Internet addiction disorder

Internet addiction disorder (IAD) refers to the problematic use of the Internet, including the various aspects of its technology, such as electronic mail (e-mail) and the World Wide Web. The reader should note that Internet addiction disorder is not listed in the mental health professional's handbook, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, text revision (2000), which is also called the DSM. Internet addiction has, however, been formally recognized as a disorder by the American Psychological Association.
In some respects, addictive use of the Internet resembles other so-called "process" addictions, in which a person is addicted to an activity or behavior (including gambling, shopping, or certain sexual behaviors) rather than a substance (mood-altering drugs, tobacco, food, etc.). People who develop problems with their Internet use may start off using the Internet on a casual basis and then progress to using the technology in dysfunctional ways. Many people believe that spending large amounts of time on the Internet is a core feature of the disorder. The amount of time by itself, however, is not as important a factor as the ways in which the person's Internet use is interfering with their daily functioning. Use of the Internet may interfere with the person's social life, school work, or job-related tasks at work. In addition, cases have been reported of persons entering Internet chat rooms for people with serious illnesses or disorders, and pretending to be a patient with that disorder in order to get attention or sympathy. Treatment options often mirror those for other addictions. Although only a limited amount of research has been done on this disorder, the treatments that have been used appear to be effective.
Problematic computer use or pathological computer use are accepted descriptions for excessive computer use that interferes with daily life. These terms avoid the distracting and divisive term addiction and are not limited to any single cause.
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Internet Café
A generic term to indicate a public locale where it is possible to connect to the Internet. Payment for use depends on length of connection.
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Internet telephony (Voip)
(Also IP telephony or Voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP)) Internet telephony is the two-way transmission of voice over a packet-switched IP network, which is part of the TCP/IP protocol suite. The terms "IP telephony" and "voice over IP" (VoIP) are synonymous. However, the term VoIP is widely used for the actual services offered (see VoIP for more details), while IP telephony often refers to the technology behind it. In addition, IP telephony is an umbrella term for all real-time applications over IP, including voice over instant messaging (IM) and videoconferencing.
Starting in the late 1990s, the Internet and its TCP/IP protocol suite began to turn the data communications and telephone industry upside down. IP has become the universal transport for almost all data and video communications worldwide. It is increasingly becoming the infrastructure for voice traffic as well. Today, every communications carrier has built or is using an IP backbone for some or all of its voice services. In addition, large enterprises are either already using IP for some amount of internal voice traffic or have plans to implement it or create test beds.
Data Over Voice Became Voice Over Data - Data was first transmitted over telephone networks, starting in the 1960s, and by the late 1980s, data routinely traveled over digital voice circuits. By the 1990s, the majority of worldwide communications traffic had changed from voice to data, and as IP networks began to flourish, the economics of using IP for voice began to emerge.
Although the backbone of the global telephone network had been converted to digital for some time, the circuit-switched nature of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) is wasteful. Even though one person talks and the other listens, both "to" and "from" channels are always dedicated. In addition, newer voice codecs cut the digital requirement from the traditional 64 Kbps (PCM) down to 8 Kbps with respectable quality. Thus, the bandwidth requirement for voice on an IP network is 1/16th that of the PSTN's dedicated, digital circuits.
Varying Quality - Starting in the mid-1990s, advertiser-supported, free telephone service from PC to PC or between phones and PCs using the public Internet became popular, especially for international calls. Call quality over the Internet can be erratic because the Internet provides no guarantee of quality of service (QoS). However, when an organization has control over its network, quality can be excellent. Private enterprises with their own IP networks, as well as major telcos and IP telephony carriers that have developed IP backbones, can provide voice quality that competes with the traditional PSTN.
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Interpersonal communication
Interpersonal communication can be described as the process of sending and receiving information between two or more people. It can be done talking face to face with another person or via telephone, email, letters or meetings.
It involves a speaker who sends a message to a listener. They receive the message, develop and send a response and so it continues. The content of a message during interpersonal communication is important, however other aspects to fully understand the message are important such as body language, facial expressions and tone of voice. The content of the discussions must match the non verbal cues to make communication effective.
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Intrapersonal (communication)
Intrapersonal communication is language use or thought internal to the communicator. Intrapersonal communication is the active internal involvement of the individual in symbolic processing of messages. The individual becomes his or her own sender and receiver, providing feedback to him or herself in an ongoing internal process. It can be useful to envision intrapersonal communication occurring in the mind of the individual in a model which contains a sender, receiver, and feedback loop.
Although successful communication is generally defined as being between two or more individuals, issues concerning the useful nature of communicating with oneself and problems concerning communication with non-sentient entities such as computers have made some argue that this definition is too narrow.
In Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry, Jurgen Ruesch and Gregory Bateson argue that intrapersonal communication is indeed a special case of interpersonal communication, as "dialogue is the foundation for all discourse.
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iPod
iPod is a family of extremely popular digital media players from Apple, introduced in 2001 for the Mac and 2002 for Windows. iPods are noted for their well-designed, simple user interfaces that employ either a click wheel or touch screen (see click wheel and iPod touch).
Originally only for music with a monochrome screen, photos, video and color screens were later added. Address book and calendar are also included, and vendors have developed iPod games and applications.
The combination of sound quality, sleek design and unique user interface made the iPod one of the most successful consumer electronics (CE) products in history. Five and a half years after its launch, more than 100 million iPods were sold, along with more than 1.5 billion songs from Apple's iTunes online store.
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Learning (New Style)
Pellitteri (2004) and Maragliano (1998) emphasize that with multimedia we have had a transition from an abstract, prevalent media form such as writing and press to a co-presence with media of an immersive type, such as TV, videogames, and the Internet. We meet with structures that are conceptually new, such as hypertext, interactive, and network involved. There is a change in the way of listening, receiving and learning. In the field of cognitive psychology applied to particular media, there has been an extension of the concept of the competence of the recipient of the communication from a passive receiver to an active developer of information. Not only this, as Pellitteri (2004) emphasizes, but the recipient is ever more invested with new functions in the relationship with the media in which he/she is involved: that of pro and re-production and of co-authorship of the message itself in a sense that is more and more dialectical and cooperative. There come into play elements such as interaction and negotiability not only of the message, but of the entire system of communication. The Internet is a tangible proof. Through it is possible to choose from among one to one communication or all to all for all.
The home computer, the videogame, the cell phone and the new media open so many new worlds to communication. Looking once again at the title and summary of a noted book by Bertolini (1993). “With regard to the children of TV some interesting aspects have been analyzed in the rapport between the children of the 70’s and the television means”, continues Pellitteri-(2004), the generation of the 80’s could be better defined by videogames and by the personal computer. We could speak of the children of the Web or more in general, of the networks for the 90’s and the children of the new media for today. The formative view that is acting on today’s young people is now syncretism (the combination of different forms). This could bring all the advantages of the diversification of languages or perhaps even a type of learning that is more frenetic and perhaps superficial.
From here we see the necessity, as emphasized by Rivoltella (2002) of designing a profile of multi-sensory learning, made up of diverse stimuli that contemporarily interest the subject. Different types of media could stimulate different types of cognitive processes and the abundant research of data in this sense on their potential and characteristics (Oliverio-Ferraris, 1999). We deal with using them in synergy also in an educational perspective.
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Linux
Linux is the name usually given to any Unix-like computer operating system that uses the Linux kernel. It is a very popular open source operating system that runs on a variety of hardware platforms including x86, Itanium, PowerPC, ARM and IBM's entire product line. Based on many design principles used in the Unix operating system, and thereby often called a "Unix clone" or "Unix variant," Linux is widely deployed as a server OS and as an embedded OS. For example, Linux runs in most of the servers on the Internet and in countless appliances and consumer electronics devices. In the desktop market, Linux has nowhere near the same penetration; however, it gains ground slowly and steadily.
Linux is a multitasking, multiuser operating system that is known for its stability. Although modified by numerous people, its robustness stems from its Unix-like architecture that keeps peripheral software components isolated from the core software (the kernel).
Licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), Linux is the flagship product of the open source community. Numerous groups work on their own flavor of Linux, modifying it for various purposes, and several commercial organizations "distribute" Linux for a fee. Linux is an outstanding success because it embodies the major features of Unix in a modifiable open source package. "Linux" comes from the Linux kernel, started in 1991 by Linus Torvalds. The system's utilities and libraries usually come from the GNU operating system, announced in 1983 by Richard Stallman. The GNU contribution is the basis for the alternative name GNU/Linux.
Predominantly known for its use in servers, Linux is supported by corporations such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Novell, Oracle Corporation, Red Hat, and Sun Microsystems. It is used as an operating system for a wide variety of computer hardware, including desktop computers, supercomputers, and embedded devices such as E-book readers, DVRs, video game systems (PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3 and XBox), mobile phones and routers.
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Many-to-many
The type of communication allowed by telematic networks, in particular, by the Internet. It is an alternative to the traditional broadcast model of one-to-many, and to one-to-one of telephonic communication.
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Media and culture
Communication may be seen as a process of the creation of a culture or as a system that defines the meaning of the situation in which we live. In general, we are used to communicating in a known language and culture. Event he persons belonging to a shared culture must frequently meet with different definitions and signs before reaching a “shared name”. Culture may be defined as an arbitrary system of symbol or signs by which we attribute meaning to objects and situations and through which there is the socialization of new members in the system’s existing meanings.
There are different positions and schools of thought on the relationship between media and culture, among these, for example, there are:
technological functionality: the culture is not the central question. What counts are the values of innovation of the need for information on the part of individuals. Such a model holds that the free market of information and the media, is called to give the entertainment and information that the public wants. All that is higher culture is seen as an obstacle to the free flow of information;
cultural functionality: the central role of the media is that of creating and preserving the social, national culture. Culture has a value in itself and for this reason the media must be separated as much as possible from economic, political, religious and other types of interest. This is found especially in those contexts in which strong cultural differences on regional or ethnic aspects are based. Media is the means by which the public is made aware of the inner workings of the patrimony of national culture;
critical approaches: Sees authors such as Adorno, Marcuse, the School of Frankfurt and others. A collateral theses to this school of thought foresees the need for an education to the use of media so as to develop the critical sense of the users and the capacity to choose that which is morally, culturally and socially edifying. It is the premise of areas and disciplines of study and intervention such as media education and Educommunication.
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MP3
(MPEG Audio Layer 3) The audio compression technology that revolutionized digital music. Derived from the audio sections of the MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video specifications, MP3 compresses CD-quality sound by a factor of roughly 10, while retaining most of the original fidelity. For example, a 40MB CD track is turned into approximately a 4MB MP3 file.
MP3 files are played on the computer via digital jukebox/media player software, such as Apple's iTunes and Microsoft's Windows Media Player, as well as in countless iPods and other handheld players. MP3 sound quality cannot fully match the original CD, and true audiophiles complain bitterly, but millions of people consider it "good enough" because they can pack thousands of songs into a tiny pocket-sized player.
Ripping/Importing - Converting a digital audio track from a music CD to the MP3 format (or other audio format) is called "ripping" or "importing," and this conversion function is built into iTunes, Windows Media Player and other jukebox software. Stand-alone rippers are also available.
Bit Rates Are Important - While 128 Kbps (kilobits per second) is considered the norm for MP3 files, MP3s can be ripped to bit rates from 8Kbps to 320 Kbps. The higher the bit rate, the better the sound and the larger the file. Many audiophiles rip CDs at a much higher rate for improved audio quality. In the following dialog box from Windows Media Player 10, the "Audio quality" slider is used to select four bit rates for MP3 encoding: 128, 192, 256 and 320 Kbps. There are additional variations of MP3 as well as other widely used audio formats. MP3 was co-designed by several teams of engineers at Fraunhofer IIS in Erlangen, Germany, AT&T-Bell Labs in Murray Hill, NJ, USA, Thomson-Brandt, and CCETT. It was approved as an ISO/IEC standard in 1991.
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Multimedia
Multimedia is media that utilizes a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun (a medium with multiple content forms) or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which only utilize traditional forms of printed or hand-produced text and still graphics. In general, multimedia includes a combination of text, audio, still images, animation, video, and interactivity content forms.
Opportunities for the use of multimedia are numberless, and they cover a vast spectrum of interests and needs. They take in the field of instruction and science, of medicine, catechesis and ministry, of seeking information and diversion. It is possible to create animated books, to consult encyclopedias, Atlantises, great collections of literary and musical texts, manuals for every need, theoretical and practical courses, simulations, ad hoc programs for companies, educational and recreational games for every age. It is very interesting to note the use of edutainment, a word formed from the terms education and entertainment that is based on the need to learn while being entertains and stimulating new pedagogical and learning considerations on the process of teaching ways of learning.
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My media
A term coined by Nicholas Negroponte in opposition to Mass Media. My media refers to media that is highly personalized, in which it is the user who composes the programming and decides what he/she wants to see, read or hear and asks it of the computer or TV thanks to interactive means and software agents that find the desired information.
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Netiquette
The fusion of two words: network and etiquette. It is the neologism for ‘Internet politeness.’ Even on there Net there are actions that show little or no respect for others and, therefore, are to be avoided. For example, it is a expression of good manners to respond promptly to e-mail; to use the greatest courtesy and propriety; not to ‘tax’ the Net by multiplying the many useless messages that circulate, since the speed with which messages are exchanged is a common good; not limiting self merely with drawing information from the Net without ever furnishing it.
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Network
The term network may refer to any interconnected group or system. More specifically, a network is any method of sharing information between two systems (human or mechanical). It can also mean: An interconnected system of things or people; “he owned a network of shops;” “retirement meant dropping out of a whole network of people who had...; (broadcasting) A communication system consisting of a group of broadcasting stations that all transmit the same programs; "the networks compete to broadcast important sports events"; (from net) An open fabric of string or rope or wire woven together at regular intervals A system of intersecting lines or channels; "a railroad network"; "a network of canals"; Communication with and within a group; "You have to network if you want to get a good job"; (electronics) A system of interconnected electronic components or circuits.
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New dependencies
While the rapport between the Internet and young people on the one hand opens wide new and unthought-of resources for education and communication, on the other it opens to risk and dangers. Without doubt, online communication with its characteristics of speed, immediacy, economic aspect, anonymity, group aspect, could instill in the psychologically and socially fragile person deviant ways. So it is that a term to identify almost the passage of a state: from navigators to those who are shipwrecked by the Internet and grouping the “new dependencies that arise from Internet and on the Internet. Some dangers are linked to the superabundance of information (information overload): the quantity and extreme versatility of the news present on the web on the one hand generate a sense of power in that when one is connected to the Net he/she is empowered and is in condition to reach any type of information, to be updated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There are, furthermore, risks connected to the dysfunctional use of the Internet which, in some subjects, compromise the psychological balance and the relational dimension. They are psychopathological Internet-related, tech abuse, the disassociative trance induced by video monitors.
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New media
The collection of the new means of communication constituted by the Internet, digital TV, multimedia support, cell phones and telemetrics that are the result of technological advancement on a common basis that came about toward the end of the ‘60’s. There are, in particular, three evolutionary lines that led to the discussion of the new media: the development of the computer and micro-electronics, the processes of technology for the transformation of analog to digital signals and, in the sector of the infrastructure of communications, the invention of fiber optics and the use of satellites for wireless connection. Computers were no longer looked upon as mere means for calculation or the transformation of codified information, but also as mean of support for communication. One of the fundamental aspects that join the new media is their predisposition to interactivity, or the establishment of a completely new rapport with the user, called to participate in the production of content, according to forms and ways that are different according to the means.
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New Nomads
A paradoxical condition of the contemporary person , master of means to communicate and work anywhere and therefore potentially unbound by well-defined space-time coordinates. The advent of the new technologies would seem to favor a derived certainty toward total immobility. The person of a digitalized society-and this is an example of Paul Virilio’s thesis-would be a type of technological paralytic glued to a chair, destined to use all experiences in a surrogate manner, thanks to monitors, helmets and interactive means that would render him/her a virtual tourist, in condition to transfer self anywhere without moving.
On the other hand, however, the widespread diffusion of cell phones, more and more similar to true and proper computers, of palm pilots and in general of wireless technologies, place into evidence the tendency toward nomadism, or the possibility of using the benefits anywhere but also of the invasion of the technology of communication. In reality, we deal with two aspects of the same evolution. On the one side we have the materialization of the body, reduced to a virtual, transferable icon by a click of the mouse, ready to communicate and therefore to be present (virtually) in every place, and on the other, the concrete realization of this possibility, the real mobility of the body that is always connected to a network of telecommunication.
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Open Source
Refers to software that is distributed with its source code (goods and knowledge) so that end user organizations and vendors can modify it for their own purposes. Most open source licenses allow the software to be redistributed without restriction under the same terms of the license. For the complete, official definition of open source, visit www.opensource.org/docs/osd. For a list of approved open source licenses, visit www.opensource.org/licenses.
There are thousands of open source programs, and although they are used on most platforms, they are particularly common in the Unix world. Major examples are the Linux operating system, Apache Web server and JBoss application server.
Free and Paid - A great amount of open source software is available at no charge, and many open source projects are developed by a community of volunteers. However, there are commercial vendors that enhance open source software and charge a fee, the most notable example being a distribution of Linux (see Linux).
Free and Open Source - In the late 1990s, open source software was derived from "free software," meaning free of restrictions and why the phrase "free and open source software" is often used. Whereas the "free software" movement promotes the user's freedom as an ethical issue, the philosophy of open source focuses on the practical benefits when users cooperate with each other. Nearly all open source software is free software, but there are occasional exceptions because the definition of free software is more strict.
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Paradigm
In the epistemological meaning paradigm is the coherent whole of theories and methods that characterize a phase of the development of a determined science. In linguistics it indicates the systematic whole of the unity of languages considered outside of the context.
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Peer-to-peer
Peer to peer (or "P2P", from user to user) implies that either side can initiate a session and has equal responsibility. Peer-to-peer is a somewhat confusing term, because it has always been contrasted to a central system that initiates and controls everything. But in practice, two users on a peer-to-peer system often require data from a third computer. For example, the infamous Napster file sharing service was always called a "peer-to-peer network," but its use of a central server to store the public directory made it both centralized and peer-to-peer.
The two major categories of peer-to-peer systems are file sharing and CPU sharing. However, there are many applications and services that claim to be peer-to-peer. Visit www.openp2p.com and click on the "P2P Directory" for a comprehensive list of resources, articles and blogs about the subject.
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Portal
A web portal is a site that provides a single function via a web page or site. Web portals often function as a point of access to information on the World Wide Web. Portals present information from diverse sources in a unified way. Aside from the search engine standard, web portals offer other services such as e-mail, news, stock prices, infotainment and various other features. Portals provide a way for enterprises to provide a consistent look and feel with access control and procedures for multiple applications, which otherwise would have been different entities altogether. An example of a web portal is Yahoo!.
Two broad categorizations of portals are Horizontal portals (e.g. Yahoo) and Vertical portals (or vortals, focused on one functional area, e.g. salesforce.com).
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Power (and communication)
The relationship between communication and power is presented primarily under two aspects. One refers to relationships that communications and its means deal with the powers outside of itself: political, economic, ecclesiastical, and powers of the profession. In this sense, the relevant element is the freedom of communication and its eventual limits. The second sense of this rapport is the power of communication, communication itself as power. In this second sense we an distinguish the power that comes from the exclusive possession of information and that can be communicated of kept secret from the power that generically flows from the possibility (therefore the availability of the means of communicating) let alone from the capacity of communicating: conditions for the content transmitted, but also apart from this, because of the vastness and pervasiveness of the means, they influence political life, social attitudes, culture, and moral life. There is a frequent debate on the power of the media. One position is that of McLuhan by which the power of communication is not only that of a determined subject (for example, the possessor of the relative means of those who pursue limited aims) as much as the phenomenon it itself of self-modification and the extension of such means: from verbal communication to writing and the press, to the modern electronic means.
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Rights (and communication)
The development of the means and systems of communication, their social diffusion and the importance they have assumed for the life of groups and individuals, today, more than ever, makes the intervention of institutional powers in the discipline of this material inevitable.
There are numerous aspects of communication that are occupied with rights, from the recognition of the right to free expression of thought, to the discipline relative to the exercise of the individual means (authorizations, assignment of frequencies, etc), to the protection of individual rights, to the point of regulating particular activities of communication. Three great areas of study linked to rights are: institutional aspects (the right to communicate, to inform, to report, to criticism, to information), the discipline of the author’s rights that assumes importance of all that is particular in the guarding of the creative activity through the media; the intervention of the Catholic Church through the norms of its Code of Canon Rights.
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RL (Real Life)
Acronym used on the Internet to indicate what happens outside of cyberspace. As the psychologist Sherry Turkle (1996) wrote in her book Onscreen Life, for many Internet navigators : “Real life is only a window on the screen and it’s not even the best.”
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Shareware
Software freely distributed on the Internet which, if used, requires the payment of an amount (generally limited) to its creator. It deals with programs covered by a copyright, and is different from freeware (software which is free).
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Second Life
Second Life (SL) is a virtual world on the Internet from Linden Research, Inc., San Francisco, CA (www.lindenlab.com), in which "residents" create an identity, meet people, buy land and build their own environment or purchase an existing one. It is a "massively multiplayer online role playing game" (MMORPG), but one that offers users total freedom to create and interact as if they were living another life. Playing the game requires a client download for Windows, Mac or Linux.
Launched in 2003 by Philip Rosedale, alias Philip Linden in Second Life, first-time residents make up a first name, choose a last name from a list and choose a graphic identity (an avatar). The name cannot be changed, but the avatar can be. The Second Life world is a group of islands in the tropics. Using the keyboard, one can move around at will and even fly over them. You can instantly teleport from one location to another.
Linden Dollars - Land and objects are purchased from Linden Lab or other Second Lifers using Linden dollars. A small amount is given to first-time users, but additional Linden dollars must be purchased monthly to acquire more. An entire island can even be purchased.
Virtual banks sprang up in Second Life that paid interest to Linden dollar depositors. However, some of them lost money by speculating in Second Life gambling and real estate ventures and actually caused a "virtual run on their bank." Since Linden dollars can be converted to real dollars, Second Lifers lost real money, and in early 2008, Second Life closed down the virtual banks, stating that only real chartered banks could offer banking services.
User Customization - Users can thoroughly customize their avatars with Second Life tools, and they can also be created offline and uploaded. Objects can be infused with the user's own images as well as programming code in the Linden Scripting Language. All sorts of Second Life environments have been created, from pure fantasy to ultra-futuristic to venues resembling a shopping mall.
The Real World–Simulated - There are countless Second Life cultures and subcultures organized around arts, sports, games and other areas. Groups can be formed that simulate mini-companies and mini-communities. Even real companies, such as Coca-Cola and Adidas, participate in Second Life as a marketing venue. Numerous universities, including Harvard, Princeton and Vassar, offer online classes. Religious organizations hold meetings, and starting with the Maldives and Sweden, countries have created virtual embassies.
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Social (or mass) communication
The term social communication is used for the most part in ecclesial environments, especially since the time of Vatican Council II. By it we designate a type of communication that is proper to those means which, like the pres, cinema, radio and television, are capable of reaching and moving not only individuals, but all of human society (from the Decree Inter Mirifica). It indicates two substantially different ways of thinking about the media: a positive way that understands it as a resource for the advancement of the person, an occasion for exchange and relationship, a space in which the social aspect is created, and a negative way in which it is understand as a mass means, one that standardizes tastes, homogenizes the audience.
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Social Network
A social network is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, ideas, financial exchange, friends, kinship, dislike, conflict, trade, web links, sexual relations, disease transmission, or airline routes. The resulting structures are often very complex.
The term was first coined by professor J. A. Barnes in the 1950s, who defined the size of a social network as a group of about 100 to 150 people. On the Web, social networking sites have millions of members. A Web site that provides a virtual community for people interested in a particular subject or just to "hang out" together. Members create their own online "profile" with biographical data, pictures, likes, dislikes and any other information they choose to post. They communicate with each other by voice, chat, instant message, videoconference and blogs, and the service typically provides a way for members to contact friends of other members.
Sites may also serve as a vehicle for meeting in person. The "social networking site" is the 21st century "virtual community," a group of people who use the Internet to communicate with each other about anything and everything. One can find dating sites, friendship sites, sites with a business purpose and hybrids that offer a combination of these. Globally, hundreds of millions of people have joined one or more social networking sites.
In the Beginning - Introduced in 2002, Friendster (www.friendster.com) was the first social site, followed by MySpace (www.myspace.com) a year later. Started by two friends, MySpace became extremely popular, and its parent company, Intermix, was acquired by News Corporation for $580 million two years after MySpace was launched.
Facebook (www.facebook.com) came out in 2004 initially targeting college students, but later welcoming everyone. Following Facebook were TagWorld (www.tagworld.com) and Tagged (www.tagged.com). TagWorld introduced tools for creating more personalized Web pages, and Tagged introduced the concept of building tag teams for teens with like interests.
Social networking sites compete for attention much like the first Web portals when the Internet exploded onto the scene in the mid-1990s. Variations are emerging all the time. For a list of major sites, see social networking Web sites.
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Sociology of communication
The sociology of communication has two sectors of investigation that are dynamically interconnected: interpersonal communication and mediated communication. Both disciplinary aspects are developed in a perspective that is theoretical and operative, studying relationships and communicative interactions in the different sectors of social, cultural formative and productive organization. The lessons are dedicated to the analysis of the more important areas of theoretical reflection, of the major interests of empirical research, of the different sectors of the application of the sociology of communication .
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Theology of communication
Listening, witnessing, gathering, sharing, celebrating...these acts all belong to the whole, most common Christian experience. Such aspects receive new light thanks to the contemporary awareness of communication. Three elements characterize the theology of communication, a disciplinary sector by way of definition: 1) on which a theology of communication is founded is the Christian event insofar as it always implies a relationship between God and people, between the members of a Christian community and between the Christian community and the rest of humanity. The Christian event-on the level of the faith to which one belongs-constitutes the place where communications are woven; 2) Christianity in its history is always interested in the communicative form of its own message (primarily the Bible , preaching, the nature of images, the sacraments, etc.). A theology of communication must take into account the originality of the revolutions that have re-configured not only the means and the systems of communication, but also their use and effects; the appreciation of the new relationships among individuals, groups, peoples; 3) this represents not only a given peripheral anthropology, but a fundamental dimension of the existence of individuals and of society, a central anthropological category. Communication furnishes a door of entry to many of today’s discussions.
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Usability
This refers to a collection of characteristics thanks to which a product satisfies the implicit and explicit needs of the persons who use it (the aim of the user) and of being easily understood and used. Usability does not only refer to software products, but may be extended to all the means by which the person interacts: from work tools, to objects of daily use (such as the cell phone, microwave, stereo), to the control panel for processes. We commonly refer to the usability by the term user friendly, to indicate those characteristics of the facility of use that also allow non-expert users to efficaciously interact with the product.
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Verbal and non-verbal communication
Scholars in this field usually use a strict sense of the term "verbal", meaning "of or concerned with words," and do not use "verbal communication" as a synonym for oral or spoken communication. Thus, vocal sounds that are not considered to be words, such as a grunt, or singing a wordless note, are nonverbal. Sign languages and writing are generally understood as forms of verbal communication, as both make use of words — although like speech, both may contain paralinguistic elements and often occur alongside nonverbal messages. Nonverbal communication can occur through any sensory channel — sight, sound, smell, touch or taste. NVC is important as:
"When we speak (or listen), our attention is focused on words rather than body language. But our judgment includes both. An audience is simultaneously processing both verbal and nonverbal cues. Body movements are not usually positive or negative in and of themselves; rather, the situation and the message will determine the appraisal."
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