Reaction to "Ambient Intimacy" by Clive Thompson

This article was quite similar to the Silver piece that I had previously read. It covered 'weak' and 'strong' ties that are affected by the internet as well as the examples used to support them. 'Weak' ties are helpful for if one needs help with something business related, a whole bunch of people socially connected to you but perhaps not intimate with you would be willing to help out especially if it's something they know about.

Definitely, the most interesting part of this piece was that one should be active and identify themselves on Facebook, Twitter, etc, because now people have the awareness and means to shape an identity for you if you don't do it yourself. This makes me reflect back on our class discussion about creation vs consumption. Nobody is known by their consumption habits, but it's what they create that is of interest. So even though someone might be an adamant user of Facebook and keeps 'tabs' on their friends, family, and acquaintances, their identity on Facebook is what they say, upload, or do on Facebook that draws the attention. It might even be the comments, photos, etc that others put up that define that person more than what they write if they aren't actively creating an identity for themselves.

Of the case of me going to class. Unless I create a new idea or a new way for an idea to be viewed, I'm only a student paying out-of-state tuition fee to be there. Just another number in the grade books and the registrar books.