CyberSpace

Well working on an assignment for another course, I came across information that had some relevance towards this course. We use space as a tool for managing information, thought and memories. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to affect the most primitive actions, as it is considered a medium of thought. The development of the aspect of cyberspace is seen as a cultural project. As the computer is undoubtedly a technical achievement, the computer’s work is not of a physical nature. The notion of information existing in its own world, separate from the physical one, has always been seductive. When you use a computer, you naturally assume the metaphor of place to describe the experience. You "go" to the menu and choose Quit to "get out" of a program. These are spaces that you believe in even though they don't exist physically. This dynamic is what makes virtual reality so perpetual in comprehending. Virtual reality provides a metaphor for our experience of computing, the experience of entering a virtual space with its own laws of physics. One dynamic of virtual spaces is the growth of social network sites. Many users of social networking sites are of college age, with recent undertakings explicitly catering to the them (e.g., Facebook.com, but also Universitysingles.ca, quad5.com, campus Network.com, iVentster.com, and others). College-oriented social networking sites provide opportunities to combine online and face-to-face interactions within an ostensibly bounded domain. This makes them different from traditional networking, as they are communities based “on a shared real space.” This combination may explain the explosive growth of some of these services. Facebook is seen to spread “to 573 campuses and 2.4 million users. It typically attracts 80 percent of a school’s undergraduate population as well as graduate students, faculty members, and recent alumni.”

Source:http://www.heinz.cmu.edu/~acquisti/papers/privacy-facebook-gross-acquisti.pdf