What's Next?

Rise of the Participation Culture
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I am reacting to the article sections assigned and the section titled "What's next". This reading continues our discussion on Web 2.0 and its impact. What stuck me the most is how many people are involved in this. I have been pulling my 4th - 8th graders to see how many have both email and a My Space page and half of my students do, including 4th graders. What is more of a shock is that several of my students said that their parents do not know they have email and my space. Just yesterday I overheard a girl complaining to her friend about how a boy had written some rude things on her My Space page. My students are drawn to the Social sites and to the music, and I would say more so than to video games. My students and the Web 2.0 generation are enabled and part of something because of the technology involved. It seems like the web has become alive and organic, both in participation and in the way sites are built and linked together. But, the main concern is the social implications.

This takes me to, "What's Next", a majority of people polled about what is coming said some of the predictable things, better, bigger, and faster. What I was not looking for, but I had thought about, was the social aspect. Could people become effected in negative ways, like and addiction or worse terrorism against the system. May be some people will become dependant on technology while others chose to not participate at all. But, in the end we should be better off. We will have a cheaper Internet and more participation. Will people lose control of them selves: yes. Will we lose control of technology: no.