Connections

My teacher asked me to talk about how I'm connected. I'm mostly connected by what I hear from other people. I get most of the things that have stirred the public conciousness. I heard about Twilight, Haiti, the Olympics. If I'm interested in something I'll look it up on google and search for stuff until I'm satisfied. For the three I mentioned it took no time whatsoever. I don't use Facebook, Twitter doesn't pique my interests, I'm pretty 'unconnected' as a teenager. Heck, My parents use them. One of the main reasons I don't use Social networking sites is the fact that they own your stuff. If you put on Facebook "I'm going to a friend's house tonight" they own it. Not your friend's house, that'd take some sizeable gambling debts, but the post on facebook.

That means if Facebook decides to not publish it, they don't have to.

(I have just found out that this site won't let me press tab)

This might not seem like a big deal, but if the government of Australia decides to kill off all the kangaroos and someone starts a facebook group against it, Australia can pay Facebook to take the group down.



Another reason is privacy. I started a mock Facebook account to play a game on it with some online friends. Now it keeps trying to make me friends with his brother, who I have had no communications with ever. By friending people from two different groups that you're in, you're letting Facebook know that you like hockey, but also basketball, chess and everything else you put on it.

People have been fired from their real jobs for stuff that they've put on Facebook.

Gay people have been forced out of the closet because they have gay friends on facebook.

Besides from the computer, I guess I am pretty unconnected. I have a T.V. but no cable. I don't read the newspaper much. My news is all secondhand.

Then again, I don't really care that much about headlines. A hundered thousand or so people died in the earthquake at Haiti. Millions die evey year from AIDS but thats not headline news.

Creativity

What is Creativity? How do you define it? I don't think you do. Being creative often involves creating something. But people who don't create things can be just as creative as those who do. Where does the person who creates the things get their Ideas? They have to come from somewhere before the process started. Looking at it from an etymological standpoint, it is made up of Create and -ivity. First off: Create. Creation is to make something, thus the verb Create is used in this word to have it describe making something. The suffix -ivity is slightly more interesting. Words such as ACTivity and PRODUCTivity use it to 'noun' verbs. You measure productivity as how much someone produces. Activity is how much one acts. Thus, measuring creativity would be how much someone creates, right? Wrong. I'm sure when the word was new, it meant this. But over time, The english language has had this word evolve into something completely different. Instead of what comes out of your hands, creativity is what goes on in your head. To be creative you have to do something new, think of something wild, go somewhere no man has gone before. In order to measure creativity, you would have to go into a person's head aand look at all of their ideas, one after another. Naturally, with current technology (as of February 2010) this is impossible. (at least to my knowledge as one of the uncultured masses, I'm watching for you big brother) Unlike productivity or activity, creativity is unmeasurable. There are no thought-charts to show the quality of your thoughts, no thoughtometers to measure how many thoughts you have. Each person has to measure their own creativity. While there is nothing wrong with being boring, society has it ingrained in us that we need to dare to be different. Just like everyone else.