In reading "MySpace Outage Leaves Millions Friendless," I was rather shocked. I hadn't previously known that people relied so heavily upon this type of technology. Some of the things that people said when questioned on their opinions of the outage seemed a little over the top. Marco Imbrescia, for example, said that, "Without an 'About Me' section, I've lost all sense of self." He no longer knew who he was and what he valued, or what he expected for the future.That's a little ridiculous if you ask me. I think social networking is important because it allows us yet another way to develop social relationships, but i don't think that peoples' entire lives and sense of self should rely on this one aspect of communication.

You can assume absolutely anything you want to about a community based on the appearance of its people, but that won't do you any good. It's not until you really take the time to observe how people interact and get to know their routines and their beliefs and exactly what thoughts are behind their actions, that you really get to know a community. I think  a good place to observe how people in a community is at the gym. Generally, no more than one person can use a treadmill or another machine at the same time, but that doesn't mean people aren't interacting elsewhere around the gym. Another good place to observe would be a coffee shop. It would be interesting to see how customers interact with each other. I also think a sports team would be a good community to observe. When I played soccer in high school, we were all family. A different kind of friendship takes place within a sports team community.

The reading about Alter Egos: Avatars and Their Creators really made me think about how people represent themselves in virtual worlds. In fact, these games are similar to life itself in some aspects. As Julian Dibbell states, "We fall in love there. We lust for power and wealth..We say they're only games, these little worlds, but often we end up devoting more time to them than to any other realm of our existence, until it starts to make less sense to think of our avatars as fictional characters than as second selves." Many times people will create an avatar completely unlike themselves to escape reality. When making their avatars, they consider what kind of person they dream of being and how they want others to judge them. Some people have severe physical disabilities and enjoy playing as an avatar because they can do things that they couldn't normally do in their own life. And some people are unhappy about who they are and are embarrassed about their hobbies and interests. Avatars can help a person express who they are, who they want to be, or who they are not.