The never ending Facebook alterations.

I related to Lanier's article on gadgets, but I thought about it beyond just avatars. What I've noticed recently is that when facebook changes something people tend to get upset or complain. It alters the way they present themselves on their status updates, as well as generates uncertainty with the site. What I find most interesting is the recent update with facebook timeline. Users have deleted their facebook pages and created new ones in fear that people may judge them based on past status updates. One of my friends mentioned how he is not the same person he was two years ago and did not want people seeing him at his low points.

This video I believe helps emphasize this point. We have become so embedded with facebook, that it is becoming a part of our everyday lives, and the changes influence users.

Just for Fun

Man on the lam outruns police, keeps up with Facebook

"Travis Nicolaysen doesn't hide that he's running from police. Sometimes he even pops up on Facebook to provide updates and ask friends where he might crash for the night."

His Facebook Page is out of control.
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001987234985&sk=wall

Purposeful Diversion

In Carr's article, The Juggler's Brain, he talks about some distractions as being beneficial to problem solving.
"...breaks in our attention give our unconscious mind time to grapple with a problem, bringing to bear information and cognitive processes unavailable to conscious deliberation. We usually make better decisions, his experiments reveal, if we shift our attention away from a difficult mental challenge for a time."

In an article I found online, Seven Strategies to Inspire and Nurture Creativity in Ourselves, the author agrees with Carr's statement. She suggests that in order to nurture creativity, a person needs to: keep a journal, go for a walk, read more and volunteer among other non-computer activities. Or, in other words, give the mind a break with a "purposeful diversion."

Do you agree with Carr that the internet's constant distractions keep us from thinking either deeply or creatively? What do you think the future holds for our youth, accustomed to days of distracted and scattered internet activity and cell phone use? Do you take time away from the computer for purposeful diversion?

I Like My Books Dog-Eared with Handwritten Comments in the Margins.

I completely agree with the data presented in Nicholas Carr's Juggler's Brain. Personally, through trial and error, I have learnt that I learn best when I have to physically work to absorb information. Reading documents on the internet, electronically do nothing for me. I fail to absorb and understand what is really going on in the text. I am distracted and unable to connect sentences and it is so so very easy to click and go elsewhere where it is much fun. Perhaps I am the only one who experiences this, though Carr's writing says otherwise. I have discovered that my brain retains more when I write down, not type up, what I am learning and when I physically turn the pages. Honestly, even though it was more work, I miss the days when papers where handwritten and books were handed down with dog-eared pages and the writing in the margins. Those writings in the margin offer little shared/passed on bits of information that possess more wealth of knowledge than the comments at the end of articles on the internet. Perhaps it is also the chore of having to log in or create a profile, but for me it is easier to scribble a few notes in the margin of a book than to go through the entire tedious process of posting a comment online. Can I get an amen??!! If you agree to this, let me know.

Professional Development in Public Schools

As I was reading "The Juggler's Brain" by Carr, I kept thinking about some of the topics of many professional development workshops that I've had to attend as a high school teacher.  I think I've seen the "Shift Happens" video from YouTube at at least 4 professional development presentations.  I'm sure you've seen it too, but I've included a link just in case.  This version, modified by a group in Iowa, contains most of the information from the first "Shift Happens" video I saw within the first 4 1/2 minutes.  The last three minutes may be of more interest.  That is where my thoughts really connected to the Carr article.

The two big ideas that many high schools are pushing in professional development for their teachers are technology and critical thinking.  I kept thinking about these two ideas as I read Carr's article.  Our students need to be proficient users of the Internet, but they also need to build on their skill to have depth to their thinking.

Another video I found on YouTube reiterated some of the same issues as presented in the article and also posed an optimistic view of how e-readers may help to address some of the concerns presented in "The Juggler's Brain."

I appreciated the optimistic view at the end of this video - that we can encourage ourselves and future generations to train their brains to have both skills - being savvy on the Internet looking for immediate answers and also being able to allow our brains to read a work for depth of knowledge.  Am I being too optimistic?  Are today's students really differentiating between the two skills and using them at appropriate times?

Google Goggles

After reading "The Juggler's Brain" by Nicholas Carr, I saw this post at Kottke.org (http://kottke.org/12/04/google-glasses) about what Google Goggles would really be like. Here are two great videos about what real life might be like with "Google Goggles." I especially enjoyed the second one, which seems to fall inline with our more "dormant pre-frontal cortex" (p. 121).

   

You can check out the NYT article on Google's "Project Glass" here.  Because those are some sexy glasses. (Don't worry, they also come in contacts!)

How should we look at "virtual reality" - a Youtube video by Jaron Lanier

After reading Jaron Lanier, I think his concerns and criticism on social-media technologies are indeed inspiring. Too often we let online database information to represent ourselves and leave out realities of our identities and humanity. In this way, technology will become dehumanizing rather than human-centered. I found these two videos on Youtube in which Lanier talks about the "avatar" experiences and why he thinks too much reliance on technologies is so problematic. 

A Handful of Social Media Couplets

http://www.fantasticpoems.com/Poems/social-media-couplets

A Handful of Social Media Couplets

I shot a tweet into the 'net, thousands of people I did upset.

I threw a lol cat into the air. Oh dear! Kitty pieces everywhere.

I am now embarrassed to mention, that I have a dog called Fenton.

You believed the blogosphere? Dear, oh dear. You must be new here.

I sent a tweet without thinking, which is why my heart's now sinking.

They shot a spam into my inbox. I hope they all go down with smallpox.

"Anonymous coward is littler, for comparing me to Hitler."

I replied to say "I'm not yellow", and "Just who is this Goodwin fellow?"

I shot a query into the net. Sometime later... I haven't had an answer yet.

All should be suspicious, I venture, of winning lotteries they did not enter.

I have yet to be convinced it's true, that microwaved penguins turn a shade of blue.

I have a use for my cloudy box. I use it to store pictures of... um... rocks?

I cussed and just must distrust the cloud where I thrust my images of lust.

I blew through quite a few reviews, to find blue views that were new too.

To the blog craze I did succumb. I built it... but they did not come.

I tried so hard to start a meme. It's harder than it first may seem.

The social media world pretends that I have three thousand friends.

With the 'net I can now tweet, to millions I'll never have to meet.

I have so far been too chicken, to let all see where I check in.

I shot a file into the cloud. "It'll be safe there", I avowed.

Every day I sit down and blog, but pretend it's from my dog.

No posts yet. I will wait. Until I have the perfect bait.

Social media poems are a little odd? I've written some you insensitive clod!

You Are Not A Gadget, But You Might Be A Pinterest Board

Jaron Lanier’s You are Not a Gadget raises interesting points about the commonplace/second nature technology, specifically the Internet, plays in our lives today. 

Lanier questions digital technology’s ability to define people, as “being a person is not a pat formula, but a quest, a mystery, a leap of faith” (p.5). But in a world like ours, where not having a Facebook profile is as ancient giving out your “landline” phone number (and using the word, “landline,” for that matter) we increasingly validate our existence online.

On the same page, Lanier also notes, “it would be hard for anyone, let alone a technologist, to get up in the morning without faith that the future can be better than the past.” A value traceable through the many social media outlets most of us have (Myspace), continue to (Facebook), and will eventually (Pinterest) integrate into our everyday beings.

Pinterest, in particular, is the newest forum of self-expression—an opportunity to collect the things we like, want or wish we could be/have. Users claim their identities and communicate their personalities through the images they pin, whether they belong to them or to someone else, and categorize them on boards by title/subject (referent of the organizational files Lanier mentions).

Mashable also released an article last week naming the up-and-coming personal pinboard the world’s now 3^rd largest social network (behind Facebook and Twitter). As a fan and avid user, I thought of Pinterest often while reading this piece. 

As more Easters are turning into Pinterest craft sessions and Tuesday nights are becoming Pinterest Dinner occasions, is this digital footprint more personally authentic and tangible than Lanier suggests? Or are we hopelessly locked-into the network’s rudimentary niche grasp—followers stuck in the latest digital humdrum—as he fears?

Thought of last week's class

Last weeks's class reminded me of one of the Black Mirror stories. It talks about a chip ingrained back to people's ear is used as a record machine and records everything people have been experienced daily. And the story is about how this recording chip influences people's relationship when they go back to check the lifelong.

Here is the link of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-d0xC-_r0I

Web Standards

After reading "You Are Not a Gadget" by Jaron Lanier, I began to think about all the "web standards" that are currently in place of which I am not even cognizant. I then found this interesting infographic on the history of the web and various web standards:

A Brief History of Web Standards Infographic

At the end of his chapter, Lanier says that in the work of digital creative materials, it is always good to be skeptical. He notes that if it were not for certain people, the internet would look very different. We'd be tied into ugly fonts and designs simply because they were "locked in" by the general public. Instead, these guys pushed the envelope and lobbied for more flexible digital design when many others were simply content with the way things were. Lanier says about the internet: "These designs came together very recently, and there's a haphazard, accidental quality to them. Resist the easy grooves they guide you into. If you love a medium made of software, there's a danger that you will become entrapped in someone else's recent careless thoughts. Struggle against that!

What I find especially interesting in this infographic is the "Predictions" section at the bottom. I think we (collective internet-users as a whole) struggle with the spontaneity of the internet, while trying to keep some cohesive look and feel to the way things operate. This can be expanded into the world of mobile, with Android and iPhone as a great example. The look and feel of Android applications vary drastically. However, Apple keeps a better handle on and has many more standards for the way an application designed for their phones works. There are templates of buttons and navigation bars that make all applications feel as if they were developed by the same person. Apple also has a somewhat rigorous process before an application made by a third-party is available on iTunes. It seems surprising that a company that is known for creativity, simplicity and forward thinking would have such strict standards. However, I think this is the very reason they are so successful with that creativity.

What "internet trends" do you think will become standards in the near future by way of "lock in"?

Google's augmented-reality glasses

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57409331-76/google-yep-were-testing-augmented-reality-glasses/?part=rss&subj=news&tag=title

Google announced that it is working on augmented-reality glasses. "The glasses can stream information to the lenses and allow the wearer to send and receive messages through voice commands. There is also a built-in camera to record video and take pictures."

"One person who had used the glasses said: “They let technology get out of your way. If I want to take a picture I don’t have to reach into my pocket and take out my phone; I just press a button at the top of the glasses and that’s it.”

Is this one step closer to a becoming cyborg? Would you be excited to try these? Would glasses like these have an effect on our brains and memory? Instead of no longer memorizing phone numbers, would we begin to forget street names and addresses?

Life Through Facebook

Our conversation about our digital life log reminded me of this video.

Maybe some of you have seen it, but here is a 3 minute journey of one man's life told through Facebook.

Communication tech: Tethered v.s. close us?

While the article The Tethered Self  talks about how people and their relationship with others are tethered by their usage of the technology, Stefana argued that communication tech is capable of cultivating deeper relationships, bringing love across barriers like distance and workplace rules. 


http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/stefana_broadbent_how_the_internet_enables_intimacy.html

Always On...

Sherry Turkle's article on being tethered had a very salient quote, "Human beings are skilled at creating rituals for demarcating the boundaries between the world of work and the world of family, play and relaxation. There are special times (the Sabbath), special meals (the family dinner), special attire (the armor for a day's labor comes off at home, whether it is the businessman's suit or the laborer's overalls), special places (the dining room, the parlor, the bedroom, the beach). Now always-on/always-on-me technology accompanies people to all of these places, undermining the traditional rituals of separation." 

I have a few thoughts which are seemingly contradictory in nature. First of all, we have allowed the world to enter our private, person, family, play time, and this can make creating rituals more difficult if not impossible. However, I wonder if this constant tethering is a symptom of a inherent need to be connected. Increased connectivity and availability can facilitate community. 

Is it possible to stay connected with "community" and with the person (family member, friend, lover) sitting in front of you? Doesn't respect and love demand complete attention? As the article said, adults who remember how we were BEFORE connectivity are the ones having the hardest time adjusting. The term "crackberry" comes to mind. 

How do we achieve balance? 

A Tethered Self in Cuba

I found some interesting thoughts from the article written by Turkel, The Tethered Self. Wearable and portable mobile devices allow us to being socially active all the time, no matter where we are and who are around us,"The traveling body is contacting others" reminds me a person on my Chinese Facebook site "renren". There is a guy who was posting his picture in Thailand every moment. It's like a live broadcasting of someone's traveling.

Recently I went to Cuba, where internet is not allowed to use (for locals) and is super slow. Thus, people don't have Facebook, twitter, even E-mail. Also, mobile phone is almost 0.8 dollars/minute (personal income is $20-30 per month), so most of people only use telephone booth. So, what happens if the cost of communication is very expensive?

First, I found that most people talk a lot, face to face. If you ask for directions, they give you a lot of details, such as "go straight on this road, turn left at the first corner, you will see a cow is eating grass, then keep left, the road is unpaved, you may see beach on the right side...." Partly it might because people are kind to travelers, but might because communication expense are so high in Cuba, they always try to deliver all the information at one time.

Second, people spend more time on the street. No matter in Centra Havana or some small towns in the south, you can see people just sit on the street and watch cars and horses come and go. Sometimes they were sitting in groups but they don't talk too much. They just watch people. I think we may have more "small talks", such as "have you heard....." or "did you see the news..." in the U.S. compare to these people in Cuba.

Also, they don't care about time. If you ask the taxi driver to come at 11:00am, he may come around 11:40 and still seems like haven't eat breakfast. Because there is no way to reach him or text him to be hurry, we just wait, and start watching people on the street.

Third, people tend to have similar thoughts, not only about the opinions of society, but also the believes. I have talked to many young people in Cuba, such as their opinions about the government, communist party, economy, and what they believe is happiness, their answers are incredibly similar.

I think there are a lot of things that would be interesting for study network communication in Cuba, and how these relate to their personal identity workshop. Today, we can hardly image how our life will be without internet and cell phone, and I know most of my new friends through their posts on social media. But how are we going to communicate in a environment without interent?

Life-logs? Why?

I thought "The Ethics of Forgetting in an Age of Pervasive Computing" was fascinating, though the ending completely caught me off guard. I thought they were going to counter the rationale presented with information on why forgetting is important, thus making a case for our natural memories. Instead they proposed purposefully altering the lifelog information! Interesting, but I'd like to talk about something else here.

While I have to admit the idea of documenting every minute of every day is fascinating (albeit creepy) I am not sold on the rationale. One page 9, they lay out the direct benefits of such a system. I feel like most of the reasons seem a bit weak, and the idea of enhanced "productivity and enjoyment of life by allowing the searching for and recalling of events and actions" seems laughable, specifically the productivity part. I guess what I'm really curious about is our need to relive memories down to exact sensory breakdown. I love looking through photo albums and other memorabilia from my life's events, but I think part of the enjoyment lies in using that one artifact to recall other pieces of memory, not to replay the entire experience. This idea seems to play well to our culture's self-interested, egocentric nature. I wonder how other more community-based cultures would react to this idea. Maybe I'm playing Old Lady Bartholomew again, but I find our aversion to aging and to our body's natural deterioration interesting as well, and I laugh a little at our attempt to master it by means like lifelogs when there are still things like Alzheimer's that can take it away.

I'd also be interested to see how outsourcing our memory in this way affects our brain's functionality.

The Art of Doing One Thing at a Time

Reading "Always-on/Always-on-you: The Tethered Self" reminded me of a recent article sent to me titled "The Art of Doing One Thing at at Time."

I know we all feel tied to our work all hours of the day. It takes restraint not to respond to a boss's email at 6:30 in the morning on a Saturday or on a 'supposed' vacation day. I'm sure many of you share these same struggles as me. I know that I should be more present that I am missing out on some of life's special moments because I'm checking email or even Facebook. My phone is nearby and that means I'm staring at it.

There are days at work where I feel like the only thing I get accomplished is answering email. That's why the article on doing one thing at a time resonated with me. It states that through all the multi-tasking, we are really more unproductive than we would be just focusing on just one task at a time. It makes sense in theory, but harder to deploy in real life.

This is a topic that we have previously covered in this class, but I do think it's a growing problem. What do you think? Are there ways that you are finding it possible to be more present and less tethered?

Are we tethered to the digital technology?

“Adults fell stressed by new responsibilities to e-mail, a nagging sense of always being behind, the inability to take a vacation without bringing the office with them, the feeling that they are being asked to respond immediately to situations at work, even when no response might be preferable or when a wise response requires taking time, time that is no longer available” (Turkle, p.10).

Due to rapid development of digital technologies, people have the ability to response quicker than before. At present, people have multiple communication devices to reach others, emails, phone calls, voice-mails, instant messages, and other ways to communicate immediately. I agreed with Turkle that the digital technologies make adults feel stressed by the responsibilities to response immediately. Every time I went to a place without internet, I fell stressed and always kept thinking if I missed any important emails or news. Do you also think you are tethered to the digital technology? I think we are depending so heavily on the digital technologies today, but what will be like if we back forward to the society with less digital technologies? Are you still going to feel stressed because you can’t communicate immediately?

The Search for the Google

I saw this article just today. It eases the mind just a bit on the challenge of creating a social graph as Google has created a web graph. Mark Andrejevic writes that it is already happening to an extent. We know that everytime we post something about ourselves there is another thread leading to the whole person. We only need the bridge to tie them all together.


http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/03/opinion-johnson-social-graph/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29