Virtual Communities & Real Life: Multitasking DRAFT

Virtual Communities & Real Life

Rough Draft

Lila Bushnell, Taylor Miller, and Kristine Brown

1. As a group we decided to to choose multitaskers because we are all multitaskers ourselves and believe that it is a good thing. We believe that multitasking should be viewed as a good, and productive thing throughout lifestyles. It is most common among students, like ourselves. We chose multitasking as our focus because it is something that we can relate to, and it something that we do on a day-to-day basis.
2. The following readings help to define our group’s definition of academic community because all of the readings relate to how multitasking is shown throughout everyday communities, and a lot of times a perfect example is an educational or academic communities. The first common reading was Ferdinand Tonnies on Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft. According to Tonnies, the community and society is based off of order-law-mores, dissolution, the people and state, types of real community life, counterpart of Gemeinschaft, and the real state. Order-law-mores: The concept of morality as a purely ideal or mental system of norms in community life. A community grows from beliefs and necessities, intertwined with realities from the social norm. Order and laws are based off of opinion. Dissolution: The substance of a community and society consists of concord, folkways, mores, and religion. War exists to destroy and subjugate between members and nonmembers of a community. Peace and commerce are maintained through conventions of underlying fear. The state protects this civilization through legislation and politics. The People and the State:  The people create the dominating power which creates the houses, villages, and towns of the country. The law changes things, which is useful and efficient. Religion has an immediate contact and is most deeply related to the physical-spiritual. Counterpart of Gemeinschft: Family life is the basis of life, which subsists throughout city, village, and town life. A main focus is steering away from evil and work towards the greater good. The Real State: Public opinion forces everyone to do what is useful and to leave undone what is damaging.The second common reading was Intro to Virtual Communities by Robin Hamman. He believes that different virtual communities are centerd around specifc chat rooms. The term “communitiy” is refered to as an omnibus word, because it is used by so many people. Hamman believes that we should all agree on a definition if we are to talk about something in a meaningful way. The definition given by Hamman is, “a group of people who share social interaction, and some common ties between themselves and the other members of the group, and who share an area for at least some of the time. The third common reading was “The Machine Stops,” by E.M. Forster. This was a story about technology, and basically how is has affected our everyday lives.
3. After researching the definition of an academic community, we have come to the conclusion that it is basically a community that surrounds a university or college. The community that is surrounded by the university or college participates in co- and extra-curricular activities. These activities help to form the university or college into a tighter knit congregation, and make it into more of a community. 
4. According to Fernidand Tonnie, there are two basic forms of human will: essential and arbitrary. Essential will is underlying, organic, and an instinctive driving force. Arbitrary will is deliberative, purposive, and future oriented. 
5. Hamman’s definition of community is determined by one’s surroundings. This means that one will define community by who they are with, or what is around them. He believes that everyone’s community is not the same, but is individually different. “Community is a non-scientific term, unless it is separately defined in every paper which uses it.” This definition in comparison to our group’s definition of community is similar, but our group did not state that  each person’s community was different. We thought that each community was established by many, and many people made up a community.
6. The “Machine” is technology, and how technology affects everyday life. Without technology, or the so called, “Machine,” all hell would break loose. Now that our entire world is so used to having technology, we depend on it, and it would be a terrible loss if it were to be taken away from us. 
7. The FYS100 course outcomes for this semester were academic skills, meaning students are on a college level with media, texts and content. The academic skills course outcome enables us students to collaborate ethically with others to complete assignments. This has been achieved in our class, and with this assignment in particular because we a forced to work with other people, in a group setting, and it helps us to learn to work with others.