Group items tagged

Good article! What I found interesting was the correlation between user demographics being the same online as it is offline, i.e. more males checking political communication online AND offline. I think it shows the transition from offline media use, or more traditional modes to online and often an accumulation of both. A bit off topic but it makes me think about how we're becoming masters of mult-tasking, allowing us to be in tune to several different media - whether it be traditional TV, radio etc, and switching gears to reading news online, watching videos online, listening online. As I type this, I'm researching papers and watching TV and feel like I'm in tune to both. Researching how people are now becoming the ultimate multi-taskers would be interesting. However, because we are becoming such great multi-taskers, are we almost giving ourselves a sort of "ADD" in which, in the future, we'll have a hard time concentrating on ONE thing for a certain amount of time. I find it hard to concentrate often on a project or paper with multiple messages going on, emails coming in, texts, Facebook notifications, etc. and frequently break to do all things at once = a ton of white noise!

I think we can all relate to this wall of digital "white noise" as university students within the information management sector. It seems as though there is a fine line between multi-tasking and organized distraction. I often find myself dividing my time between school work, personal correspondence, and managing my Ebay account, but this doesn't necessarily mean I'm being more efficient. Earl Miller, a neuroscientist at MIT, has actually proven that the human brain "can't focus on more than one thing at a time" (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95256794).

Great article @ ABC. I was doing some research for my group project for the unit about e-books, brain, order, etc. and have become extremely interested in the impact of technology on our brain. As much as we may like to think we are great multi-taskers, it seems that our ability to toggle between multiple tasks on computers has hindered our ability to focus on long-winded tasks.

RJ, this is a great article. I had noticed those 'trending articles' and spotify things on my facebook page, and I have been avoiding the opt-in's but I wasn't aware of what was going on. This article explains it well.

I know right.. me too! I usually have to circumvent the process in order to avoid installing the apps. I would go straight to the website where the news/article is posted instead of clicking the link directly from Facebook.

Yes, thank you. I was treating all those "trending articles" like spam. These types of posts have been a recent annoyance with my FB (I've been on since 2007), and I was starting to get the nagging feeling that FB was going to be slowly taken over by information not related to your chosen friends group. I was envisioning having to weed through pages of passive posts to get to your real information. Would this not be the death knell of the service?

I'm not a fan of the news sites social readers; most of my network uses the Washington Post one and Yahoo. At first I thought it was cool, but then I got weirded out at the thought of my network being able to "see" what I'm reading at any given time. What if someone made assumptions about me based on what I was reading at any given time? I really wish Google Plus would take off...the only reason I, and I suspect a lot of other people, are holding fast to Facebook is that our friend networks aren't making the switch...and what's the point of being in a social networking site if you're the only person there?

I really liked the quote "sharing is the key to social networking" and it shouldn't be passive, but not aggressive either. Oversharing becomes a problem where soon newsfeeds are clogged with a million stories and recommendations. Like others above, I'm immediately turned off when I go to read an article and have to download an app first, it's frustrating when clicking an article becomes a long-winded process. @Meaghan I was also a huge proponent of Google + at first, was one of the only people who originally had it, waited for it to catch popularity, but here it's almost a year later and I still haven't gained any new friends. I wonder what the hesitancy is behind not using Google+. It's interesting to think about the decision and thought processes social media users go through when deciding what forums to use or not use, why do some people actively use Facebook, but not Twitter? I'm guessing theories such as media richness (lean vs rich messages) and other factors come into play, as well as ease of use.

I have to say I've never heard of Google +, and have often thought about shutting down my facebook account for good...I wont do Twitter. What does that mean for me as a MLIS major I often thought? Should I be more "plugged in"? I'm becoming nostalgic about old means of communication (letters, books, even phone calls) This is also troubling because I feel that the new open graph is very overwhelming, have have clicked on links and then shut them right back down, because you must enable MORE links, apps, programs, all wanting to get my inforamtion. It's also scary that facebook is becoming a necessity, rather than just a fun social networking site. My old high school depends on it to contact us for reunions, my aunt uses it as her main way of contacting me, and its often the only way I'll ever see those photos my sister took at the beach! We've Created a Monster! Keeping it a simple model would be preferable.

Great points Amanda. On the other side, I would say forums like Facebook has allowed us to keep in contact with those we wouldn't normally have access to, or find those we wish to contact but can't find in just the yellow pages. I agree there are times when I wish someone would pick up the phone and just call instead of trying to have a text conversation or email conversation. However in terms of using Facebook and other e-vite sites/modes, sometimes it is the cheapest and easiest mode to send out a mass message i.e. school reunion invite, in as little time and for as little money as possible. Also you can get real-time RSVP, which I'm guessing from the views of the event administrator can be super helpful when trying to get an idea of attendees. I do also feel nostalgic about old means of communication and often wonder how people will communicate in the future, what communication choices they will make, etc.

I found Open Graph for the first time writing an report for Library School on my favourite site, Board Game Geek (boradgamegeek.com). It's kinda worrying, in the same way thrid party cookies worry me: it a use of technology that can be used for good that could be so easily subverted. That would make a good project, I reckon.

Wow. I didn't know that Facebook could really do something like this. I knew, much like Google, they could track our activity and match ads according to what our interests are. But I didn't know that they could take information from our pages and re-purpose it for more than just data-mining purposes.

This is an interesting blog as long as you can get around the book promotions :-) I thought the Social Media section on the site particularly interesting. One of the articles I liked was the one on Smartmobbing by Howard Rheingold (http://rebooting.personaldemocracy.com/node/5484). This is an interesting idea because a lot of politically charged organizations are utilizing social media to basically create online mobs. Social media is now used to organize petitions, spread the word about marches, and basically spread information. People who were once sort of out of mainstream politics can now get involved and keep track of what is going on in the world. Social media has definitely influenced politics, changing the way parties endorse their candidates and more.

@ Maranda (aside... I didn't see a way to "comment on a comment" so I am posting this directly under the main post) -- I think the the social mobbing you mention is a really interesting trend. In my town, we recently started an online petition through change.org to keep our town pool. It took only a few days to get twice the signatures we needed and no gas was used or feet blisters created. I am trying to think critically of a downside to this manner of using social tools, but I cannot think of one! @Jorge -- Very nice blog. I found a great article (http://www.technologyreview.com/view/428043/there-is-no-digital-divide/) debating the other side of the digital divide argument posed by the NYT's piece from last week. I also like Rheingold's "infotention" invention. I could use a little "infotention" intervention -- every time I get involved with a tech or social tool, a new one is created that seems better and more suited to whatever task I was trying to accomplish. Sometimes I feel as if we are living in a time when nothing remains permanent.

This guys seems very clever and witty! I enjoyed reading his blog about Twitter (http://blog.sfgate.com/rheingold/2009/05/11/twitter-literacy-i-refuse-to-make-up-a-twittery-name-for-it/) talking about how this powerful social media can be so influential and useful if the user knows how to utilize it for the right reasons. Being a non-Twitter user, I found it interesting how he explained numerous advantages of being an active member. Now that I've read this, I might reconsider of joining it...

This was a very informative blog! Thanks Jorge. Like Pam, I really liked the "infotention" idea. diigo is a perfect example. I really just started looking at it today and was really confused (if you couldn't tell with my questions) on how it worked, where to comment, etc. The more I've looked at it today, the easier it has become to use. But something new will probably come along in the net couple months and then I'll have to learn how something works all over again.