Group items tagged

Does anyone know about this institution? They do interesting work and seem to research the causes of the digital divide.

We have a number of links from the Berkman Center on the Digital Divide Diigo and found it really helpful in our research. You can join the group if you want to post there. Tim Wu, the lawyer who coined the term net neutrality, was a fellow at Berkman, as well as Eszter Hargittai, a scholar discussed in our presentation section, "users: race and income." We also discuss Lawrence Lessig's work, mostly known for creative commons, in the "net neturality" section. He was also a fellow there. They also have really great weekly talks that they post on their youtube page: http://www.youtube.com/user/BerkmanCenter

A study out of Israel revealed that the greater amount of time teenage girls spend using social networking the more likely their chances are of developing negative body images and eating disorders.

interesting demographic info on users of top social networking sites

This (long) report discusses the use of ICTs in the medical field, primarily IN the human body

I'm not sure if I would characterize this topic as being part of social informatics. Cochlear implants, insulin pumps, and spinal chord devices, just to name a few of the devises, do have interactive measures with the human body. However, social informatics is the study of how ICTs affect people's relationships and aspects of their social contexts. Although these devises influence the lives of their users, this article mainly discusses the ethical implications of using these technologies and the regulations that need to be developed to standardize use.

Well, interestingly enough, some of my undergrads over the years have been fascinated by RFID implants and the ethical implications of those actions. It is possible that a simple little think like an insulin pump, or any kind of pump would have an impact on one's actions and lifestyle. See this amazing talk by Charity Tillman-Dick: http://www.ted.com/talks/charity_tilleman_dick_singing_after_a_double_lung_transplant.html

People used to use the Internet to try on personalities and express themselves freely. Now it may be a corporate trap. Social robots sometimes supplant people. The author comments on "the banalities of electronic interaction" and how we don't interact in meaningful ways. However, some studies have shown than facebook users, for instance, have greater social capital.

we're actually going to read a bunch of Turkle's stuff - I really like her work

I found this through Kevin Kelly's website. "Quantified Self 2011 is a conference for users and tool makers interested in self-tracking systems. It will be a "working meeting" for the QS community (14 groups worldwide), where we will gather, inspire, and learn from each other as we share and collaborate on self-tracking projects. We will also explore the potential effects of self-tracking on ourselves and society."

danah boyd is quoted (name capitalized).

Worst news: The New York Times rolled out a plan on Thursday to begin charging the most frequent users of its Web site $15 a month in a bet that readers would pay for news they have grown accustomed to getting free.

How depressing.

update: I found in the comments section a comment from a NYTimes spokesperson who said that it will be free for students. I haven't been able to find that in the subscription section.

SXSW-i 2011 "didn't feel blindly focused on discovering the killer app. Tech didn't feel like an end unto itself -- rather, it was about processing data with a purpose; data for a greater good." Librarians were a big part of the conversation at this year's festival

I saw this too and was really excited. I caught a story on WNYC yesterday about the importance of curating content, which I'll find and post to the group.

I think there's a special topics course on curation of information/data in the fall!

Note: this is a rumor, but it's interesting if this service will be lauched: "With Circles, I believe that Google will attempt to accomplish something critics from the blogosphere, academia, SXSW 2010 keynoter danah boyd, privacy watchdogs and others have all called on the social networking world to do: to allow our online communication to respect the same boundaries that our offline social lives do."

nothing has been announced yet. it is interesting that google is so visited and has so many users, but has yet to effectively incorporate social networking... i.e. buzz and wave had huge hyped, but it quickly burned away.

Facebook's comments service was launched on March 1. It prevents anonymous comments from trolls because users are logged into facebook.

Jane McGonigal's new book - Reality is Broken - is out. This is an interview with her and some of the users of her games.

From the article: "Still, books are one of the last ad-free zones, and by showing ads on an e-reader, Amazon risks alienating some users, he said. " Libraries too are one of the last ad-free zones.

They may try to release a tablet. "An Amazon tablet could tie together the seemingly disparate parts of the company's business, Mr. McQuivey said, including e-commerce, e-books, video and audio."

Did anyone else notice this link from the previous week? Left wing gad about Douglas Rushkoff starts to question the unintended consequences for the user of social media. Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, etc. may have created exciting new ways for us to interact "virtually", but we pay for it, even when it's free.

I really like that he advocates that students (& all people) learn to program. People resisted learning to type too! And while it is harder, no harder than learning to read or write.

This section of the AARP site provides articles for seniors with information on buying tips, new tools, privacy & security, social media and other recommendations on using technology. The articles are for the novice as well as the experienced technology user. Specific to our conversation on digital divide are the articles on "Boomers Catching Up in Technology Use"

This is the direct link the National Digital Literacy Corps as proposed by the FCC in their 2010 "National Broadband Plan." If Congress decides to adopt and fund the recommendations, the corps will be modeled after Americorps. The program would target non-adopters, users who are new to ICT and the internet. "The Corps should target segments of the population that are less likely to have broadband at home, including low-income individuals, racial and ethnic minorities, senior citizens, people with disabilities, those with lower education levels, people in rural communities, those on Tribal lands and people whose primary or only language is not English." It is recommended that the corps recruit people with language skills so the classes and instruction would be provided in user's primary language.

A nice overview of how DPL differs from other mass-digitization projects such as Europeana and Google Books

I have uploaded other pdf documents at the bottom of one of my pages, but not the Times articles because I thought they would be accessible through the link. However, I don't know whether people notice docs at the bottom of the Google page even though I say "attached below" in the citation. The Times articles are now on ecollege in doc sharing and attached to my discussion reply. I hope that the Economist doesn't block users.

I recently also uploaded the Times articles as PDFs to my second page.

This is data that will cause some privacy issues. Now one can really be connected.

wow, and the data persists even when you upgrade the phone! The article says "In some ways, this shouldn't be surprising. Back in June of 2010, Apple updated its privacy policy to include a paragraph that allows Apple and "partners and licensees" to collect and store user location data." But of course hardly anyone reads the fine print.

Here is the open source tool the researchers made with the location data: http://petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker/