SI Summer 2012

This is a really interesting blog! I particularly enjoyed the "where good ideas come from" video from Oct. 19. Also, I liked the tags, which allowed me to look quickly for posts about a topic that interests me, "Internet Anonymity".

I think this is not a good trend, although FB will probably make it happen anyway. It is already pretty obvious that today's teens do not know how to interact socially in a proper manner - they text constantly even while standing next to each other because they prefer to send messages and avoid f2f interaction; they construct sentences in a twitter-like manner. Kids need to form friendships and interact socially face-to-face, not just virtually. They need to speak to others live, know how to write coherent sentences, and not spend so many hours glued to their technical devices. Parents need to impose more guidelines. Librarians can help by assisting in finding age-appropriate websites for children. We don't need to take away the technology, but we do need to help teens and children use it in a better way.

I guess the logic is that kids under 13 are using the site anyway, by lying about their age or getting someone older to create an account for them, so perhaps the best course of action is to create a space specifically for them--with more restrictions and stricter privacy settings. I hope that this pre-teen space is diligently patrolled, and content vetted thoroughly before it gets posted online (sort of like having a forum moderator approve all posts before they appear on the site). I'm not sure if this is feasible....I suppose it depends on how many pre-teens sign on to this thing.

I. don't. like. this. My 12-year old wants a FB account simply because all his friends have one and not for any other reason. It just adds one more layer of policing that schools and parents have to be on top of. I am one of the lucky few parents whose kids are pretty good at self-policing their screen time, but I know that's rare. There are plenty of fun, age-appropriate sites for kids that age -- Pottermore comes to mind... my kids both signed up for accounts there and spend time doing the things tweens like to do, i.e. dueling their friends and socking away Galleons in their Gringotts bank accounts. If they spend a hour on Pottermore, then they know they have to go outside and shoot hoops for an hour. I am a little shocked, actually, that FB thinks tweens are a shoe-in market, since usually that demographic wants NOTHING to do with what their parents do... has FB really cracked the generation gap??

While I don't condone kids spending all their time on the internet, interacting with their friends through IM, I do understand the need for Facebook to create a space for kids under 13. Kids *are* using it anyway, so it only stands to reason (in my opinion) that FB do the responsible thing and police them. My step-sons both have accounts on FB. The oldest is now 13, so he's legitimate, but the youngest is 11 and he wanted one because his brother had one. He also so he could keep in touch with us (he's in Kansas, we're in NJ), so his step-father set up the account and monitors it. I would be a lot happier with him being in a policed-by-moderators environment so I didn't have to rely on his step-dad to do it. I think that there's an upside to the possible changes to FB, as long as it can be properly implemented and policed. I'm just an optimist, what can I say? And yes, I also believe that FB has possibly put a little crack in the generation gap.

The biggest question for me is how will the children under 13 who desire to have a facebook account react when they learn that to do it, the account must be connected to their parents account? At some point every child does something that they do not want their parents to know about..... would that be a deterrent? Would they continue to lie about their ages and use the other tips and tricks to fool the system? Back when I was 14-15 I had a "LiveJournal" account, that I willingly gave my mother access too. I had nothing to hide. But I lost several friends who felt betrayed that my mom was able to then see their posts through my account. I trusted my mom, but my friends didn't. Its a tricky web of social norms, relationships and technology.

I think this an inevitable situation because it's so easy to circumvent the system by just modifying the birth year. Facebook is probably just trying to protect themselves from future legal actions by letting the parents be responsible for accounts of their kids. I still don't like this but let's face the reality, Internet is so big and difficult to be policed.

It's a good thing that I came on here to see if someone else had posted this. I think this is a great article that points out some of the problems we've had as a society embracing technology. It may be five years old, but some of the sentiments still ring true. We need to stop thinking what we see on tv or in the movies is real and start looking at what is ACTUALLY in front of us.

Interesting! it's great to see that this mode of information-sharing has such potential. Text messages are quick, easy, and cheap; they might be ideal for medication or appointment reminders.

I'm honestly interested in why you highlighted the second program, the one about negative aspects of technology rather than the first?

The in-text link to the article: " The High-Tech Gift Economy" is also worth a read. It compares the proliferation of shareware and open source software to the political movement of anarcho-communism.

Oh dear. I wasted many an hour on Farmville back when it was big...way more than I'd like to admit. That's a neat connection between the digital farm and the real world--and how people's obsession over the game (though I don't know if it's still the case...I deactivated my Farm because it was, well, eating up my entire life!) speaks to something deeper, like the desire for community.

There are some failures in the analysis made in the "High Tech Gift Economy". Thinking that the internet was created by the military is a bit of a canard: in my opinion it was the most inventive misuse of military money by a university. Also there is a conception that the 'net runs on the love of pixies and nerds, where in reality it runs on commercial networks successfully making money. I'd much prefer pixie net, but it just ain't so :(

I remember playing farmville and cafeville for a few months. They were catchy, but I felt they were a bit off. The idea of being chained to the computer so my crops would not spoil or my food would not overcook was draining, so I finally gave them up. Plus, the more I read about Zygna, the less I liked them as a company. Here is an blog post about how farmville and the like induce anxiety by design. http://consumerist.com/2010/12/game-developer-says-farmville-is-designed-to-be-negative-and-draining.html

That's really interesting Jorge: I used to play civilization, but it doesn't help me relax, it just winds me up for hours, in much the same way. Then I discovered Osmos, and have a game that actually feels calm and meditative, bizarrely enough. I had enough of those damn smirking pigs, that's for sure: no wonder the birds are angry.

I never got into Farmville myself, but I do remember my news feed on Facebook being overrun with notifications that friends wanted to share their crops and farm animals with me. I got the feeling there was a mob mentality to the game and I was personally turned off by the idea of buying into a product simply because many of my friends did so. The game shows how much our lives can be affected by technology when a "game" dictates how we schedule much of our time just to ensure our imaginary crops don't wither before we can harvest them.

Anton, I agree, Civ would keep me up for hours and hours, but I would argue that Civ is different from the farmville model because it is not oriented towards a repetitive (and time based) requirement that one has to come back to the computer a certain time later to click on stuff. Even the social aspect of farmville is a kind of pressure to get more friends into the game just to unlock more stuff, rather than to share in a community effort or a competition.

You should definitely look at Jesse Schell's lecture (I think maybe next week?) I put it as optional but do take a look.

I do not understand the appeal of Farmville or any other of the 'games' on FB. I guess I also don't understand some people's obsession with their FB or Twitter accounts. If I want to keep in touch with my friends and family, I text or phone them directly - I feel more connected by having direct interactions with them versus reading their wall or sending them a 'gift' for their fake farm. I feel relieved that I no longer have a FB account, and stay in close contact with those people that I really want to keep in contact with. I don't think the 'social' aspect of FB is a substitute for F2F interactions with people you actually like instead of Like.

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.