virtual communities

A virtual community is a group of people that interact thyough community media such as letters ,telephones etc,rather than interacting face to face usually for educational or social reasons.Virtual and online communities have also become a supplementary form of communication between people who already know each other in real life ,the traditional definition of a community is of a geographically circumscribed entity .(neighbourhood,villages).Some online communities are linked geographically ,and are known as community websites ,a virtual community is a social network with a common interest ,an idea ,a task or a goal that interact in a virtual society across time ,geographical or organizational boundaries and is able to develop personal relationships.Different vitual communities have different levels of interaction and participation amongst their members ,this can range from adding comments or tags to a blog or message board post to competing against other people in online video games.Virtual comminities often divide into cliques or even seperate to form new communities .Douglas Mann says that people love virtual psedo communities for various reasons one of the reasons is that people love technology,secondly computer and software firms like Apple and Microsoft have invested millions in new communites technology so they have to convince people that it has a useful purpose ,thirdly ,ecomm and cellphones allow narcissists to avoid making commitment to given time and spaces .People can even change their identities in a virtual community and be whoever they eant to be ,I personally find the idea of pretending to be a man or a woman when you are not quite stupid.why not just ne yourself?
People can virtually communte and work at home ,fourth ,e-comm saves shy and reclusive people from struggling through the process of overcomming their shyness,through what used to be called ''character building ''.In a virtual community a person can be whatever they want to be ,an individual can lie about their identity ,their sexuality ,their age and even where they come from ,a person can even lie about their ethnicity .A virtual community is a community that is open to the world, and because it is open to everyone ( the world ) it has differnt characterists that one which is closed by a password provided only to qualified individuals .

cellphones

It is amazing how new technology has allowed us to 'go to the cinema' at "home". This advancement in technology now allows us to wacth the latest movies, right in the comfort of our own beds or couches whiles viewing it from your high-tech cellular phone. this new phenomenon, uploaded with technology such as, adobe reader, windows media player which means that you can download any content from the internet and be able to view them using these programes that have been designed for this purpose and others.

The mobile phone (also called a mobile, wireless, cellular phone, cell phone, or hand phone(hp) is a short-range, portable electronic device used for mobile voice or data communication over a network of specialized base stations known as cell sites. In addition to the standard voice function of a telephone, current mobile phones may support many additional servicee, and accessories, such as SMS for text messaging, email, packet switching for access to the Internet, and MMS for sending and receiving photos and video. Most current mobile phones connect to a cellular network of base stations (cell sites), which is in turn interconnected to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) (the exception is satellite phones). Since the mid-2000s, an increasing number of cellphones can connect to the Internet, a portion of which can be navigated using cellphones.

With such a rapid change in technology, one can easily access all wireless connections by using their new and improved cellphone. One these days cannot keep up with the changes that cellphones have to offer us today. They are becoming more sophisticated and more expensive. In the early period of the 2000's, the hype abot cellphones was, the smaller it is the better! Today the hype has totally shifted to, it has to have a camera in it and the bigger the screen, the more sophisticated it really is.

Furthermore, cellphones have become a part of our lives. They have become an extended body to us. They have become emmbedded to us. Don Ihde, says "to get used to a hat, a car or a stick is to be transplanted into them, or conversly, to incorporate them into the bulk of our own body".

That is how our cellphones have become like to us. Everywhere you go, you will certainly find someone with their cellphones, either having a conversation or the latest today, Mxiting (www.mxit.co.za) with their friends and families all over the world. The question about these ltest inventions in cellphones is 'how safe they are' in terms of accessibility, who can and who can't access this new technology. With this increasing rate of change in technology in our society, it makes one question this new technology whether it challanges our values and norms as a society. More children (especially teenage girls) these days are being exposed to adult content on the web, and they become victims of sexual abuse by strangers that they really do not know, but all they are to them is a "chatting buddy" on their cellphones. They log on to these websites where anyone can access them including older people who in our society would be regarded as morally bank rupt because of the conversations that they engage in with these young unexpecting teenagers in these virtual communities. Though one may say that these virtual communities are "unreal", therefore they are not as harmful as people would percieve them to be, but what happens then when meetings are arranged in these communities to become something real? Are these children yet not in danger of being taken advantage of by these 'older people'? One would then say that this phenominon is problematic.

One should never look at things on one side though, there are very many positive things that this new technology has brought to us. Connecting with who ever you want to connect with when ever and where ever, and most likely end up ease dropping on someone else's conversation on the phone, because of the frequentness of connection every where you go!

The world of cellphones today has become increasingly fascinating over time, and the new programmes that they has to offer are phenominal.