would be interesting to see the differences in responses. I sent the long hand letter to my twin sister in Eugene because although she uses the Internet everyday, she doesn’t always check her MySpace or Hotmail account daily, and I do not have a Facebook account like she does. On the other hand, my half sister has told me before she checks her e-mail several times everyday and if very active with sending e-mail jokes, etc. to her friends and family. I sent her a message via e-mail with my Hotmail account telling her thanks and even updating her on pictures of my puppy.

The differences within the letters didn’t vary much in length, but the style of language did vary. On my e-mail, I used more exclamation points and used a smiley icons. The e-mail also had a background color light blue and the text was like a dark olive green and the text was Arial. My long-hand letter had a smiley face, although it was hand drawn. I have loopy handwriting and the paper was actually stationary paper I found in a kitchen counter drawer. I like to personalize my messages, and although the style of the letters was different, the same principles were used for both my e-mail and letter.

The length of time it took for my response different greatly. My half sister responded to me the next morning to my e-mail, whereas my twin sister’s experience in receiving the hand written letter was amusing. The amusing part was that my twin sister and her roommates do not check their mailbox often. As quoted by my sister “We probably only check our mailbox about once a week.” I had to tell my sister to check her mail everyday this week because a letter is coming her way. I visited my sister in Eugene this weekend so when my sister checked her mail yesterday, Saturday, sure enough the letter was there. She thought the letter was sweet but when I asked her if she was going to reply, she told me no and that was silly. I had explained to her the purpose of the long-hand letter versus an e-mail and she understood completely. I think the reason she felt it was silly to respond is because the Internet is so conveniently available.

I think the outcome of the two styles of communication have definitely been influenced by our culture. The American culture as I have grown to be around has taken uphill strides with technology, creating gadgets and Internet resources, which in my opinion, has dominated over traditional ways of communicating such as using paper and pen. There are still many people out there who chose long-hand letters over e-mails. Those who are not exactly computer/Internet savvy such as my mom, use long-hand for communicating such as thank you letter or invitations.

I think that as our culture advances with ways of communicating, our ability to take part in tradition ink and paper writing with envelopes and stamps becomes pushed to the side. I also view advances such as text messaging and MySpace has helped create a way to keep in touch with our friends on a regular bases. I asked my mom about her opinion on letters via snail mail. She told me when she was younger that, “You would write letters to anyone you wanted to keep in touch with. There was no e-mailing going on.”

Another thought: At Wikipedia, snail mail is referred as penpalling, in which the name comes from the snail’s slow speed and from the use of postal services. Although I am not sure of this, but before the Internet, was this form of communication even called “snail mail?” I mean, there was nothing for snail mail to be compared to because e-mail was not invented yet. But then again, communicating via telephone would be faster. But still, it is interesting to see the differences of the two communication styles.