Tagging – a good thing or a bad thing?

Tagging is very popular among people now, but is it really good to use tagging? We can see people using tagging in different websites or computer systems such as Facebook, Flickr, Gmail, etc.

I think all of you know the advantages of using tagging. For instance, it is very convenient to search things by use tagging. You can simply get what you want in a huge database by just typing in a keyword or a label. Flickr is a very good example of it. When you type in a word, e.g. blog, you can get different pictures tagging “blog”. They may be pictures of a real blog, blog headers shared by people or even a picture to promote bloggers’ newly developed blog! They can be anything that is tagged “blog”. When I work on different projects and need pictures to support, I would fully appreciate tagging as it saves my time to get the pictures I want. Here is a screen capture when I use Flickr to search "blog".

However, things always have two sides, good and also bad one. Tagging is good about its convenience, but also bad about its convenience! I think most of you use Facebook now and like uploading photos on Facebook. Would you use the tagging system of Facebook to tag your friends in some photos? Frankly, I sometimes hate this system. When I am tagged in a photo that is uploaded by my friends, I cannot set the privacy of it. I have no control of these photos shown on my page! You may say that I can simply remove the tag, so it will not be on my page. But! I may not have time to keep checking my Facebook all the time. Before you remove the tag, your friends may have taken a look of it already! When you don’t want others to view some photos, you have no control of them. How frustrated it is!

My digital life

Thanks for technological advancement, we are now enjoying a wide range of Internet services and electronic devices such as desktop and laptop computers, mobile phones etc. With all these devices or tools, we can keep ourselves updated to the things happened around our friends and also the world.


And what’s about me? Of course I also have a number of devices and enjoy my digital life with them. Let me tell you how my digital life is!


Laptop was my main device to connect myself to the world. Instead, I use Iphone now as it is much more portable and convenient. Mostly importantly, I can do what I was used to do with my laptop by using the Iphone! I use different ways to communicate with my friends and the world as listed below.

1.      Facebook! My facebook

I think most of you would have a social network website like facebook, twitter etc. Everyday we can update our life by putting up status, photos, blogs so as to share our life to others.

2.      MSN/Skype! Or Textme/Pingchat of Iphone (If you would like to be a friend of mine, please feel free to ask me for my account! =D)

Instant messenger software is very useful. People can communicate with more than one friend at the same time. I always use it to chat with my friends as I can talk to more than one friend and do other things at the same moment.

3.      Youtube!

I can watch video clips and music video from Youtube and leave some comments. As a fan of Twilight movies, I always searched video clips about twilight. I recently watched video clip about an interview of Ashley Greene, who is the actor of Alice Cullen, and want to share with you.=]  Click here for the video clip.

4.      Some Iphone Apps or games

I used to play games on Iphone and those games always build a social networking system. People can register an account to share and communicate the information of the games. I am now playing a game called Pocket frog! I can share my frogs with other players in the network. It’s fun! Haha! I also use some applications to search information about restaurant, locations etc.

By taking this course, I think I could learn how the digital media that we have would benefit and also damage our life in different ways. For example, is the newly developed language system for using in instant messenger or text messages a kind of creative or just error? Would the technological advancement improve or hinder people from communicating with others? Also, I may learn to analyze the forms of digital media and how the different forms would help express ourselves. For instance, how are video clips or photos different in the ways of presenting one’s self?