Community

As years have passed by, the definition of what a community is has changed. As technology has advanced, many other ways of communication have been created. We are in the year two thousand and twelve and there are millions of blogs on the Internet that are created by ordinary, everyday people. Throughout these blogs, people have been able to find other individuals who share their same beliefs,hobbies, likes and even dislikes; thus, the creation of virtual communities. Virtual communities are existent communities, because now we have real live video chat that allows us to have face-to-face conversations on the computer.
A community is a group of individuals who come together because they share something in common such as religion, language, problems, etc. Each of these communities createstheir own identity with which they differentiate themselves from other groups or communities. Usually a community gets together because of a common need or objective that needs to be meet by each individual of the group.
I do strongly believe virtual communities are real communities. The Internet has created a way for people from different parts of the world to come together and share theiropinions and similarities and even provide help for others. In some cases people even find it more comfortable to express their feelings or problems through virtual communities because they can remain anonymous. “Someone To Watch Over Me” by Theodora Stites is a perfect example that shows us how a 24 year old girl feels way more comfortable showing who she is through the internet. For instance, whenshe says “Just imagine if we could be this good in person. Online everyone has bulletproof social armor,” (Remix 163) she feels protected. She even started to think of most people by their nicknames instead of their real names.
Looking deeper into virtual communities I decided to investigate a website/blog that grabbed my attention, http://blog.ratemyprofessors.com/. This websites is the bestprofessor ratings source based on student feedback created by the college community. It has over 1.5 million professors from all across the United States and 13 million opinions from students. I’ve personally used this website a few times my self to review my teachers and its been very reliable and helpful.
Some people might think that virtual communities are not authentic because people become tooinvolved in their internet life or because there is no face-to-face interactions, when in fact, the technology has advanced to a great extent and now we can communicate and have live conversations. Because technology has become so advanced, the future is bound to hold a mass of virtual communities for an endless amount of reasons assisting a world of people.

Works Cited

Latterell,Catherine G. Resources for Teaching: Remix, Reading + Composing Culture. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2006. Print.

"Rate My Professors – Find and Rate Your Professor, Campus and More – RateMyProfessors.com." Rate My Professors. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Sept. 2012. <http://blog.ratemyprofessors.com/>.

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I do strongly believe virtual communities are...