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How much time is too much?

This is a question I often ask myself when, whilst doing homework, I find myself checking Facebook for the umpteenth time. If you, like me, are unsure of whether or not you are spending too much time on Facebook, then you will find the following helpful:

Five Clues You Are Addicted to Facebook:
1.) You lose sleep over Facebook

2.) You spend more than an hour a day on Facebook

3.) You become obsessed with old loves

4.) You ignore work in favor of Facebook

5.) The thought of getting off Facebook leaves you in a cold sweat


The list above was created by psychologist Lipari, because, believe it or not, psychologists get a significant number of patients coming in for social networking addictions. There are many adults that are starting to neglect the duties of this world in favor of ease and simplicity of the social networking world. I think that at the point where someone can’t function in the real world anymore is the point where a social network becomes a social dysfunction.

Since, I found many items on the list to be a bit extreme for my case, I think a better indicator would be trying to see how long I can go without Facebook. Sometime in the future I’ll try to go a week or so without it, but maybe not just yet…

Image by be_khe via Flickr

Unless you’ve been completely oblivious to the news during the past few weeks, it’s likely you’ve heard about the supposed “pandemic” that is sweeping the nation, the H1N1 virus, more commonly known as the Swine Flu. I know I’ve seen it all over in the news headlines, and have gotten precautionary e-mails from friends and family telling me to make sure to wash my hands…

But how can we tell which reports are informational and which are just unnecessary hype?

As we just read in our assigned readings for the week, the intro and Major Trends sections of “The State of the News Media”, the news is becoming less centralized, and as a result, less reliable. It states that, “through search, e-mail, blogs, social media and more, consumers are gravitating to the work of individual writers and voices, and away somewhat from institutional brand. Journalists who have left legacy news organizations are attracting funding to create their own websites.” And one of the main problems with this new trend away from big name news sources to smaller individual enterprises is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to make sure information is legitimate, which is particularly important during a global health crisis.

According to CNN.com, health officials fear that the decentralization of the media is causing people to turn more and more to social networking sites, specifically Twitter, for news information. This change may be adding to the unnecessary hype, and contributing to the promulgation of incorrect information that is leading people to make unwise decisions. For example, many tweeters cautioned their listeners to stop eating pork in order to avoid the flu, even though this assertion that the flu is caused by eating pork has not been approved by health officials.

While it is quite possible that Twitter is contributing to mass uninformed hysteria, it can still provide a lot of good. The statements without foundation or based purely on emotion are being contested by other Twitter users, providing for balanced discussion. Some health officials say Twitter is a good way to get people talking and thinking about the flu and is useful for giving out helpful and relevant information about disease prevention. In addition, users can get information about new outbreaks and recommended precautionary measures right from the Twitter updates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Even though the decentralization of the media may make us more susceptible to falling prey to misinformation, I think this model for distributing the news has a lot of potential for the future. If internet users are smart and selective about what information they read and believe, then the shift away from well-known news industries can prove to be an even more effective means of conveying information, and can possibly save you from the dreaded Swine Flu.

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Have you ever wondered what life would be like if you could update your status on Twitter with just a single thought? Or engage in a potentially embarrassing conversation in public without anyone else hearing you? Well, wonder no more! The invention of Audeo by Scientists at Ambient Corporation can make both of these seemingly impossible activities, possible.

When we speak, our brains send waves to our voice boxes to let it know what to say. But what’s even more interesting is that the brain also does this when we just think about saying something. Audeo, a nerve-tapping neckband, picks up on the waves that our brain sends to our voice box when we think about saying something and can translate them into words. Audeo can then send the information to a computer, allowing us to update Twitter, or send it to a cell phone where the waves are converted into an automated voice that the person on the other line can hear. (The video of the first silent phone call is posted below)

My succession of thoughts upon hearing this were: first awe at the ingenuity of the invention, then amazement at how lazy we have become that even typing is too strenuous for us, and finally worry that when/if this device becomes mainstream I might let something embarrassing slip through my mind for someone else to hear… But fortunately, the device does not voice inner thoughts, and one must deliberately think about voicing words in order for them to be picked up. In the words of scientist Callahan, it takes a “level above thinking” for this device to work.

Either this is a sign of great advancement or great laziness…but personally, I’m really excited about what we can do with this in the future.



Sorry guys, I couldn't figure out how to upload the video, so here's the link: First Voiceless Phone Call

Image by premasagar via Flickr

There are many different viewpoints on the importance of Twitter. Some people like twitter because it is convenient to access (from either a cell phone or computer) and because it is a good way to keep up with what friends are doing. Also, the speaker we had in class talked about its practical potential. If someone puts an update on Twitter about bad traffic, it can save us a lot of time, or if a friend tweets about a good sale, it would help both the company and the people who buy the products.

But there is another group of people, myself included, that are just asking “Who cares?” I think Twitter is interesting to check once in a while, but there isn’t really much motivation for me to keep checking the site just so I can see that one of my friends is “eating PB&J” or “doing homework.”

Other concerns about Twitter are the commonly-heard complaints that it is too brief, can be annoying if people update it too frequently, and has a tendency to exceed bandwidth (in which case the “fail whale” will appear).

But another concern with Twitter, to which I had never really given much thought, came up when I was reading an article on CNN.com called, “Scientists Warn of Twitter Dangers.” This article expressed some scientists’ beliefs that using social-networking devices such as Twitter are numbing our sense of morality. The argument is that Twitter is so brief and rapid, that it doesn’t give us time to fully experience the emotions that each post is trying to convey, and as a result, we are becoming more and more indifferent to human suffering.

I thought this was kind of interesting, because it is something that I never really would have thought about. What kind of impact this theory will have on the future use of Twitter, I don’t really know. But I think the chances of us slowing down at all for the sake of morality are pretty slim.

And Sorry about the lag, guys! I'm not really sure how to fix it...

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This week in class we tried out using Second Life. We created our own avatars, customized their appearance, and then explored the digital world. But, frankly, I didn’t like it at all.

Customizing my avatar’s appearance was a chore because it never did quite what I wanted, and at one point my avatar’s skirt was floating 3 feet in front of her… And even walking in Second Life is extremely difficult because the graphics take such a long time to load.

However, even if all of these pitfalls were corrected, I still don’t see the point of the average person using it to just hang out. Maybe it has some benefits to the business world, but I don’t see why hanging out and exploring a world with complete strangers is so appealing. I understand that there is some level of social interaction, but not nearly as much as on other social networking sites, like Facebook. For this reason, I don’t think that Second Life will ever become as mainstream as Facebook, but I think the idea can be built upon and can provide some benefit in the future.

An example of an area where the concepts presented in Second Life can be useful is in the realm of online shopping. I just read an article today about how online stores are thinking about changing their layouts to look more like Second Life and allowing their users to create their own avatars. The avatars can walk around the store and try on different outfits, so the buyer can get more of an idea of how it will look. Customers can even meet up with other friends online to go shopping together! This in turn will increase sales, because customers will feel more certain about their purchases, and retailers can see how popular certain clothing items are by seeing how many times it was “tried on.”

While I personally do not think that Second Life itself will grow much larger, I am very interested in seeing the possible future benefits that it can bring.

I found this on the comics section of my iGoogle page, and I just thought I'd share it with you guys!

Image by Stuart Barr via Flickr

When cell phones were first created, the original purpose was to bring people closer together. You could phone an aunt or uncle who lived far away in a matter of seconds. But as technology is advancing, it seems that we are also coming up with new ways to avoid people and potential awkward situations.

I mean, how many of us don’t pick up the phone when we see a certain name appear on the screen? Or choose not to respond to a text when it’s inconvenient? I know I’m definitely guilty of this.

I recently saw an advertisement for a company called “Slydial” that takes you directly to a cell phone user’s voice mail, and thus avoiding any unwanted conversation. One of the advertisements was, “Dump your lover directly on voice mail!” I mean, really? Have we become so dependent on technology, that we can’t even have a personal conversation without having to use some sort of gadget for a crutch?

I don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong with the concept of going directly to someone’s voicemail. I can see how it would be useful to just relay a quick message or reminder, or if you aren’t sure if it’s a bad time for them, etc.

But if we can’t even talk to someone in person about an important matter, like breaking up with them, then it seems as though we’re just using technology to hide behind, and our real-life communication skills are taking a dive. Who knows, maybe in the future there will be no personal interaction at all. I don’t think it would ever go that far, but we certainly seem to be headed that way. Hoj

In the real world, with our economy in shambles and people losing their jobs left and right, it is natural to wonder if the economy’s effect on real life businesses has a similar effect on a virtual one.

Second Life, for example, is a virtual world that mimics real life. It contains virtual businesses where users can buy, sell, rent or trade land, goods and services with other users. But, how are decreasing incomes in real life changing consumer’s spending habits online?

This question is not as simple as it seems, because it varies from user to user. Some may argue that the Second Life Economy is actually more stable because 1 U.S. dollar goes a lot farther in the game than in real life (1 USD = 228 Linden Dollars), and only people spending large amounts of money on the site are trying to cut back. However, the general consensus seems to be that the economy is definitely having a negative impact on Second life spending.

Since most people buy Linden Dollars on credit cards, whose interest rates are skyrocketing, everyone is thinking twice about purchasing them. If you travel through Second Life, you can see that many of the high-end clothing stores are almost completely empty, whereas the stores with the most bargains are continually packed.

From this, we can reasonably say it’s possible that the world’s economic problems are impacting the virtual one. However, since the number people actually playing Second Life is not decreasing, but the amount of money flowing into it is, another question that awaits us in the next few years is whether or not Second Life can continue to survive like this.

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When I read the title of chapter 9 in Everything is Miscellaneous, titled, “Messiness is a Virtue”, I’m not going to lie, I was pretty excited. As someone who should probably clean her room a little more often, I was intrigued by the possibility that maybe messiness had a little more to it than just laziness. And to an extent, it does.

While, dumping last week’s garbage all over the floor can hardly be called productive, if not plain gross, there can be an aspect of putting things out of order that makes them more accessible. Thomas Hyde, a librarian at Bodleian Library understood this concept well. He placed Shakespeare, Shakspeare, Shakspere, and Shaxberd all together in one category, defying alphabetical order, with the objective of making them easier to find.

I can even see examples of this in my own room. For instance, I have a random granola bar placed on top of my Economics books, which are sitting on my desk. This granola bar was taken from its box in the food section of my room and placed with my schoolbooks in order to remind me to take it with me tomorrow morning. Even though it is not in its “proper” category, with the food items, it much more useful out of place.

However, the only pitfall of disorder in the physical world is that a certain order may only be useful to one person. What if my roommate thinks that all granola bars should be with the cereal, oatmeal and other breakfast items? How would we reach a compromise?

This is hardly a problem in the digital world. If you upload digital pictures, your computer automatically captures the metadata and arranges them into categories based on the date, who uploaded them, and what type of camera was used. Then, if you upload the photos to Flickr, people can start adding tags to them and categorizing them in different ways. The computer then takes these different categories and creates relationships between the photos, thus making them easier to find.

The more information added in, the more useful it becomes. Personally, I love this concept of the ability of technology to make something useful out of what seems like an unsalvageable disaster.

One week during class, we discussed how digital media is slowly phasing out other, more tangible types of media. Newspaper sales, for example, are dropping in response to news on the internet, television, and radio, in addition to environmental concerns. And I’m not completely sure how I feel about this.

I’ve never been much of a newspaper reader, so I never understood why people would rather pay to get a piece of paper, when they could just watch TV or get the information on the internet. Also, when information is online, it is much easier to access a specific article. I can type in any topic, or any piece of information from an article, and I will get numerous possibilities. Which, if I may go off topic for a second, reminds me of the example in Everything is Miscellaneous about the historical picture archive. The pictures were alphabetically ordered, but they were extremely hard to access because they were difficult to categorize. Since one picture could

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fit under many categories, if you wanted to find that picture of a soldier eating in a field, it would be difficult to find without knowing the exact category. Unless you want to spend ridiculous amounts of time sifting through card catalogs. But, on the internet, you do not need to know the exact category, just type in what you remember, and it will most likely come up. Like, with YouTube, I can type in lyrics to a completely random part of a song, and the song will pop up in a matter of seconds.

So, anyways, after having said all that, I couldn’t see why newspapers hadn’t been phased out sooner. That was, until I actually started reading one. A few weeks ago, for the first time, I actually started picking up a copy of the diamondback to read in my spare time. And, I have to admit, there really is something about having something tangible in your hands. It just feels more authentic.

Since, I personally enjoy the benefits of these two types of media, I would love to always have both of them. But, I’m not completely sure if this is a realistic expectation
What do you guys think? Is it possible for newspaper and digital news to continue to survive together in harmony, or will one completely overtake the other?

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As I was doing my Econ homework today, as usual, I ended up on Facebook. I went through the normal routine of checking my notifications, events, messages, etc. Then, when I was done with that, I looked at my mini-feed to see what all my friends were up to. I’ve always liked that aspect of Facebook. Being able to see what people are doing allows me to feel connected and up-to-date with everyone else, while at the same time, avoiding awkward conversations with people I wouldn’t normally talk to. And yes, I have to admit, I am guilty of the occasional Facebook stalking. But aren’t we all?

As I was doing this, I thought back our first class period when we all chose between phone conversations, texting, e-mail, and Facebook as our favorite form of communication. I chose Facebook because of its ease and community aspect, while others disliked Facebook because of its lack of privacy. This made me think about how much you can really find out about a person from Facebook. By looking at one of my friend’s page, I could find out where he was right now (from his status), his phone number, school, class schedule, address, birthday, sexual orientation, religion, political views, who his girlfriend is, what he looks like (from all of the posted pictures), who his friends are, and who he’d been talking to recently. Wow, that’s definitely enough information to seriously stalk someone, not just Facebook stalk.

None of this ever really bothered me though, because I have the option of choosing who has access to all of this information. Right?

I just read an article about how Facebook has decided to go back to its original terms of use. I wasn’t even aware that they had changed it! But, apparently in the new terms of use, Facebook granted itself permanent rights to user’s photos, wall posts, and info even if the account was closed! Thankfully, Facebook changed it back in response to public pressure, including various Facebook groups that came out against it. However, the fact that I was giving someone else permanent rights over my pictures and personal information without even realizing it, made me think twice about safety on the internet. I’m not worried enough to delete my Facebook account and lose my favorite social connection, but in the future, I will try to be more careful about reading the fine print.

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I read an interesting article on cnn.com about people using technology in new ways. Professor Aydogan Ozcan from UCLA converted a Sony Ericsson phone into a mobile medical lab that is capable of prototype imaging, just by adding a few extra parts. This device, called LUCAS (lensless ultra-wide-field cell monitoring array platform based on shadow imaging) takes very detailed pictures of bodily fluids, sends the picture to a computer, and then the computer text messages the results back to the phone all in a matter of seconds. This process is about 90% accurate and can analyze bodily fluids and count T-cells much faster than a human could. It is very useful in diagnosing anemia, AIDS, and malaria. This new way of using cell phones can revolutionize the way doctors treat people that live far away from hospitals.
A few downsides of Lucas are that it has difficulty counting individual cells when there is a high density, it cannot distinguish between different types of bacteria, and it only works in areas where there is cell phone coverage. The device is still considered a prototype, so in the future, the LUCAS team hopes to improve the imaging technology of the phone so that it can take images at a molecular level in order to count individual cells at a high density and distinguish between bacteria like good E. Coli and bad E. Coli. Also, many of the third world countries where this device would be particularly useful are working on developing cellular networks.
It’s really cool to see how people are using and getting creative with the technology around them in order to serve different purposes. If you would like to read the article, the link is posted below:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/02/03/medical.imaging.device/index.html