Social Informatics

Nicholas Negroponte started this organization to create a program where laptops are given to children around the world. He is a member of the MIT faculty since 1966.

MIT has a tremendous economics program as well.

Journal of Digital Information Article Roberta Lamb and Susan Johnson, University of Hawaii, Manoa

This is interesting, I hadn't noticed it earlier

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 have used Marcus P. Zillman as a resource in previous papers for school so I was intrigued when I saw this HUGE list of social informatics and networking websites that he had compiled. He also writes for LLRX a highly regarded Law Librarian e-zine here: http://www.llrx.com/authors/398

Wow, this list is huge. Problem with a list like this is I wonder how often it is managed, to make additions and remove URLs that don't exist anymore.

I do not know what type of comment I should add. Probably the best thing to write is a question - how seriously do you think one should take the idea of being a citizen of a virtual country?

Honestly with all of the society games available online I'm not surprised that this idea has not gained more popularity. Most social networks are full of people who just want to belong. This is the perfect way to belong to something and aid in the creation as well.

This site documents the public response to internet phenomena (e.g., smiling dogs, phrases, viral videos).

This is fascinating to me. Some years ago I have read Richard Dawkin's The selfish gene (http://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Gene-Anniversary----Introduction/dp/0199291152/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1296232952&sr=1-3) and the Idea of Memes, using us, humans, to reproduce and evolve was quite amazing. I would also recommend Susan Blackmore's The meme machine (http://www.amazon.com/Meme-Machine-Popular-Science/dp/019286212X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1296232884&sr=8-1), it was interesting for me. Yes, it falls under the "popular science" category, and her pseudo)scientific style could be a bit irritating; but overall there were some interesting ideas. P.S. I did not get the hyper-linking to work for me. I would appreciate some clues :-)

scientismic - a new term?

And the follow up. Most astonishing of course is the sizes of Facebook and MySpace in the two data results.

It's still used for Music information and community... and it still has a large membership though usage is down. Many people may not log in anymore, but did not delete their accounts.

true. The music set up there is very good. Many of my musician friends have their professional sites in myspace and link to them via fb.

This is an organization that publishes credible statistics and research reports on internet usage

Great place to find stats of internet use and demographics

I've seen their director Lee Rainie speak a few times as the lead keynote at Computers in Libraries. He is such an amazing speaker, I keep going even though each year he pretty much gives an update on their research into internet usage.

I posted the brief which has links to the original Google study and Nicholas Carr's underwhelmed response because the summary is nice and easy to digest plus if you wish to delve further you can. Basically Google challenged students in a library versus those using Google to answer 'random' questions- Nicholas Carr responds- " How did the University of Michigan researchers come up with the questions that they had their subjects find answers to? They "obtained a random sample of 2515 queries from a major search engine." Ha! Maybe the question we should be asking, not of Google but of ourselves, is what types of questions the Net is encouraging us to ask. Should human thought be gauged by its output or by its quality? That question might actually propel one into the musty depths of a library, where "time saved" is not always the primary concern".

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!

"the dating site had been used over the past couple of weeks as a clandestine location to exchange information and words of encouragement regarding the citizen uprisings in Libya."

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

Sherry Turkle's new book is cited.

OK my favorite thing on this blog is the Norwegian translated term for Social Informatics- "Samfunnsinformatikk". It really made me aware of just how international and not so narrow this field is. I can get caught up in a real American world view and this little tidbit kind of opened my eyes a bit and made me realize that there will be great international sources too!

I was interested in the concept of Bildung, which incorporates many different aspects of knowledge gathering and personal growth such as moral development, generosity, scientific thinking etc. It is relevant to me, as an educator.

Blogs, associations, technical websites and basically Steve Sawyer's list of most helpful websites on this topic. What I find most useful is that having been sort of a pioneer in SI having his recommendations makes me feel that these sites are more useful than ones I might find on my own or at least a good place to start.

various concerns that affect its use

Is browsing anonymously possible?

Not surprising that FB is behind this one... it's interesting that it took the national media's attention to change it: "Facebook plugged this leak of personal information, but only after the problem was given prominent coverage in the Wall Street Journal. When the leak was highlighted by computer scientists in August 2009, nine months earlier, Facebook took no action."

I read this article detailing why e-books are better for the environment, cheaper, easier for eyes to read, convenient... My question is if anyone has an e-book reader and how they like it. I'm considering one of my own.

I have a Kindle and I LOVE it. I will admit that I hate that I cannot share my books with my friends as this is something that I used to do all the time. The Nook has that capability and there are rumors that Amazon will push through software that will allow this capability and I really hope they do. The Kindle has done amazing things for my book shelves and I think my husband is thrilled that we no longer have to keep adding. It is a dedicated ereader so it is limited to what I can do compared to an iPad but when I just want to read something the Kindle (or ereader) cannot be beat. While you are reading the iPad you are looking a computer monitor and that really strains my eyes. The Kindle is exactly like reading a book and there is no eye strain. Plus, the Kindle is a lot lighter than a book so it is much more comfortable to hold for long periods of time. It is great when I travel because I have a ton of books loaded onto my Kindle and I am set to go and I do not have to worry about their weight or carrying them around. Dessi mentioned that she liked having the old-fashioned paper in her hands and I thought I was going to be that way as well but I got over it real quick! I will admit that I do not like it for my school text books because I like to be able to visually see my books and I place notes all over the place with post-its and an old-fashioned book is just better for me in that respect.

They all seem to have advantages and disadvantges... I agree one problem with the ipad is the screen - it's better than a typical computer screen, but not as easy on the eyes as a dedicated e-reader. I am still attached to the physical experience of reading and writing, but that's cool that has really worked for Heather. One of the reasons why it might have not worked for scholarly reading is that the tools still seem limited for engaged reading, marking up texts, highlighting, etc. I am hoping there will be good apps for this with the ipad (i just got it and haven't had a chance to look). Beestel, you have to read through the details of each device to find out what is best for you and your reading needs.

Mobile phones have many useful apps in poor countries, including verifying safety of medicine, assisting trade, enabling "crowdvoicing" and creating branchless microbanking systems.