Even More Trend Reading & Beautiful Creatures

So this week, after researching, I've decided to change my thesis more towards the angle about how Facebook can help boost your self esteem. I've found quite a lot of information on the topic, and even a few studies from colleges. Also, I made a poll on my Facebook about how many of your facebook friends you consider to be really good friends. I made it about an hour ago and so far one person has vote less than 25%, six have voted 25-50%, three have voted 50-75% and none have voted 75-100%. Please, please, please vote if you're my friend on facebook! It would be greatly appreciated! :)

As for free reading, I'm currently reading a book called Beautiful Creatures. So far it's really good, it starts off kind of like Twilight, though. There's a boy whose lived in a small town his entire life and there's like never been a new person, and all of a sudden there's this amazing new girl he feels he's in love with. He gets haunted by a song called Sixteen Moons that seems to follow him everywhere, along with the girl. He dreams about her every night, and it's always the same dream where they're falling forever and he can't hold on to her any longer and is forced to let go. When he wakes up, he finds dirt under his finger nails and in his bed and a whole bunch of other creepy stuff. That probably didn't make any sense, but oh well. I'm really stressed right now with about 3 tests coming up tomorrow and I haven't had much time to read yet, but hopefully I will over spring break!

Only 3 more days until freedom!!! :)

~30N!k@

More Trend Reading

So this week I've found a TON of statistics! There's actually quite a few good stats on the actual facebook site before you log in. I even made a graph with the information I found, but for some reason it's not letting me put it in this post. In December 2004, facebook just reached the 1 million active users mark and in July 2010, it had over 500 million active users. Almost all the information I've found has pertained to facebook, saying as how it is the largest social networking site. Two interesting facts I found interesting were the average facebook user has 130 friends and about 70% of facebook users don't live in the United States. I also found a lot of information about how social networking sites are a big way of advertising for companies. One article I found was published on Friday, it said that social networking sites have "Reached Their Saturation Point" and users are not going to be as easy to get engaged with companies/products. I haven't been successful in finding information about social networking giving a new meaning to the word "friend" yet. Also, I'm hoping to watch that movie about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, it sounds interesting.

I hope you've all been finding some good information about your trends! :)

~Monika :)

Social Media Trend

So I'm researching the trend of the increased use of social media and how it is giving a new meaning to the word "friend" and causing our social skills to deteriorate. I found a REALLY AWESOME website with a lot of stats about the top countries with active users on facebook and the percentage of the total population of a lot of countries that have a facebook and a pie chart showing what aged people have a facebook. I've been able to find a lot of stats about facebook and twitter, but I'm not sure how reliable they all are. I've also found a lot of articles about the subject, one in particular I like is titled 5 Ways Social Media is Changing Our Daily Lives. I haven't found any material directly related to social media giving a new meaning to the word friend, but I have found quite a lot of stats. I'm happy with my trend so far--I'm very interested in it. I'm hoping to find some more useful information! If you have any ideas for sources other than the internet, please let me know! Thanks :)

I'm off to tweet on Twitter, update my Facebook status, upload some videos on Youtube, and send some texts. ;)

Final Thoughts on Romeo and Juliet and Starless Sky

What gave me the most trouble in Romeo and Juliet was definitely the language. A lot of it I had to read multiple times to understand and some of it I still don't understand! But I liked how it said art thou soooo many times because, I don't know, I just found it funny. So if I were making this for teens, the first thing I'd change is the language. I'd change it to a more modern version and cut out some parts that don't really make sense. I probably wouldn't change anything else because then it wouldn't be the same story.
I didn't particularly like the fighting and killing and suicidial acts. Or how Romeo and Juliet got married soo fast and were not even hesitant to kill themselves after finding out the other was "dead". My favorite character was probably the nurse because she wasn't as stupid as Romeo or Juliet and she was kind of funny. Overall, I really actually enjoyed this play!

I finished Starless Sky (finally!) last week, but forgot to post about it. The ending was very good, it kind of gave me a new perspective on life. After finishing, I think I sat and just thought for about 20 minutes. Paige Agnew is an amazing author--I think I'm going to try and find her address (not to be a stalker) to write to her and tell her how much I enjoyed reading her book. She's 15 and already has 2 books published! (I already have ordered the 2nd one, which has nothing to do with Starless Sky, but I expect it to be just as amazing). Definitely one of my top 5 favorite books and I highly recommend it! :)