Allison Kipta's Library tagged sociology →  View Popular, Search in Google

Stealing A Nation reveals the extraordinary story of the secret expulsion of the entire population of the Chagos islands in the Indian Ocean by successive British governments, so that the principal island, Diego Garcia, could be handed to the United States as a major military base. It is from this base that American aircraft have attacked Iraq and Afghanistan.

sociology geography history diego_garcia

"News that all the graduate students in my Future of Media seminar would receive iPads for the semester generated a flurry of excitement. Some students replied with exclamation points in their email messages. Some stopped and asked when the iPads would be available. Others passed on word to classmates and seemed to enjoy the envious responses. Then something odd happened: The students, all in their mid- to late 20s, became self-conscious about carrying iPads. They refused to use them in public. They felt elitist. In their eyes, the iPad represented snobbery, a technological tool that no one needed and whose utility was far from apparent. Used to a graduate student frugality, they didn’t want to be seen as profligate. I was surprised about the students’ embarrassment."

ipad sociology culture

"I am an assistant professor at the Faculty of Information and Media Studies and the Department of Sociology at the University of Western Ontario. So far I have enjoyed being in a joint faculty position, but it can also be a lot of work. My research investigates the uses of technology and the effects of technology on society."

sociology social_media technology research

"When MySpace launched in 2003, it was primarily used by 20/30-somethings (just like Friendster before it). The bands began populating the site by early 2004 and throughout 2004, the average age slowly declined. It wasn't until late 2004 that teens really started appearing en masse on MySpace and 2005 was the year that MySpace became the "in thing" for teens. Facebook launched in 2004 as a Harvard-only site. It slowly expanded to welcome people with .edu accounts from a variety of different universities. In mid-2005, Facebook opened its doors to high school students, but it wasn't that easy to get an account because you needed to be invited. As a result, those who were in college tended to invite those high school students that they liked. Facebook was strongly framed as the "cool" thing that college students did. So, if you want to go to college (and particularly a top college), you wanted to get on Facebook badly. Even before high school networks were possible, the moment seniors were accepted to a college, they started hounding the college sysadmins for their .edu account. The message was clear: college was about Facebook. For all of 2005 and most of 2006, MySpace was the cool thing for high school teens and Facebook was the cool thing for college students. This is not to say that MySpace was solely high school or Facebook solely college, but there was a dominating age division that played out in the cultural sphere."

facebook myspace sociology social_networking

A new study connects young adults' use of video games to poorer relationships with friends and family – and the student co-author expresses disappointment at his own findings. Brigham Young University undergrad Alex Jensen and his faculty mentor, Laura Walker, publish their results Jan. 23 in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.
The research is based on information collected from 813 college students around the country. As the amount of time playing video games went up, the quality of relationships with peers and parents went down.

research sociology