Topic Choice

I have decided on a topic, one that I only thought of this past week. Being that so much of my time is spent online, my topic will be the impact of Internet on human interaction and connection. Social media will be a central part of my research. I want to look at how YouTube allows people to share experiences with the entire world, how Twitter connects celebrity and superstar personalities with average people, how Facebook transfers people's entire lives online.
The scope of my topic may extend further than social media. Google, Wikipedia, and Yahoo! Answers all changed the way we research, learn, and teach. These sites are integral parts of the internet that impacted human behavior. Libraries, professors, and books are becoming foreign to younger generations because of these internet tools.
Three other things I want to touch upon are 1)Websites such as eHarmony that directly impact people's lives 2)Websites such as Amazon and eBay that have changed the way we shop and interact with local stores 3)The limitations of Internet interactions by governments: Good or bad?
There are many questions that I am looking to answer through this topic. To what extent has the Internet changed human behavior? Is this impact worldwide or just concentrated in certain privileged countries? Will this 'revolution' continue at the rate that it has? Has the Internet brought a positive change for us? To what extent must we remove ourselves from it? What are some instances where the Internet has changed people's lives? The list of questions I want to research keeps on going, but I'll stop here for now. Hopefully this topic works out and leads me to many interesting discoveries, debates, and facts.

Decisions...

The due date for a topic is approaching, and I have been thinking about the ideas and suggestions that need to go, and the ones that should stay on or be added to my list. To start off, I have lost interest in the topic of war and its effects of society. I did some research on it and I did not find much that intrigued me. I am not leaning towards corruption either. Good news is that after hearing that I should not give up on a topic because of its lack of appearance in literature, I feel that my choices are much more vast. 

Space exploration is again on my radar. If I chose this topic I would want to not only talk about actual human and robot expeditions, but also scientific discoveries and breakthroughs. I would want to track mankind's gradual increase of knowledge about what lies beyond earth. This would include theories, expeditions, and discoveries.

Nature versus nurture is also a possible topic. It interests me because I could delve into the fields of psych and history to come to a conclusion about this debate. I would also use religious sources regarding man's nature.

I read through a few Blogs, and I saw the topic of dreams mentioned twice. This subject has intrigued me for a long time, and I might want to research it if other people don't claim the topic.

I stumbled upon a topic online about how technology, specifically cell phones other ways of connecting, has changed society. This new topic would be fun because I could track social behavioral patterns, and technological development. I could include reports on Apple's influence on the world, the invention of the internet, and the role of social media in connecting people. For example, Twitter allows fans to actually interact with their heroes and idols.

Unless I think of another topic, it seems to me that my paper will be written on one of these ideas. Next step, the final decision.

Exploring Topics

I have been thinking about many different ideas for my topic. Problem is, some of them may not work with the literature aspect of the project. I was doing research on exploration in space, a topic I mentioned in my first post, when I realized that no literature that I know of discusses space exploration. I decided to combine that topic and the other topic I pondered, revolutionary thinkers and ideas, and maybe use this project to research and discuss exploration and discovery. It is a very broad topic, and I would have to narrow it down, but I am sure that there are plenty of novels written about exploration and discovery. Another topic idea I had is war and its effects on society. Cold Mountain, and The Things They Carried are two novels I read last year that I would probably use.  The debate of nature versus nurture is intriguing, and I can already see Lord of the Flies fitting into that project. For now, the last topic I can think of is corruption, not just in politics but in history and in people. The Great Gatsby would be a great novel to examine, being that he was corrupted as he grew in power. For the next week I will continue thinking of new topics, and exploring the ones I have already come up with.