"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts"- Final Net Smart blog

To simplify what I felt as I came to the end of Net Smart, guys, the Internet is really cool. I don't know if we appreciate that fact enough nowadays, and reading this book has helped me to rediscover some of that wonder that I have been taking for granted.

Chapter 5: Social has a Shape
I have always been interested in the concept of "Six Degrees of Separation," aka the theory that everyone on earth is only six connections away from everyone else. The scariest thing about this concept is that a) it is widely accepted as fact, and b) with the help of social media, it's almost inevitable. Tying into that, one the of the most incredible things that I read in chapter 5 was that people I do not personally know could have a statistical influence on my life. Rheingold cites facts that reveal that "friends of friends have about one-third as much influence as people you know directly. The surprising implication is that at least part of your happiness might depend on people you never met"  (198). Rheingold stipulates that this is based on fairly recent research, and so it is only "tentatively" true, but the researchers do make a good case for it to be a viable hypothesis. Frightening as this was to read, I can see it being true. After all, it is not uncommon to lust after the beautiful, photogenic lives that are portrayed both by friends, and by those we don't know. However, it's pretty scary to hear that something as big as overall happiness can be swayed by people we may never meet in real life.

Later in the chapter, I attempted to do as Rheingold suggested and I googled "Visualize Facebook social network," but I learned something interesting. This may have once been a lot easier, but Facebook has cracked down. I found a 2009 Mashable.com article that offered several different apps that allowed people to visualize their Facebook network and I was excited to try them out, only to find that the majority of them have been shut down. After some more research, I learned that the Facebook API (Application Programming Interface) is no longer making it easy to access such information-- personally, I would guess that this is due to privacy issues, but I was unable to find a concise answer. I found some external apps that seemed to find ways around this rule but, as I'm not interested in viruses, I decided against testing them out. Regardless, that's an interesting development since the book has been published!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTQf8MqEfg0#t=135

Pictured above: The only working link from the Mashable article. I thought this was a pretty interesting representation of Facebook users but note-- this is from 2008. Imagine how many more lights there would be now! Also, the quality is pretty laughable, considering what Facebook has grown into in the past 8 years.

My rabbit trail aside, the concept of Social Network Analysis (SNA) is fascinating. I'm sure many of us have had the experience of finding a mutual friend with just about the last person you'd expect. What a small world we live in. SNA has also provided the interesting information that our concept of "the ties that bind" is shifting. Although people still widely prefer and turn to friends with whom they have established strong ties, the weak ties are also valuable. Rheingold cites Granovetter who noted that the weak ties are the ones that "can be important in seeking new information or stimulating innovation"  (206). I can attest to that in a way: Recently I bought clothing from the online store of a girl who I met my freshman year of college, with whom I had maintained only the slighest Facebook friendship with. However, a bond was formed! That would never have happened fifteen years ago. Also, in regard to the concept of "being a bridge" via social media, just today I found out about an apartment for rent through a friend of a friend. I would consider the girl I am friends with on Facebook to be "weak bond" amongst my friends, as we don't know each other too well. However, although we aren't personal friends, I would trust her opinion. If I were apartment-hunting, I would certainly have followed up with the advertisement. She acted as a bridge!

I have responded to this sort of thing in previous blogs, but I will say it again, I appreciate what Rheingold has to say about the merit of social capital, and the idea of "paying it forward." In this instance, he mentioned his relationship with a man called "Philcat," who he met in a chatroom online years ago, but who resurfaced in his life to help him out when he battled cancer. Although the online world can be troublesome, this is a great example of the good that can come from online interaction, not just between people you know in real life, but with people you don't. Of course, a degree of discretion is crucial, but a great deal of good can come from being a conscientious contributor to the online world.

I found Rheingold's concluding discussion of Facebook to be timely, because it touched upon concerns that I am having at this exact point in my life. I made my account in 2007, when I was entering high school. While it is fun for my high school friends and I to look back on so many years ago, it is also a little awkward to know that everyone can see those pictures. Because there is so much of it, it is hard to know what to pick and choose to hide. What I consider memories of my childhood are out there for every one of my connections to see. It's certainly something to consider.

Chapter 6: How (Using) the Web (Mindfully) Can Make You Smarter*

*Excellent use of parentheses.

The public sphere is certainly something to face with care and consideration, especially now that so much can be thrown out into the ether and revived at any point. As was the case throughout the book, Rheingold approaches this fact with reflection, and gives some validity to the cons, as well praising the pros. It's scary that we are living in such a new age, where everyone is struggling to know how to handle the new media we are faced with. How can we dub things legal or illegal if the law has never faced such developments in the past? And who are most equipped to make these decisions? The generation who grew up with the technology? Or the older generation who knew a world before it?
Additionally, a problem that I know I will one day have to face is, how is a parent to advise their children to navigate this new world? New media has gone a lot further than it was when I was growing up. I thought that what boyd had to say on the matter was poignant, "Create a dialogue...Just because [challenges] are complicated in new ways that are baked into [your children's] lives doesn't mean that they are so radically different" (246).

I am very happy to have experienced this book, and to have gotten the opportunity to Skype with Howard Rheingold. I was skeptical at first, because I didn't know the perspective or tone that he was going to take in the book, but I am pleased with the results. As he concludes, it is up to us to make the effort with the tools we have been given, and he has certainly given me quite a bit to think about.

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To conclude this post, I have thought about what I want to take from this class, and have decided that I want to use the tools that I have learned about in order to create something really interesting with code. Mozilla's activities made an impact, and I would love to explore the site further. I know it might be a large undertaking, but I am very interested in code, and would love to use that toward the final project. I think that the programming languages are incredibly interesting, and I have always wanted to learn more about the different kinds that are out there-- right now I only have the most vague knowledge of HTML, C++, and Java. I want to learn more.

Big Brother is Watching You (thanks, Mozilla)

In college, I minored in Business, focusing mainly on Marketing and Advertising. I mention this fact for the reason that my brain has been trained to be attentive and interested in the associations made between product and perception. For example, when I think swoosh, I think Nike, I think Just Do It.

How does this tie in to today's blog? Because, I must admit, when I heard the name "Mozilla" tied to the website, I immediately linked the the web browser, and had no idea that the organization went beyond that. Unlike Google, which I know as a company outside of Google.com, I was unfamiliar with Mozilla. So, before I explored the subject matter for today's blog, I did some research on the Mozilla Corporation in order to refresh my perception of the Mozilla name. On the company's website I found a list of 10 Principles which they aim to uphold. These reminded me of things we've discussed in class. They are, as follows,
1. The Internet is an integral part of modern life—a key component in education, communication, collaboration, business, entertainment and society as a whole.
2. The Internet is a global public resource that must remain open and accessible.
3. The internet must enrich the lives of individual human beings.
4. Individuals' security and privacy on the Internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional.
5. Individuals must have the ability t shape the Internet and their own experiences on it.
6. The effectiveness of the Internet as a public resource depends upon interoperability (protocols, data formats, content), innovation and decentralized participation worldwide.
7. Free and open source software promotes the development of the Internet as a public resource.
8. Transparent community-based processes promotes participation, accountability and trust.
9. Commercial involvement in the development of the Internet brings many benefits; a balance between commercial profit and public benefit is critical.
10. Magnifying the public benefit aspects of the Internet is an important goal, worthy of time, attention and commitment.

Although this is aside from the post of this blog, it was important for me to read the values of Mozilla as a company, prior to knowing what they have to say about web literacy. Now, they have established credibility. 

Going on to the content of Teach.Mozilla.org, I first went to the Web Literacy tab on the Teaching Activities Page and found it to be divided into three categories, "Explore: Reading the Web," "Build: Writing the Web," and "Connect: Participating on the Web." These three categories broke into subcategories, which were point by point definitions of terminologies commonly see around the web, but perhaps unfamiliar to some. It is a good feature to have on the site as a point of reference, especially if the site were to be utilized by a teacher.

The first headline that interested me was the "Back to School Write the Web Kit." I've always been interested in coding, but never learned any beyond basic HTML. Within this headline were 5 activities, and I chose to try "3 Things I <3 Teaching Kit," to "Understand Web Navigation." I really liked that the instructions were highly comprehensive, and included time allocations and helpful tips along the way. In this way, it certainly seemed to be aimed at teachers of younger students, which does not apply to me personally, but nonetheless the formatting was helpful. However, the most exciting thing I picked up from this tutorial, and what I mainly want to focus on, is the Mozilla Thimble Web Maker. Guys. This thing is so cool. At first I was unsure because it was Mozilla advertising one of their own products, but it didn't disappoint. On the contrary, I so enjoyed my time playing around on this website. The activity wound up introducing me to so much more, and I'm genuinely excited to play around on this more in the future. Definitely not just for kids! And, going back to what I opened with, I thought the Thimble tool was a very cool manifestation of Mozilla's 10 Principles. Mozilla built the tool, but chose to provide it free of charge as a helpful learning tool to the public.

The second headline I chose to explore was the "Protect Your Data" headline, under which I found 6 activities. I chose the "Cookies and Third-Party Tracking" activity, mainly because I saw that it utilized another Mozilla open source tool called Lightbeam. I had great luck with Thimble, so I was hopeful. Cookies are one of those things that I vaguely understand, but a vague understanding is not good enough when it comes to issues of online security.
The first link I clicked on brought me to the site of a web series called Do Not Track, specifically Season 1 Episode 2, "Breaking Ad." This episode taught me what cookies were, basically they collect information that helps tailor a website to me personally, my username and preferences, among other things. One of the weirdest things I learned from this video is that legally, at least in Great Britain, users are required to be told that cookies are enabled on a webpage (this is not legally required in America), but there is no "Reject" button. You can only say "Ok," as in, "I acknowledge that this is happening, here's my info." That's a little Big Brother-esque, don't you think? Additionally, I learned about Ethan Zuckerman, the man who unintentionally created the first targeted pop-up ad. So, if anyone would like to create an angry mob, I'm interested in starting one and finding him ;)
The video proved to be very interesting, especially in regard to my advertising background, and it was pretty crazy to see how advertising, cookies, third parties, and my personal information all come together. Absolutely nothing is personal or sacred! You, as a person, are literally watched, collected, and sold for advertising purposes.
Going back to the activity, Lightbeam did not disappoint. I enabled the add-on to Firefox and did as I was told, I browsed. I chose my 5 favorite sites, Facebook, Twitter, Etsy, Ebay, and Amazon.

Pictured: REALLY?

In roughly two minutes, all I did was go to the aforementioned 5 sites, and I only logged in to facebook, Lightbeam recorded that 48 third party sites connected with me. What??? That's so completely insane. By clicked to two more pages, the number rose to 51. How is that even possible??

As was the case with Thimble, Mozilla's Lightbeam service proved to highly useful. This was another highly valuable activity for students of all ages, and I personally feel enlightened (and a little scared, to be honest). The internet truly is an amazing and terrifying tool, and I'm starting to understand why some people like the idea of going "off the grid." But is that even realistic anymore?

I have to say, I was skeptical when I first started clicking around this website, but I have been proven wrong. Mozilla offers some great  tools for the expansion of knowledge, geared toward all students, and it's really cool that they're all free of charge. I can't wait to see how Laura utilizes it in class tomorrow!

A Whole New World! Response to Net Smart Chapter 4

"If you've never read any business case histories, but if you've run a guild, or organized a raid, or spent time resolving drama and disputes in World of Warcraft, your mind-set is well prepared for the real world in a very different way than a college MBA would be prepared to run a company."

This quote that Rheingold cites from Joi Ito in Chapter 4 of Net Smart is a telling representation of our 21st century Digital Age. We live in a changed world, and it is fascinating to me that the technologies that were once seen as merely being fun are now beginning to have a different perception in mainstream society. This isn't to say that just anyone should go out and list World of Warcraft in the "Relevant Experience" field of his or her resume, but it's an interesting concept. It's nice to see that there are acknowledged benefits to "nerd culture."

There are two things that I continually appreciate about Rheingold. Firstly, as I have mentioned before, he refuses to make the digital world into a bogeyman, and he achieves this by continually linking present advancements to those of the past. For example, he says that "Social media are part of a lineage that connects cave paintings to alphabets to hyperlinks." I think that this is a brilliant comparison, and I think that if anything could sooth the worries of those who aren't prepared for digital advancements, this might solve the problem. I quoted that on my Twitter for a reason, it really made me think!

The second thing that I appreciate about Rheingold's study of the online world, is that he has fully immersed himself in it. When I am reading this book, I don't sense the words of a lofty academic reflecting on the pleasures of the "youths." Rheingold explains his own experience in virtual communities, and defends them as real places in which one can find friendship and community. This is a beautiful asset of the online world, and it is nice to see it noticed and appreciated for what it is.

His discussion of the differences between the concepts of social "networks" and social "communities" was also interesting to me. It's not something I ever considered, but it is certainly true that there is a difference between the etiquette that is required for participation in each. There may be a huge difference, for example, in the network of classmates and coworkers that one forms on his Facebook, and the fandom community that he is a part of on Tumblr. There are different rules governing different online interactions, just as there are for the face-to-face interactions of daily life. Rheingold offers several helpful tips throughout this chapter, but his tips for behavior in online communities really struck me as being important for two reasons. First, many people turn to virtual communities, and it is good to know basic etiquette. Second, it may not be obvious when it's done right, but it is excruciatingly obvious when it is done wrong.

Pictured: Facebook done wrong.

Access to the internet brings people together and enables them to stand together for causes that they believe in. The discussion on crowdsourcing brought to mind websites such as GoFundMe, Kickstarter  and Indiegogo, to name just a few. These sites have enabled dreams to become realities for so many people through the donations of supporters who are interested in the ideas of their peers. I especially liked Rheingold's classification of crowdsourcing as "playbor orgaized by and for the playborers' benefit." Wikipedia is my personal favorite example of crowdsourcing and collaboration that he discusses, because it was, for so long, such a bad word in society. If most teachers I had growing up were to define Wikipedia it would probably be as follows: "Wikipedia: n. The literal devil that leads students to sin." On the contrary, instead of collaboration leading to mass chaos, the majority of people who edit Wikipedia pages are educated, knowledgeable, and quickly fix any mistakes or pranks that may appear. While Wikipedia, like all sources, must be verified, it is an incredible example of what happens when people join together to contribute. While the system is, as Rheingold says, vulnerable to the world, the world is also what makes it invulnerable. What a cool notion!

Rosenberg and Postman's Articles

In the Context of Web Context:


I found that this article offered helpful tips on how to navigate the web. Something that I have found to be more and more of a problem in my post-graduate life is stepping into the world outside the college bubble and facing the onslaught of both news and "news." Differentiating between good and bad sources is crucial-- as an example, just today I was researching the Zika disease that has become so prevalent. I noted that along with major news sites, there was an article about it on Buzzfeed. Nothing against the writer, but when I think "reliable," Buzzfeed isn't the first website to come to mind.
Learning how to sort through all the junk is a crucial skill, and I especially will remember "whois." I believe Rheingold mentioned that resource as well, and I have already bookmarked it for future use.
Rosenberg also mentioned other internet checks and balances that I had never thought of, such as looking up the site in Internet Archive, and looking into the source code. These are just further tools that will be helpful additions to my skill arsenal.


How's Your Bullshit Detector?


Hmmm. As for this article.
Although I can certainly relate to the frustration expressed by Stephen Pizzo, I felt that it wasn't a very worthy introduction to the piece that followed. It was extremely opinionated and rather scattered. In fact, I was fairly confused at first as to what I was reading, before I recognized it as a lead-in to the main point, Postman's address.
On that note, I'll turn to Postman. I found myself agreeing wholeheartedly with the first few paragraphs of his address. I believe that Hemingway would be proud of the way in which his famous phrase has been expounded upon, because crap detection is an important skill to have. Bullshit wastes everyone's time and, looking at this from the perspective of a future professor, I don't want to waste my students' time, or my own.
I was totally on board with the points Postman made about pomposity and inanity- my favorite part of the article was as follows,

"The press and air waves are filled with the featured and prime-time statements from people who are in no position to render informed judgments on what they are talking about and yet render them with elan and, above all, sincerity. Inanity, then, is ignorance presented in the cloak of sincerity."

I couldn't agree more, this is extremely frustrating to me and I was glad to hear it said so eloquently.

However, I started losing Postman's train of thought as he started talking about "Eichmannism," and had to do some research on the side to understand that reference, which distracted me from the point of the article. When he went on to superstition, he lost me completely. I felt that his points went from objective to opinionated. At first the address was factual and engaging, but when he introduced superstition, it got rather meta and he lost me.
Further, I have to pose the question-- is it the job of the teacher to educate the youth along such subjective lines? Perhaps it is the job of the teacher to instruct against writing bullshit that purposely wastes the time of everyone involved, but I would ague that it is not the job of the teacher to educate subjective thought.

I look forward to discussing this article further in class.

Net Smart: Intro-Ch. 3 Reading Response

And thus begins my first blog-post of the 2016 Spring Semester, for ENG 5085, New Media Studies. The first book we are looking into this semester is Howard Rheingold's Net Smart: How to Thrive Online. My immediate reaction to this book was excitement, as I have learned that Rheingold is one of the pioneers of the internet, having been an active enthusiast and participant since the 1970s. I personally believe that my generation (heyy 90s babies!) were among the first to truly explore the established internet, but Rheingold was a part of it since it put the typewriter out of business. In my opinion, that's pretty cool.

Delving into the book, I was immediately drawn in by the Introduction. Right off the bat, Rheingold establishes his background and addresses the fears that people have upon our entrance into the digital age. To pretend that that the new technologies we have at hand aren't something totally new and understandably daunting would be foolish. Students now know more than their teachers about ever-emerging technologies, and children know more than their parents about a world that is totally new. My generation fell into this new world at an odd time, because I can remember both sides-- I remember getting in trouble for passing paper notes, as well as texting in class. For this reason as well, I can see the benefits of the old as well as the new. I grew up experiencing the firsthand excitement of the next astonishing technological development (from the Nokia 3310 to the iPhone 6, from overheard projectors to white boards). At the same time, when I look back, I am blown away, and wonder how it all happened so fast.  For this reason I certainly agree with Rheingold that it is crucial to be aware and mindful of the new world.

Chapter 1, "Attention!", focuses largely on mindfulness: re: not allowing the digital world to only serve as a series of click-bait article and rabbit holes. I really enjoy reading about psychology, and I liked that Rheingold spent a lot of time talking about the mental drive behind attention, memory, and the things that distract us. I spend a lot of time getting distracted by the digital world, and it was interesting to read the scientific facts behind distractions. For example, the waste of time that happens when your attention shifts between tasks, and how much potential productivity gets thrown to the way-side.

I also found Rheingold's use of historical tie-ins to be utterly fascinating. He cites Claude Fischer as noting that 100 years ago people were worried about the societal implications of the telephone and, even further back, Plato's Phaedrus from the fifth century, wherein Plato noted people's fears of transcribing spoken word to written form. As it has happened in the past, people must learn where to focus their attention in order to make the most out of these new tools. There is, indeed, nothing new under the sun.

That brings us to Chapter 2, "Crap Detection," or, as I like to call it, "Everybody Lies" (thank you, Dr. House). To be perfectly honest, as a person who has grown up in the 21st century, this chapter didn't strike me as anything hugely revolutionary. There is a lot of nonsense on the internet, and it is much easier to be satisfied with a surface level search, than to put in the work required to confirm that the facts are correct. However, it is very true that facts must be verified, and many things are hugely biased, innocently mistaken, or unapologetically false. I found his facts on search engine optimization to be interesting, as well as all the work that goes into securing a first page search result. I will also be using some of the websites he mentioned when I need to confirm the reliability of facts found online.

Once again, I was interested by Rheingold's ties to the past. He cites the writing of Denis Diderot, wherein Diderot speaks of the necessity for the categorization of written information (spoiler alert-- this leads to the encyclopedia). In this world too, we have have a wealth of knowledge and must learn how to deal with it, and that progress is happening.

In the final chapter for this entry, Chapter 3, Participation Power, Rheingold once again pulls from the past to set a juxtaposition against the current digital world. He looks back as recently as 1991 to show how much power there is to be had in the ability to participate via the digital world. Something like video making, which was once restricted to a set group of people, is now something that anyone with enough creative talent and technological know-how can access. This point also made me consider on a larger scale. Right now we are facing another presidential election and, prior to Obama, social media presence was not required or even expected of a potential candidate. Now, it is expected. How our values have changed!

I greatly enjoyed reading the study of internet culture from a scholarly perspective, and I found Rheingold's two communities, friendship and interest, to be exceedingly accurate. One line I thought to be well stated was, "All the cool kids and wannabes are likely to be found in a friendship-driven community. Interest-driven participation, however, is full of people who are not popular or mainstream in their local youth culture" (118). This is a very accurate summation of internet culture and struck home for me- I'm still friends with a girl in California that I've never met in person, I met 8 years ago on a Facebook fanpage for Twilight (and hush, I was 14 and Twilight was very popular)! It is a very different world than it once was, and whether is it for the sake of friendship, interest, or rallying behind a cause, the power of participation cannot be taken for granted.

I look forward to discussing further throughout the semester. See you in class!