You Tube and Personal Psychology

Dr. Brady mentioned the use of three social media sharing areas:  photos, music, and video.  I recall Picture Trail, a site where, for something like $17.00 a year, you could post albums. It was a venue for me to market costume jewelry, as well as show off my artistic talents in some of the projects I had completed.  I never did get involved with digital music. Of course, over the years I have progressed from vinyl to 8 tracks to cassettes to CDs…but I still tend to buy compilations rather than create my own. Not to say that I won’t get it to it someday.  I remember a coworker who was all excited over Napster.com.  He went on and on about free music downloads and how his music library had grown. I absent mindedly nodded as he spoke, not really paying attention, because I really wasn’t that interested.  Of course, we all know what happened to Napster.  I was shocked as I went through the class assignment materials over spring break to discover that twitter has been alive and well since 2006.  Again, it was something that just didn’t capture my interest.

Videos.  That is something separate, and apart.  Dr. Brady noted that humans are visually oriented. So yes, I have been an infrequent visitor to You Tube, although I must admit, I have used You Tube pretty much for entertainment purposes, not for learning.   I can count my You Tube searches on fewer than my ten fingers.  I saw the Beach Boys Farewell Tour last year, and promptly searched You Tube for videos of them back in their hey-day.  Brian Wilson’s life story has always resonated with me.  That such a genius should crack and break from the pressures of father, industry, and personal perfectionism illustrates the fragility of talent.  Yes, there were drugs, but escapism is what has haunted many of our most significantly creative and expressive individuals, whether literature with Edgar Allen Poe and Ernest Hemingway or art with Vincent Van Gogh.  By watching the old videos when Brian was a young man and the Beach Boys were just coming into popularity, I gain a vicarious insight into the reality that was his, but not his alone.

I came into my majority with Timothy O’Leary, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin headlining the news. I saw both the beautiful and the ugly.  As this was the same time that I was forming my own persona, my own mission of “who do you want to be when you grow up?”, these dramatic entrances and exits from the world had a decidedly sobering effect.  My own childhood was not the best, and that is what probably leads me to resonate so much with Brian’s experience.  I, too, worked hard to destroy my memories and move on using recreational drugs.  But I also knew that I was the “good child”, and the oldest, so I was the “dependable child”.  I rebelled, but I also kept limits. I knew how far I could go, based on what was expected of me. A tightrope, I admit.

Have I ever used You Tube to learn how to do something?  The straight answer is no – until this class. I did view several videos on how to write html and css, and found them to be enormously helpful.  I also looked at a couple that went into detail on how to create your own podcast, and who should host it.  Yes, I think there is probably a You Tube How To video on pretty much any subject you can come up with.  What impressed me as I sampled videos here and there was the innate teaching talent of so many of the video creators.  I found advance organizers, verbal descriptions of each step accompanied by physical demonstration; I found tacit knowledge that was openly shared.

This video on how to create a double ninja star is a perfect example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VD1OrdP-fA

If we discuss the future of universities and learning in general, it is obvious that You Tube is a vast resource that offers quality exchanges. Yes, you need to filter through and find the appropriate content, but doesn’t any professor do that in the first place when assembling materials for class?  I stumbled across this video on augmented reality, and the potential for learning is enormous:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RuZY1NfJ3k

So it is not just the videos themselves, but the videos as portals and introductions to yet even more technologies that capture attention and interest.  Yes, Dr. Brady, a picture IS worth a thousand words.

For the purposes of this week’s tour of web 2.0 technologies, I searched a few capricious subjects in You Tube, the ninja star above being one of them.  Did you know that there is a video (actually, several score of them), that teach you how to walk in high heels?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NsqfS1wU7M

I am totally amazed that I was able to walk in those elevator shoes and high wedges when I was in my teens and twenties without expert help.  We just went out and learned the hard way. No, you cannot put weight on your heels in grass. Duh!

Finally, let us turn to my rant for the day: Facebook and security on the internet.  I was not and had no desire to be on Facebook. However, due to another class assignment, I had to create an account. So I created one under an assumed name.  Temporary account, temporary identity.  I just don’t like putting my dirty laundry, or even my clean laundry for that matter, out so that the whole planet can check it out.  She buys what where??? She knows who??  She has how many friends???   I guess that I do not rely on social feedback to inform me as to my value as an individual. But I am concerned about the generations that follow mine.  What about their values? What about their perspectives? Their strengths, their weaknesses? Do they perceive themselves as individuals – do they even have an opportunity to be individualistic? Or do they grow up as part of the larger technological social reality? Remember the Borg: you WILL be assimilated.

My final You Tube contribution concerns Facebook.  It is a how to on how to hack a Facebook account.  No, I will not use the knowledge I gained. But the knowledge is out there – for anyone who chooses to apply it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO0uBkZoBD0

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