Mobile
If I ever have Children, I will be one of those evil parents who would never ever want my child exposed to technology unless absolutely necessary. I see a huge divide between me and my two siblings and looking at the effect of technology, I would never wish it upon my children.
When my sister grew up, she got an Atari but it broke, and after that, we just had a TV, but weren’t allowed to watch much. My sister and I played outside a lot, and when she didn’t I was still outside in the woods, by the river, fighting non-existent rattle snakes and trying to catch fish with chocolate. We got a computer when I was 7, but I didn’t like it, it had a green screen, and that’s about all I remember. When I was in late high school, we still didn’t have any gaming system, a really slow computer, which I played a few games on (Lemmings!!whee) and that’s about all. My sister at this point, was with her social circles in the mall and such, and I was still mostly outdoors.
Then we got Internet at school. The worst day of my life…. It was so addicting, it stopped me from writing, drawing, making music, playing, running. I just sat and stared at this stupid computer screen and stopped doing everything else. After almost failing out of college, I broke my addiction with playing online, and now have time to do all the other things I enjoy. Technology isn’t inherently bad, and I would terribly miss mapquest, but its way way way too addicting for children. I would put mobile phones in this category. Instead of getting to enjoy life in the make believe as pirates and princesses they have way more responsibility now, caring around 500 dollar phones having to be available, they don’t get to really play.
On to my little brother. He is 7 years younger than me, so got the Internet in middle school. He doesn’t play outside, he doesn’t draw, or color, or make music, or imagine. He plays online. He reads and posts to message boards. He calls his friends. He does actually SEE them sometimes too, but still. What a childhood! At least four hours a day sitting, typing, staring at a screen. Always carrying a phone. What a terrible childhood. I would never wish it on any child of mine.
Technology can have its uses, and my car always has a phone, but I’m not sure that children are the place for it. If my child went overnight with friends, would I give them a phone? Sure. But to school? Why?? Let them roam, life will catch up them soon enough, give them a chance to grow without the addiction, free to enjoy the little things. They will be exposed to technology if they go to school, I think that is enough, what 8 year old needs a phone?
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
2-26-07, Week 8
Tags!
As a late adopter of the Internet one of the most frustrating things for me as a user was not being able to get back to where I was. I remember going online and thinking cool, what should I search for today, and would just follow links, reading, but when I wanted to get back to a site, I couldn’t quite remember how I got there. I would try to use yahoo and type the same search I did before, but I would get a different list! It was so frustrating to me that I couldn’t figure out how to get back to a page I knew existed. I searched and searched, and couldn’t find it.
Now, favorites wouldn’t help me then, as I was in a library and didn’t have my own computer. I didn’t use email then either. So I figured it out, when I came to a page I liked, I printed the page, so I could retype the address and get back. I was so proud… until I lost my printed pages.
I’m glad search engines have improved so much, I don’t really worry about not being able to find pages anymore. If I was able to find a page before, most likely I can muddle my way back. What is more frustrating for me now is that they go away! Some huge student project will go up on a school page and it will be a great resource I like. The students graduate, and suddenly all that knowledge and work is lost. Even though I could get back there, it’s gone.
Searching online is much more dynamic that in a library, where users can have input and tag items, instead of using tree structure, but… in a way, information is dynamic, but the stability of the information is also dynamic. I almost prefer a library, where unless it burns down, I can always get my book. I learn how to find it, and I don’t have to worry about my library closing and “deleting” everything. Online, there isn’t such stability. Even though I can now find information way easier that I can with physical books, I also cannot trust that it will still exist. With wiki’s they can save old versions, so I can get back before the changes, but eventually they will probably start deleting that information.
I am glad searching has improved so much, but I hope the stability follows soon.
As a late adopter of the Internet one of the most frustrating things for me as a user was not being able to get back to where I was. I remember going online and thinking cool, what should I search for today, and would just follow links, reading, but when I wanted to get back to a site, I couldn’t quite remember how I got there. I would try to use yahoo and type the same search I did before, but I would get a different list! It was so frustrating to me that I couldn’t figure out how to get back to a page I knew existed. I searched and searched, and couldn’t find it.
Now, favorites wouldn’t help me then, as I was in a library and didn’t have my own computer. I didn’t use email then either. So I figured it out, when I came to a page I liked, I printed the page, so I could retype the address and get back. I was so proud… until I lost my printed pages.
I’m glad search engines have improved so much, I don’t really worry about not being able to find pages anymore. If I was able to find a page before, most likely I can muddle my way back. What is more frustrating for me now is that they go away! Some huge student project will go up on a school page and it will be a great resource I like. The students graduate, and suddenly all that knowledge and work is lost. Even though I could get back there, it’s gone.
Searching online is much more dynamic that in a library, where users can have input and tag items, instead of using tree structure, but… in a way, information is dynamic, but the stability of the information is also dynamic. I almost prefer a library, where unless it burns down, I can always get my book. I learn how to find it, and I don’t have to worry about my library closing and “deleting” everything. Online, there isn’t such stability. Even though I can now find information way easier that I can with physical books, I also cannot trust that it will still exist. With wiki’s they can save old versions, so I can get back before the changes, but eventually they will probably start deleting that information.
I am glad searching has improved so much, but I hope the stability follows soon.
2-19-07, Week 7
Reputation Systems
My one experience with reputation systems is they are not really useful for people who are not “into” whatever site has them. Say you are a casual user at a site, you are pretty much banned from being taken seriously in a community since you do not have enough reputation. For example, I wanted to buy a product on ebay. Now, I am one of those people that isn’t very fond of shopping online, so I had never used ebay before. I wasn’t worried about that, since I figured it couldn’t be that hard to use. I found my item easily, at a great price and went to purchase it. I signed up and chose a “buy-it-now” option. My bid was rejected because the seller demanded I had purchased 10 things before. Why? What did the seller care that I hadn’t purchased anything before? How as I supposed to be able to buy anything? I didn’t want to buy from 10 unsuspicious sellers, just so I could buy the one item I wanted.
“In particular, newcomers (those with no feedback) should always be distrusted until they have somehow paid their dues, either through an entry fee or by accepting more risk or worse prices while developing their reputations.“ (Paul Resnick, Richard Zeckhauser, Eric Friedman, and Ko Kuwabara) Why for the buyer though? I was using paypal, it’s not like I can cause any damage?
My other experience with reputation was on a message board where I was trying to find specific information. The board had such a strong community that they all constantly “repped” each other, and any new user was virtually blocked from using the service. This makes for strong communities, but I’m not sure it’s the best thing in general.
One group in our class is doing a flight reputation system. I thought that was a great idea, and one real “flight” website is taking it to another level. They are giving out frequent flyer miles (that have an expiration date) as reputation points. So you post a cool flight deal, you get miles. I like that system!
My one experience with reputation systems is they are not really useful for people who are not “into” whatever site has them. Say you are a casual user at a site, you are pretty much banned from being taken seriously in a community since you do not have enough reputation. For example, I wanted to buy a product on ebay. Now, I am one of those people that isn’t very fond of shopping online, so I had never used ebay before. I wasn’t worried about that, since I figured it couldn’t be that hard to use. I found my item easily, at a great price and went to purchase it. I signed up and chose a “buy-it-now” option. My bid was rejected because the seller demanded I had purchased 10 things before. Why? What did the seller care that I hadn’t purchased anything before? How as I supposed to be able to buy anything? I didn’t want to buy from 10 unsuspicious sellers, just so I could buy the one item I wanted.
“In particular, newcomers (those with no feedback) should always be distrusted until they have somehow paid their dues, either through an entry fee or by accepting more risk or worse prices while developing their reputations.“ (Paul Resnick, Richard Zeckhauser, Eric Friedman, and Ko Kuwabara) Why for the buyer though? I was using paypal, it’s not like I can cause any damage?
My other experience with reputation was on a message board where I was trying to find specific information. The board had such a strong community that they all constantly “repped” each other, and any new user was virtually blocked from using the service. This makes for strong communities, but I’m not sure it’s the best thing in general.
One group in our class is doing a flight reputation system. I thought that was a great idea, and one real “flight” website is taking it to another level. They are giving out frequent flyer miles (that have an expiration date) as reputation points. So you post a cool flight deal, you get miles. I like that system!
2-12-07, Week 6
Mass Amateurization
“Travelocity doesn't make everyone a travel agent. It undermines the value of being travel agent at all, by fixing the inefficiencies travel agents are paid to overcome one booking at a time.” (Shirky) When I read this, I immediately thought of my experience with travel agents.
So everyone seems to think they can do better than the expert. Or at least better than the average person, even though that’s what they do 8 hours a day and make a living off of. Yeah. I’m not a big fan of open source for that same reason but I thought the travel thing was cool. Just like real people could now write newspaper columns and I could read it all for free in their blogs, I could now be my own travel agent. Cool.
So I went online, spent about 3 days searching for a plane ticket to LA, finally found one for 200 dollars, thought I had an awesome deal. A friend of mine, used a live person to book her flight and got the same flight for 150 dollars and a 5 dollar booking fee, and she spent only 10 minutes.
I then wanted to fly to Prague. I searched and searched. But it took forever and I couldn’t find anything good. At this point, I didn’t think travel agents even existed anymore. But I found one. Who explained to me how and when flights left and found me an awesome student ticket round trip to Prague for 380 dollars. I’ve stopped using the online systems, they are not yet smart enough to know exactly what I want, or I’m not patient enough to click 500 times and get (I’m sorry there are no flights left that time please try again) and pay my 5 dollar booking fee. Sometimes thinking amateurs can do thing, isn’t worth it. I probably could have found the flight, but the time was not worth it.
Even tough we gain something with mass amateurization, people often don’t think about how much we loose.
“Travelocity doesn't make everyone a travel agent. It undermines the value of being travel agent at all, by fixing the inefficiencies travel agents are paid to overcome one booking at a time.” (Shirky) When I read this, I immediately thought of my experience with travel agents.
So everyone seems to think they can do better than the expert. Or at least better than the average person, even though that’s what they do 8 hours a day and make a living off of. Yeah. I’m not a big fan of open source for that same reason but I thought the travel thing was cool. Just like real people could now write newspaper columns and I could read it all for free in their blogs, I could now be my own travel agent. Cool.
So I went online, spent about 3 days searching for a plane ticket to LA, finally found one for 200 dollars, thought I had an awesome deal. A friend of mine, used a live person to book her flight and got the same flight for 150 dollars and a 5 dollar booking fee, and she spent only 10 minutes.
I then wanted to fly to Prague. I searched and searched. But it took forever and I couldn’t find anything good. At this point, I didn’t think travel agents even existed anymore. But I found one. Who explained to me how and when flights left and found me an awesome student ticket round trip to Prague for 380 dollars. I’ve stopped using the online systems, they are not yet smart enough to know exactly what I want, or I’m not patient enough to click 500 times and get (I’m sorry there are no flights left that time please try again) and pay my 5 dollar booking fee. Sometimes thinking amateurs can do thing, isn’t worth it. I probably could have found the flight, but the time was not worth it.
Even tough we gain something with mass amateurization, people often don’t think about how much we loose.
2-5-07, Week 5
Online Communities. – Business Models
My experience with online communities has been, interesting at best. I won’t go into that, well because people may actually read this thing. Let’s just say, I’ve learned a lot of interesting people and think these communities are very useful for specific things, especially for things people in their day to day communities are not accepting of. (a teenage mom for example might get a lot of information she needs, but isn’t willing to talk about with peers)
I think business uses however, are way better than personal ones. When we had the speaker come talk about biznik or newsvine, these seemed like two great uses of online communities. They were linking people of similar hobbies/jobs/wants and allowing them to learn from each other and coordinate together. To me, this seems like a much better model than friendster or myspace. The later two seem more like they are taking up time from other valuable pursuits, not adding and expanding knowledge, understanding, and sharing of information.
I do disagree with Wellman, Haase, Witte, and Hampton. I actually think that the Internet decreases social capital, at least meaningful capital. I’m not sure that all the time I spend online and have meaningful communities is worth even half of what I would have if I spent that time with someone in person.
Supposedly with online social networks, I’ll meet new people, have a bigger social network, and be more social. I’m not sure it matters much, if I’m social I will be online as much as in person, if I’m not, I won’t be either place. But then I don’t like computers, at least not for personal things! For business networking, that’s great!
My experience with online communities has been, interesting at best. I won’t go into that, well because people may actually read this thing. Let’s just say, I’ve learned a lot of interesting people and think these communities are very useful for specific things, especially for things people in their day to day communities are not accepting of. (a teenage mom for example might get a lot of information she needs, but isn’t willing to talk about with peers)
I think business uses however, are way better than personal ones. When we had the speaker come talk about biznik or newsvine, these seemed like two great uses of online communities. They were linking people of similar hobbies/jobs/wants and allowing them to learn from each other and coordinate together. To me, this seems like a much better model than friendster or myspace. The later two seem more like they are taking up time from other valuable pursuits, not adding and expanding knowledge, understanding, and sharing of information.
I do disagree with Wellman, Haase, Witte, and Hampton. I actually think that the Internet decreases social capital, at least meaningful capital. I’m not sure that all the time I spend online and have meaningful communities is worth even half of what I would have if I spent that time with someone in person.
Supposedly with online social networks, I’ll meet new people, have a bigger social network, and be more social. I’m not sure it matters much, if I’m social I will be online as much as in person, if I’m not, I won’t be either place. But then I don’t like computers, at least not for personal things! For business networking, that’s great!
1-29-07, Week 4
Social Networking
I was one of those kids who spent my childhood playing in the forest by a river. Watching my little brother spend his childhood play on the computer was so strange. He wasn’t playing alone online, he quickly found and used sites where he could play with others, and joined websites where gamers gave each other hints, scheduled times to play, and chatted about all sorts of topics.
To me the amount of teenagers on social networking sites from Lenhart and Maddens research is quite frightening. The time these teenagers spend on myspace is time they are not doing other activities. What are they missing? I think you grow much more as a person if you do things in person, slowly.. then if you are rushed and online or over the phone. Yes, these communities are real, but at what cost? I can have a lot of friends on myspace, or I can have a lot of friends to go treasure hunting in the woods.
There is something to seeing people, being able to interact with them in simple things, being able to move more then your fingers. To me the amount of children lost to computers is sad. Yes they are learning, but at what cost? You stay in touch with more people, but how many of those relationships stay meaningful? Its good when you have a relationship already, its convenient to connect online, but to form them that way?
“The seemingly sudden appearance of people in restaurants talking into their cell phones, the smash success of the Palm products, the increasing use of instant messaging at the office, the chirp of pagers in meetings.” (Nardi, B., Whittaker, S., & Schwarz, H) Even though I work in the computer field, these make me so sad. There is a point to where technology enhances our current lives, for example I really like mapquest, and there is a point to where it takes over our lives so much that we become so dependent on it, we are distracted from reality that is passing us by.
I was one of those kids who spent my childhood playing in the forest by a river. Watching my little brother spend his childhood play on the computer was so strange. He wasn’t playing alone online, he quickly found and used sites where he could play with others, and joined websites where gamers gave each other hints, scheduled times to play, and chatted about all sorts of topics.
To me the amount of teenagers on social networking sites from Lenhart and Maddens research is quite frightening. The time these teenagers spend on myspace is time they are not doing other activities. What are they missing? I think you grow much more as a person if you do things in person, slowly.. then if you are rushed and online or over the phone. Yes, these communities are real, but at what cost? I can have a lot of friends on myspace, or I can have a lot of friends to go treasure hunting in the woods.
There is something to seeing people, being able to interact with them in simple things, being able to move more then your fingers. To me the amount of children lost to computers is sad. Yes they are learning, but at what cost? You stay in touch with more people, but how many of those relationships stay meaningful? Its good when you have a relationship already, its convenient to connect online, but to form them that way?
“The seemingly sudden appearance of people in restaurants talking into their cell phones, the smash success of the Palm products, the increasing use of instant messaging at the office, the chirp of pagers in meetings.” (Nardi, B., Whittaker, S., & Schwarz, H) Even though I work in the computer field, these make me so sad. There is a point to where technology enhances our current lives, for example I really like mapquest, and there is a point to where it takes over our lives so much that we become so dependent on it, we are distracted from reality that is passing us by.
1-22-07, Week 3
Online Communities
My question with tools such as match, myspace, friendster, and all the other many online communities is what is lost?
It is easy to see what is gained. It is much easier to make buddies playing halo, then it is to make a meaningful relationship walking down the street. It is easier to get friends on myspace then it is to have friends you can go cry to. The convenience is great! Even if you are ugly, socially inept, whatever, you can make friends easily online. For those who would have been outcast before, can have a great community online. At what cost?
It seems like fake relationships. To me relationships that are meaningful hurt. They are close enough to hurt and bring great joy. You get frustrated with your close friends when they don’t live up to their potential. You cry with them when they are in pain. It seems like the relationships on myspace delight in others misfortune. They don’t get close. Some research shows that they enable more real relationships, but its hard for me to see. The time you spend on myspace, we could be together. And yes they help with long distance, but wouldn’t it be better to get to know people close to you? It just seems so much deeper.
As for online dating, like match, and eharmony. People say they now are just like personals in the paper. To me, that is still horrible! If you want to meet someone who likes hiking go hike, if you like someone who likes going to a bar, go to bars to meet them. You like baseball, go to a game! If you go online, what are you getting that you can not get in person? It seems like everyone I know who LIVES their life to the fullest, is surrounded by amazing and wonderful people. It seems like oh, its online, they’ll match me with someone stops people from going out and experiencing life. If you don’t have time for that, you don’t have time for a relationship either…
But then, I’ve seen quite a few happy couples come from the online dating world. So, what do I know…
My question with tools such as match, myspace, friendster, and all the other many online communities is what is lost?
It is easy to see what is gained. It is much easier to make buddies playing halo, then it is to make a meaningful relationship walking down the street. It is easier to get friends on myspace then it is to have friends you can go cry to. The convenience is great! Even if you are ugly, socially inept, whatever, you can make friends easily online. For those who would have been outcast before, can have a great community online. At what cost?
It seems like fake relationships. To me relationships that are meaningful hurt. They are close enough to hurt and bring great joy. You get frustrated with your close friends when they don’t live up to their potential. You cry with them when they are in pain. It seems like the relationships on myspace delight in others misfortune. They don’t get close. Some research shows that they enable more real relationships, but its hard for me to see. The time you spend on myspace, we could be together. And yes they help with long distance, but wouldn’t it be better to get to know people close to you? It just seems so much deeper.
As for online dating, like match, and eharmony. People say they now are just like personals in the paper. To me, that is still horrible! If you want to meet someone who likes hiking go hike, if you like someone who likes going to a bar, go to bars to meet them. You like baseball, go to a game! If you go online, what are you getting that you can not get in person? It seems like everyone I know who LIVES their life to the fullest, is surrounded by amazing and wonderful people. It seems like oh, its online, they’ll match me with someone stops people from going out and experiencing life. If you don’t have time for that, you don’t have time for a relationship either…
But then, I’ve seen quite a few happy couples come from the online dating world. So, what do I know…
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