Tech User Quiz Result Analysis

  I took this quiz that was asking the question "What kind of tech user are you?" and the result was interesting.  The results you may see in my post from November 5, 2009.  My result essentially said that I use technology as if it is attached at my hip and create pieces of media that I share with others.  I believe that is inaccurate.  Technology is not something that I crave and use as if I need to in order to carry on my life.  In fact, that is rather extreme and I would put myself in a different category.  The different category options are digital collaborators, ambivalent networkers, media movers, roving nodes, mobile newbies, desktop veterans, drifting surfers, information encumbered, the tech indifferent and off the network.  I know that I use technology and the internet on a frequent basis, but mainly because I must in order to gain certain information that would not be available or as easily available.
   I believe when it came to searching for the group or label from this quiz that I mostly fit into and right away I feel as if I can eliminate "Stationary Media Majority" section of types of users list.  I feel confident that I am neither a mobile newbie nor a media mover as I stated above and I have had my cell phone for several years now.  With that said it comes down to digital collaborator, ambivalent networker or roving node as options to be called.  As regards to the possibility of being a roving node, I do not see that as being fully encompassing.  The label does not take into account my feelings about progress in technology and mass media in relation to my life.  In addition, I am definitely not a digital collaborator because this sense of confidence that is mentioned in the description is not placed in the place that I would place it.
     That leaves me with the group that I feel fits who I am, and that is ambivalent networker.  I believe that I use my mobile device to help me run my social life.  Though I am nervous about the level and pace of progress of technology and how that affects the connections people are making with other people.  That is the type of tech user that I am and how I arrived at my conclusion, even though the quiz came up with another choice.

Facebook and all that jazz

   Facebook is a social networking site that seems to be changing constantly.  That said, the way people, such as myself, change in the way they interact with this.  One evolutionary activity involving facebook is that people have been sending invites to groups and causes, and people are just accepting these invites on a whim.  This movement is ironically called "Click-Through Activism", which was termed by Monica Hesse in one of her articles from The Washington Post.  As for me, I join groups or causes for various reason, whether it be that I truly care about the thing or I want to help drum up some support for a friend's cause that they are passionate or just cause others have joined it.  I try my best to not just join any group, but even the ones I do care about and join on facebook I do not usually do anything further.  Personally, I see little happening that was directly caused by the the groups or causes on facebook and people, myself included, just being content with the fact that all they did was join the thing.
   While that activism was evolutionary in the person to site activity, facebook itself evolved in many aspects, most notably the addition of the news feed.  I must say that I never had a facebook before the addition, but I heard about it.  The people that had a facebook before the addition had mixed reactions when the addition came because some loved it, others really did not care and since some felt it was the worst thing to happen.  The interesting part is that those that hated it were mainly hating it because they felt violated in their privacy rights.  They may have been so back in the day, so to speak, but now a days(several years after the addition) there are very good privacy settings that can be used for the feed and your profile.  Though I must note that what many fail to understand is that anything put on the internet can ultimately be accessed as long as someone has the will to do it and the advances in technology that are happening around the world.
     I do not want to leave this blog on a soar note, so I have one more evolution.  That is the evolution of the effect facebook has on person to person interaction.  This has happened mainly due to the posting of a person's relationship status("single","in a relationship","engaged","married","it's complicated","in an open relationship","widowed", or just not post anything) because people now rush to post it and change it depending on their situation.  Furthermore, if someone is in a relationship and they list who they are in it with, but then break-up people rush to be the first to change it. This makes for relationships to be on edge for those that care about their facebook profile reputation.  Also they allow people to find out alot about a person without talking to them, which would normally not be known unless people talked to that person or a friend of that person.  This changes how people interact from the beginning.
  The evolutionary steps that I have mentioned are just a few.  With just these few changes in a social network that is not even ten years old having a huge effect, where do you see the next big change coming from and what effect will it have?