reading discussion for 4/22

I thought the article from the Washington Post on laptops being banned (wide web of diversions) was really interesting and I hope the class discusses it.  It reminded me of how many teachers complain about laptops and distracted students and expect full attention of students in classes where attendance is required or that maybe students haven't even signed up for voluntarily.  Especially as freshman, your class choices are limited and the university and college requirements force students to take classes that we might not be interested in-can the professors blame us for not being interested in what they're saying?  I've had both types of classes, some that I was forced to go to that I hated every minute of leaving me angry at the GER program and other classes that I never missed because I was actually interested in the class and didn't want to miss it.  This article was really interesting but I couldn't help but think that maybe teachers should stop blaming students for inattentiveness, we're paying to be in their classroom and it's up to us whether to pay attention or not

Shirky 10-11, epilogue

Shirky discusses how the wisdom of crowds can be a negative thing.  He says the more users something requires, the more skeptical people can be.  I feel like this shows in history with open source software how at first many people were skeptical.  I'm sure they thought Linux was a good idea, but doubted that it could ever be successful.  The same is true for wikis like Wikipedia.  I think the success of Linus and Wikipedia has made people much more open to open source software and while I think there are definitely lots of issues with open source software, we use it frequently in DTC 354 and it's really nice not to have to pay for software, especially for creative projects where it's necessary to try out products to decide if it's something you want or not.  Overall the wisdom of crowds is a positive thing, but I thought it was interesting how Shirky mentioned a negative side effect that I had not considered.  People are scared to try new things, and the more people involved the more potential problems will be pointed out.

In the epilogue, Shirky said that news of an earthquake in China spread faster via Twitter than any news source. This points towards the future of news-eventually (and even somewhat now) social media like Twitter will be the go to source for breaking news.  The internet allows people to communicate quickly around the world.  This makes me wonder about news and the constant concern about bias.  Does having the public create news make it more or less biased?  Obviously people experiencing a situation are much more invested in it, but then the wisdom of crowds comes in-isn't a large group of people smarter than one unbiased person?  I think it will be interesting to see where news goes in the future and see what happens with Twitter.  I wonder if they'll make a way for people to be more influential on Twitter, whether, for example, a famous reporter's tweets will be treated more urgently than those of the average user.  I think social media has definitely changed the world for the better and it will be interesting to see how allowing the public to disperse information freely will change news and media in the future.

Shirky 7-9

Chapters 7-9 of Shirky make me think a lot about the internet and social networking and how it has changed the way the world works.  On p. 163 he says "this kind of social awareness has three levels: when everybody knows something, when everybody knows that everybody knows, and when everybody knows that everybody knows that everybody knows," and how the internet has sort of brought the whole world to that third stage because everything on it is so public.  During the social media presentation, Nick mentions how saying something online is different than saying something in person and that it's often easier to say things online than it is in person. The internet gave people the ability to vent to seemingly nobody, allowing them to say what they feel because there's no real people standing in front of them, but at the same time the nobody they are venting to is actually everyone that owns a computer.  The election in Iran is a great example as Twitter got the world involved in an election that otherwise many people probably wouldn't have known was even going on.

Shirky also mentions the idea of social capital.  With open source software gaining popularity, reciprocity has become expected online.  There would be no open source software if many people didn't participate in the process from writing to using to editing it.  Social capital has become even more important and the internet continues to gain popularity.

Shirky also mentioned that chances are quite good you have a mutual friend with someone you sit next to on a plane.  This reminded me of WSU and how, on a campus of 20,000 people, I still manage to see several people that I know in one way or another daily.  Facebook has made this even easier as you see the friends in common feature.  I feel like if Facebook lasts for long enough, everyone at WSU should have at least one friend in common with everyone else in the WSU network just because, like Shirky suggests, most people know one person that has one or two thousand friends.  I've even found people that I have mutual friends with in other states because they know someone that went to my high school or people from WSU that I have a weird mutual friend that I happened to work with or something.  Social networking shows just how small the world really is.

Shirky 4-6

In chapter 5 when Shirky discusses Wikis, this reminded me of a conversation we often have in DTC 356 about how Wikipedia is becoming a more reliable source and that people in the net generation are more accepting of resources like Wikipedia than those in the baby boomer or even to a certain extent gen xers.  In my opinion, the more people that use Wikipedia, the more accurate it's going to be because of the wisdom of crowds.  It's like the ask the audience feature in who wants to be a millionaire.  Usually the crowd guesses right unless it's a really difficult question and even then, the answers are usually split over two of the possible options.  However, Shirky also brings up the point that there's no incentive to change a Wikipedia article.  Dr. Arola was talking about American Idol and said that somehow actually voting for a contestant is way more embarrassing than just watching the show every week.  For Wikipedia to be as effective as it can be, it needs to become more of a social norm for people to edit it.  Wikipedia has taken steps to make it seem more reliable to skeptical users by marking articles that aren't as credible as they would like and having citations.  In the future I hope that more and more people, especially in the academic world, edit Wikipedia as well as use it so that it can be taken to its full potential.  One day in the future, Wikipedia will probably be perceived at least as credibly as something like Britannica.

Shirky Ch 1-3

"[The story about the cell phone] demonstrates the ways in which the information we give off about ourselves, in photos and emails and myspace pages...has dramatically increased our social visibility and made it easier for us to find each other but also to be scrutinized in public."

This quote reminded me of a lot of things that are going on in society today and how Facebook can be used both for good and for evil.  One of my friends lost her debit card and someone used Facebook to contact her to return it.  However, there have been numerous stories about how Facebook content has been used against people, especially photos.  I have so many issues with this because it sort of goes both ways, people shouldn't post stuff online expecting it to be completely private.  However, before the internet was so prevalent, a company would never go into your house and look through your photo albums to decide which person was a better hire.  Is the use of this kind of technology fair?

With the lost cell phone, convergence culture allowed a lost cell phone to become a much bigger issue eventually becoming national news through digg, something that would've never happened years and years ago.  However, convergence culture also allowed the phone to be located.  Is social networking working more for good or more for evil?  It's really hard to say especially since the cases where it has been used for evil are cited much more often than the cases where it has been used for good.  My friend's debit card wasn't much of a story, she told me about it and I just thought that it was cool and I wouldn't have thought of contacting someone that way, I probably would've just turned it in to the bank.  However, stories about people not being hired due to facebook content stick with me much more.  It is impossible to say which happens more often, but I feel like these days a lot of social media is being used differently than they were intended.  I'm sure facebook never intended to be used for hiring people-that's what LinkedIn is for.  However, one of the most important lessons we can learn is how giving the people the power (as the internet does) yields unpredictable results.

Tapscott Pt 3

On p. 294, Tapscott claims the Net Generation is the most social generation yet.  He talks about how many NetGeners prefer to talk via IM rather than in person, but that's making us more social and not less.  I disagree with this statement to a certain extent because my roommate prefers online communication to in person communication and it drives me nuts.  She never wants to go out with friends anymore, she'd rather be at home on facebook chat, skype, msn and her webcam.  I would define her behavior as antisocial rather than social.  The people she talks to online are not people that she has spent a lot of time with in person and few of them are actually good friends.  While online communication is helpful to keep in touch with people you don't live close to anymore, I believe that at times it does make people less social.  Talking on IM is easier than talking in person, just like texting is easier than calling someone on the phone.  However, I feel like talking to someone in person is a much more valuable experience and while IMing or texting can break the ice, I feel like in order to have true friendships you need to get out of your living room and experience new situations.  New experiences are fun, and the ability of people to become like my roommate and be able to talk to people instead of going out drives you to become introverted and scared to talk to people.  My roommate is only one example, but gamers are another.  They spend hours and hours on world of warcraft and they're talking to other people, but they're never leaving their house.  I think online communication is fine in small amounts but if too much time is spent online and not enough time is spent around people I think that online communication can become unhealthy and lead to antisocial behavior.

Tapscott Pt 2

In this section, Tapscott discusses how advertisers are scared that people in the net generation don't read ads in the traditional way.  We don't listen to the radio, we plug in our itrip, we don't watch tv, we dvr and watch hulu and we don't read the newspaper, we might go to a news website.  This was interesting to me because I've been hearing for a few years now that advertisers are worried about this problem, but it's starting to frustrate me.  If they are worried, they should be focused on advertising in a new way that will reach the net generation effectively.  All tv ads are really good for is making you remember the company name.  There are ways to do that visually, if you see Coke ads all over a website you will probably remember that it was there.  We've also discussed in some of my classes how the presence of an annoying ad actually deters you from the company rather than encourages you to buy from them.  You will remember the company, but in a negative light.  I think advertisers should be changing along with the times.  I'm excited because recently they have been trying to do this through online ads as well as social media.  While whether this is effective or not has yet to be proven, but I have to think it's equally effective as tv and radio ads and has the advantage that many online ads sit in the background rather than interrupt or annoy you.  I'm glad advertisers are finally focusing on the future rather than the past and are working to find ways to keep up or even get ahead of technology in order for ads to still be profitable.  Besides ads, there are few ways to find out about a company's existence.