Identity

  

Digital identity is the data that uniquely describes a person or a thing and contains information about the subject's relationships.The social identity that an internet user establishes through digital identities in cyberspace is referred to as online identity.

A critical problem in cyberspace is knowing with whom one is interacting. Currently there are no ways to precisely determine the identity of a person in digital space. Even though there are attributes associated to a person's digital identity, these attributes or even identities can be changed, masked or dumped and new ones created. Despite the fact that there are many authentication systems and digital identifiers that try to address these problems, there is still a need for a unified and verified identification system. There are issues of privacy and security related to digital identity.

With all of this information online, and identities easily being stolen protection is need to prevent crime being committed. Social login, also known as social sign-in, is a form of single sign-on using existing login information from a social networking service such as Facebook, Twitter or Google+ to sign into a third party website in lieu of creating a new login account specifically for that website. It is designed to simplify logins for end users as well as provide more and more reliable demographic information to web developers.

Social login is often considered a gateway to many of the recent trends in social software and social commerce because it can be used as a mechanism for both authentication and authorization.

Therefore with more and more of our lives being online, and out interactions with other people online will there be a time when this is our only interaction? Will it replace teachers in schools... The need for pupils to go to school to learn.... The need for people to do anything themselves. This brings in to question will we lose out individual identity and just become all the same? Never the less technology is part of our lives 

http://www.identityblog.com/wp-content/images/2008/06/TheSevenLawsWordle.png

Digital Identities

http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/12/30/social-media-update-2013/

The latest Pew Research Internet survey states that 73% of online adults in America now use a social networking site of some kind. This shows that the majority of Americans now have a digital identity.
Now it has been identified that Instagram users are as likely to check the site as much as Facebook users.
Many other social networking sites are becoming almost as dominant as Facebook, such as Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit, etc, which shows much much of an impact social networking has on our lives.

6 years ago, when Pew conducted a similar survey, only 5% of American adults claimed to use social networks, whilst now it is half of America. This shows how much social networking has affected our daily lives, through the way in which we communicate.
It is also evident that social networking has become more dominant due to the rise of smartphones, therefore many people, especially teenagers are always interacting through social network sites. The social media has become a huge phenomenon. For example, often you see people around campus, or in various public places with their faces glued to their smartphones.

Social networking can have a negative impact on peoples lives though. Identities of people on internet can ultimately be ruined due to the fact personal information can spread across the internet for everyone to see forever. For example, Amanda Todd's story.
In addition, many people create there own anonymous identities as it is easy to mask yourself behind a screen. However, sometimes this can go too far, for example, through the idea of the 'catfish' where people decieve others in believing they are someone they are not, by taking a fake identity of someone else.
Even though there are negative effects of social network, it is evident that it can also produce enhanced relationships between peers and can promote more face to face time if you discover you have a similar interest with someone.

Digital Identity in America

Write a post illustrating and analysing the various digital identities available to Americans today. What can this tell us about the meaning of identity for American in the future?

Digital Identity is becoming the whole identity in America today, with sites such as Youtube, Facebook and Twitter to name a few, it is becoming all the more regarded as a way of expressing ones feelings and beliefs, without having to communicate with people face to face. 

With this, comes anonymity, and often people don't use real names or information. This becomes a problem when it is the younger generation whom are more versed in this way of life. Therefore it becomes increasingly difficult for adults to monitor what children are doing. Things like cyber-bullying now take place, and causes even more problems because of the anonymity, as there is no-one to take the blame.

Facebook is a digital identity that is used by people of all ages in America, and strengthens communication between people who live near or far from each other. Facebook shows you what people are doing and how they are feeling, but the public feel, combined with the fact that people's parents now have Facebook, means that a person's identity is often subdued or restrained.

Twitter, on the other hand, is far more anonymous, yet has the appeal of celebrity interaction, and has brought the typical American, into the same space as a Celebrity and what makes up their identity. Twitter allows you to 'retweet', or re-post a tweet that someone else has posted, meaning that this form of digital identity allows for Americans to imitate or copy the identity of others, or what they think is desirable in a person.

For the future, this means that America could become a place of less social interaction, and more social networking. Identity will become less individual, and thus more to with conformity and avoiding rejection. Proof of this is Apple branded products, in that even though they aren't always the cheapest or best choice, the desire to conform or to have what everyone else has, is stronger. Therefore, American identity is becoming conformity with help from new digital identities.

Against ObamaCare

http://www.heritage.org/research/projects/the-case-against-obamacare

This website opposes Obamacare. It states that congress cannot build sound market based health care reform on the flawed foundation of this health care law.
Solutions include: Blocking further provisions from actually going into effect and identify better solutions to reform health care. The website states that the new laws move America's health care system in the wrong direction.
The website includes ways in which congress should get the Health care reform back on track and includes various articles from different people who argue against Obamacare and states solutions which should be made my congress.
For example, by providing individual tax relief for everyone purchasing private health insurance, improve health saving accounts, stop new tax increases, etc.
Furthermore, the website argues that Obamacare violates personal freedom, and thus is considered as being un-American. As well as various other articles which state that obamacare destroys jobs and the economy, cuts jobs and wages, undermines senior coverage options, etc.
It also includes in what ways obamacare will have an impact on seniors, doctors, families and future generations and the economy, including various videos.

Obamacare

The official name for "ObamaCare" is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). It is also commonly referred to as Obama care, health care reform, or the Affordable Care Act (ACA). ObamaCare offers a number of new benefits, rights and protections including provisions that let young adults stay on their plan until 26, stop insurance companies from dropping you when you are sick or if you make an honest mistake on your application, prevent against gender discrimination, stop insurance companies from making unjustified rate hikes, do away with life-time and annual limits, give you the right to a rapid appeal of insurance company decisions, expand coverage to tens. ObamaCare's new benefits, rights and protections also include the requirement that all non-grandfathered health insurance plans cover preventive services and provide new Essential Health Benefits. Learn more about Grandfathered health plans.

This video looks at an anti-Obamacare adve and analyses it in detail. It hints around the pros and cons of the Act along with the future of the Healthcare System In the USA. 

The Glass Castle

Review of The Glass Castle on Wordpress
or 
http://rippleeffects.wordpress.com/2008/08/03/the-glass-castle-book-review/

The review I looked at was written on a site called Wordpress, which has many reviews by anyone who has a view on both Literature and movies.
I found the review and interesting read, as while it doesn't mention so explicitly, the reviewer manages to relate the novel to the idea of the American Dream. "Through out the book, I am touched by her capacity to forgive, to persevere, to hope, and to plan for a better future, not only for herself, but for all her siblings." This alludes to the American Dream, as the reviewer thinks there is hope even though the family is struggling immensely. Additionally here reference to planning for a better future could be linked to De Crevecoeur's idea of the new american, and that becoming an American would lead to a better life. This is not the case for the Walls, as they are already in America, yet are not prosperous. 

The review looks at things from many angles, and makes it very interesting to examine the idea  of class. The review makes a point of the success gained, yet the sad mirror that her mother never escaped the life of poverty.

"he was a man with a brilliant mind and a wealth of knowledge which he readily passed to his favorite daughter Jeannette. She learned from him science and engineering, mathematics and history. The glass castle is his promise to her, assuring her one day he would strike gold with the Prospector he had invented, and build the family a glass castle they could all live in. The glass castle remained a glimpse of hope, yet sadly proven to be one illusive dream."

The review again looks at the hope and dream that the family could overcome this, much like the American dream, the review states that Jeanette's fathers promise of a Glass Castle would only ever be an illusive dream.

The review goes on to relate to and sympathise with the main character, along with her hopeless family, because the narrator herself shows them in a sympathetic light, forcing the reader to feel kinship or understanding.

The reviewer highlights this extract from the book, "Mom frowned at me. ‘You’d be destroying what makes it special,’ she said. “It’s the Joshua tree’s struggle that gives it its beauty." which only gives merit to the idea that the hardships you face only serve to make you stronger in the end, and you can overcome things like poverty.

The Glass Castle

The term ‘class’ has been used since mid-19th Century to describe the stratifications of urban/industrial society – as in upper/middle/working. It was based on differentiation by income level and the cultural signs and markers of such. The term also has associations with Marxist theory (mid 19th C) and the inevitable “class struggle” as the motor of history. In 2002 50% of families earning between $20,000 and $40,000 pa called selves middle class – meaning that the largest portions of the US population was the lowest. One book that demonstrates the issues of poverty in the States is the book, The Glass Castle.

One of the many reviews on this book it by a company called: Goodreads. Goodreads is the world’s largest site for readers and book recommendations. Our mission is to help people find and share books they love. Goodreads launched in January 2007.

“The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette's brilliant and charismatic father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn't want the responsibility of raising a family.

The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered.

The Glass Castle is truly astonishing--a memoir permeated by the intense love of a peculiar but loyal family.”

A key take on the book, is the comment in the second to last paragraph, as it highlights what so many children have to go through in the States – from past to now. Many do it in silence which is the saddest reality of the book.

Website

Picture - also interactive online review