Session 5 Reading Reflection

The talk from Sherry is striking and inspiring. It provokes us to think about if we have been using the technology in the right way. Are we still trying to achieve the initial goals we set when we started - connecting more people? Or have we been lost in the technology mess and gone to the opposite direction?

When technologies are doing us many favors, we need to stop and think about is there something we paid off to trade for convenience, efficiency and connection.

As Sherry mentioned in her talk, We short-change ourselves, and over time, we seem to forget this and stop caring. We sacrificed the face to face communication for more connections, the connection with people we can only meet online.

Technology doesn’t add more hours to the 24 hours we have in a day, but take the hours we suppose to spend with our family and friends away from us. We are always busy, busy to built the “network” on the virtual world, which we think it can make us feel safe. For most of the cases, the quick and shallow communication doesn’t really go anywhere, besides exchanging of some interests and simple companionship. We should use the Internet as an extension, to deepen and maintain our relationship in the real life, not replace it. We should use the internet to develop meaningful friendships, not just show off the “number of friends” we have on social media. We should use the Internet to make our friends feel being closer, not alienated.

Another interesting point she touched upon is that: can machine really cares about us? Can its pretend empathy really helps us release our anxiety and feel not lonely? If we are proud of developing a toy seal to companion the seniors and the sicks; then it is a time we should feel sad and sorry about our society. If we are too busy with developing tools to provide humanity but not act friendly to people around us, then we will need to think seriously about if the technology is necessary and serves us for the right purpose. Just like Sherry mentioned we expect more from the technology and less from each other.

I hope this reading reflection can resonate with you and inspire you to develop a more self-aware relationship with technology, with each other and with ourselves.

Session 4 blog assignment

(1) What are your thoughts about virtual environments and "life online?"

The virtual environment is a new hit of today's technology world. The combination of virtual machine monitor and hardware platform creates a 3D space which makes users feel that they are situating in the real environment. The immersive experience can be utilized as a unique simulator system, which can be used in training, such as astronaut and pilot training. It also upgrades gaming interaction to another level. More virtual reality applications will be developed in entertainment as well. Besides gaming, movie, traveling, just name a few, VR will change the way people consume entertainment.

At the current stage, virtual reality didn't emphasize too much on its social aspect, which is a big component of people's life online. After I dug a little bit further, I found out that social virtual reality would take place in the near future. A few companies are working diligently to make it happen faster (Facebook is one of them). Just imagine, you and your family and friends can be together inside another world, which will allow much richer communication to happen between each other. By then, you will not miss the time chatting with each other by typing or talking to a flat screen.  

2) Do you feel there is a correlation between life online and academic achievement, for better or worse?

I am not sure if there is a fixed formula for the correlation between life online and academic achievement. The Internet really is a double-edged sword, how much it will affect the academic achievement heavily depends on how people use it in the academic settings.

Nobody will neglect the fact that the Internet brings the world at our feet. You can almost find any information within a few clicks. But at the same time, the overwhelmed information and platforms also serve as big distractors.  It is hard to stay abreast with how many choices people have for social media, even each one just provides a little bit different functionality with one another. People thought they can multitask and migrate well between studying and chatting online, but multiple studies have been showed that almost everyone is terrible at multitasking. The more people try and do the worse they perform on every task. I think institutions should help students be aware of their social life online and encourage them to use the Internet wisely.

Session 2 Recap

At the week 2 class,  professor held an interesting debate:  In the content of technology determinism, are we a hard believer or soft believer? In another word, do we believe in that technology drives the social development or human drives the social development. Majority of people stand as hard believers, they think technology empowers people to do a lot of things they can not do without. In the future, more and more tasks/duties will be done by some type of technology....
On the opposite site of the spectrum, people emphasize on that technology is programmed by human. Technology is create based on our needs. People have to place orders to make technology work.

The debate reminds me about another interesting discussion in another class. We talked about does our mind work like a computer. Is that possible to create a 100% human like computer/robot in the future. Although the discussion didn't lead to any conclusion, just imagine,  if one day computer can do everything that people do, who will drive the development. I am afraid that the answer is technology. Hopefully by that time, people can still use technology wisely, not be slaved by it.  

Session 3 Reading Reaction

What role are you playing in the Internet community?

This week reading discussed the system structure of Technology-mediated social participation. Author categorized all the users into four parts: readers, contributors, collaborators and leaders. The number of people decreases as the level of authority increases. The author also listed explicitly for each category what motivates them to choose the role they play and the value they create for the Internet community as a whole. 

It is very interesting to see that in a virtual world, humanity is still the main driver for us when we make our decision. Intrigued by our own curiosity or encouraged by friends, we browse and read content that is relevant to us.  The desire of standing out and being recognized triggers us to write or upload content. A sense of empathy and altruism play as a big factor that pushes us to develop a welcoming and trusty atmosphere. Finally, the higher visibility and mentorship make certain people natural leaders, who synthesize discussions and arguments, solve problems, and deal with conflicts between contributors.

You may not be aware of the role you play or you play multiple roles across different online platforms, but as long as it is a social environment, other roles are needed to maintain it as a healthy community.