Echo chambers (and Filter Bubbles) in Media and Social NetworksPlural (think tank)
Our perception of reality - and of the choices that we have in life - has always been influenced by our surroundings: education, friends, favourite newspaper, Facebook feed etc. On the one hand this allows us to live our values among like-minded people but on the other, it can oversimplify reality and deceive us.
An echo chamber is a group situation where information, ideas and beliefs are amplified or reinforced by transmission and repetition, while different or competing views are censored, disallowed or otherwise under-represented.
This slideshow is summarising pros and cons of Echo Chambers and Filter Bubbles in Media and Social Networks.
Lisa Guernsey
As books become adorned with interactive features, and as digital media and games of all kinds are now available at our fingertips, young children are going to need a little guidance. Building a good e-book experience means thinking not only about the technology and the content, but also supporting the adults and older children who are helping children seek, learn and explore in the digital age.
Lecture for the members of the Arvisu House Jesuit Prenovitiate (June 9, 2015)
Objective: To help them to become ethical and responsible members of social networking sites
What Do You Meme? Using Memes to Market Library Resources and Services to a W...Jennifer Jacobs
Reaching a wider and younger generation can be hard, but with the use of memes, a well-known social media concept, libraries are able to connect with people they might not have before. This presentation will talk about how to use memes in marketing and how they have been successful at KSU.
Echo chambers (and Filter Bubbles) in Media and Social NetworksPlural (think tank)
Our perception of reality - and of the choices that we have in life - has always been influenced by our surroundings: education, friends, favourite newspaper, Facebook feed etc. On the one hand this allows us to live our values among like-minded people but on the other, it can oversimplify reality and deceive us.
An echo chamber is a group situation where information, ideas and beliefs are amplified or reinforced by transmission and repetition, while different or competing views are censored, disallowed or otherwise under-represented.
This slideshow is summarising pros and cons of Echo Chambers and Filter Bubbles in Media and Social Networks.
Lisa Guernsey
As books become adorned with interactive features, and as digital media and games of all kinds are now available at our fingertips, young children are going to need a little guidance. Building a good e-book experience means thinking not only about the technology and the content, but also supporting the adults and older children who are helping children seek, learn and explore in the digital age.
Lecture for the members of the Arvisu House Jesuit Prenovitiate (June 9, 2015)
Objective: To help them to become ethical and responsible members of social networking sites
What Do You Meme? Using Memes to Market Library Resources and Services to a W...Jennifer Jacobs
Reaching a wider and younger generation can be hard, but with the use of memes, a well-known social media concept, libraries are able to connect with people they might not have before. This presentation will talk about how to use memes in marketing and how they have been successful at KSU.
Raising Children in a Digital Age, Hexham June 2014Bex Lewis
A simple overview of the key thinking in Dr Bex Lewis' recent book 'Raising Children in a Digital Age', and a chance to ask questions of the author.
Hexham Trinity Methodist Church (see http://plancast.com/p/let7/raising-children-digital-age)
They are the Digital Millennials, a.k.a. Echo Boomers, Gen Y, the IM or Bling Generation, and very few facets of their lives are not technology-enhanced and technology-connected. For this generation, technological convergence seems to blur the lines between private and public, consumption and production, entertainment and education, socializing and creativity, shopping and self-actualization.
Children - and a Digital Age, for Reimagine Faith FormationBex Lewis
A presentation prepared for Reimagine Faith Formation (http://reimaginefaith2016.com/), to be presented online on Friday 26th August 2016 (7am UK time!).
Raising Children in a Digital Age for West Auckland Vineyard ChurchBex Lewis
On 1st October, I'll be coming to West Auckland Vineyard Church for the afternoon, along with some local organisations keen to engage, and speaking about Raising Children in a Digital Age.
A Voice of One, a Society of One: Community Sustainability in the New Media A...Serra's Art Studio
English 101 Presentation:From the Text: A Voice of One, a Society of One: Community Sustainability in the New Media Age of Individualism written by Gloud, Journal of Scholarly Publishing
Betsy Kent_ Integral Salon_Sag Harbor, NY 12-18-14Be Visible
Love it or hate it, Social Media have transformed the way we communicate. Facebook and platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest, have given the average person the ability, for the first time, to publish his or her own ideas and thoughts in a public forum. No longer is news, opinion and advertising the sole domain of giant corporations companies. In this way, media has been democratized.
Most significantly, Social Media provide an environment where one can easily find his or her “tribe” – other people with shared interests, passions, and desires, whether they be political, cultural, religious, etc. The result of this can be of great benefit, or of great danger, to the global community.
Presentation for an education course, consisting of undergraduate education majors, introducing digital collections (of cultural heritage objects) for use in content such as lesson plans and tools for developing and managing one's online professional presence.
ALIA 2009 Keynote: Libraries as Happiness EnginesElizabeth Lawley
My keynote address from the 2009 ALIA Information Today conference in Sydney, Australia. The title comes from Jane McGonigal's 2008 GDC talk on "games as happiness engines."
Raising Children in a Digital Age, Hexham June 2014Bex Lewis
A simple overview of the key thinking in Dr Bex Lewis' recent book 'Raising Children in a Digital Age', and a chance to ask questions of the author.
Hexham Trinity Methodist Church (see http://plancast.com/p/let7/raising-children-digital-age)
They are the Digital Millennials, a.k.a. Echo Boomers, Gen Y, the IM or Bling Generation, and very few facets of their lives are not technology-enhanced and technology-connected. For this generation, technological convergence seems to blur the lines between private and public, consumption and production, entertainment and education, socializing and creativity, shopping and self-actualization.
Children - and a Digital Age, for Reimagine Faith FormationBex Lewis
A presentation prepared for Reimagine Faith Formation (http://reimaginefaith2016.com/), to be presented online on Friday 26th August 2016 (7am UK time!).
Raising Children in a Digital Age for West Auckland Vineyard ChurchBex Lewis
On 1st October, I'll be coming to West Auckland Vineyard Church for the afternoon, along with some local organisations keen to engage, and speaking about Raising Children in a Digital Age.
A Voice of One, a Society of One: Community Sustainability in the New Media A...Serra's Art Studio
English 101 Presentation:From the Text: A Voice of One, a Society of One: Community Sustainability in the New Media Age of Individualism written by Gloud, Journal of Scholarly Publishing
Betsy Kent_ Integral Salon_Sag Harbor, NY 12-18-14Be Visible
Love it or hate it, Social Media have transformed the way we communicate. Facebook and platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest, have given the average person the ability, for the first time, to publish his or her own ideas and thoughts in a public forum. No longer is news, opinion and advertising the sole domain of giant corporations companies. In this way, media has been democratized.
Most significantly, Social Media provide an environment where one can easily find his or her “tribe” – other people with shared interests, passions, and desires, whether they be political, cultural, religious, etc. The result of this can be of great benefit, or of great danger, to the global community.
Presentation for an education course, consisting of undergraduate education majors, introducing digital collections (of cultural heritage objects) for use in content such as lesson plans and tools for developing and managing one's online professional presence.
ALIA 2009 Keynote: Libraries as Happiness EnginesElizabeth Lawley
My keynote address from the 2009 ALIA Information Today conference in Sydney, Australia. The title comes from Jane McGonigal's 2008 GDC talk on "games as happiness engines."
with Melissa Morgan (www.ememdesign.com)
An introduction to gauging the impact of social-media on society in this media saturated, hyper-networked, über-techie, digitally innovative world.
**Download the report for fully functioning links.**
The fear that you’re missing out—that your peers are doing, in the know about or in possession of more or something better than you—may be a social angst that’s always existed, but it’s going into overdrive thanks to real-time digital updates and to our constant companion, the smartphone.
This presentation is a companion to our trend report that explores the FOMO phenomenon, identifying which cohort is most prone to FOMO and how they respond to it, spotlighting how FOMO is manifesting in the zeitgeist, and looking at the wide-ranging potential for brands seeking to tap into FOMO.
In addition to desk research, we interviewed experts and influencers in technology and academia, and conducted a quantitative survey in the U.S. and the U.K. The survey used SONAR™, JWT’s proprietary online tool, to poll 1,024 adults aged 18-plus and 87 teens aged 13-17 from March 4-15, 2011.
The social media world is not flat. There are new lands beyond the continent of Facebook. The New world has riches, romance, opportunities, fame, and some say the secrets to eternal youth. Buy also beware! There are rumors of Medussas whose siren song will lure you in to her lair so that you will crash upon the rocks, serpents called worms that will entangle your ship and control your course, viruses that will make you and your crew sea sick, trojan ships that will approach you with free goods that hold spies that will live among you, pirate ships that will steal your goods and ask you to join in their skullduggery by trading in illegal goods, and Cyclops who will train their evil eye on you to suck out your soul and rob your privacy.
But as entrepid explorers you must put aside your fears and push out into the unknown. Forewarned is forearmed! Seek your destiny!
Why games are good for youSteven Johnson writes about science an.docxalanfhall8953
Why games are good for you
Steven Johnson writes about science and culture. His book Interface Cul- ture: How New Technology Transforms the Way We Create and Communi- cate (1997) is considered one of the most important early texts to explain the impact of cybertechnology on human perception and communication, a subject to which he frequently returns. Johnson became more widely known with the publication of his best-selling book Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter (2005), in which he defends the value of computer games, among other popular “time-wasting” pastimes. This reading is excerpted from Everything Bad Is Good for You. You will immediately grasp Johnson’s interest in sailing against the current of popular opinion. In response to those who claim the sky is falling, Johnson argues that “the weather has never been better. It just takes a new kind of barometer to tell the difference.”
The pages that follow are Johnson’s barometer. As you read his analy- sis of pop culture pastimes, consider the games you found most absorbing as a child. Do you agree with Johnson about the kinds of skills those games taught you? What about the time you spend today on technological recre- ation—are you wasting time or getting smarter? Because Johnson is writ- ing for a general audience, he does not use scholarly citations, but he does refer explicitly to the ideas of others in his main text and detailed notes. As you read, notice the many kinds of experts he refers to, and how he deploys their ideas to serve his larger purpose.
Leisure studies — which focuses on the ways we spend our free time—is a rich area of research. The question driving Johnson’s analysis here about the purposes games serve is part of this ongoing conversation. What “work” does our play accomplish? Johnson has answers that may surprise you.
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482 CHAPTER 13 MEdiA STudiES
You can’t get much more conventional than the conventional wisdom 1 that kids today would be better off spending more time reading books, and less time zoning out in front of their video games. The latest edition of Dr. Spock — “revised and fully expanded for a new century” as the cover reports — has this to say of video games: “The best that can be said of them is that they may help promote eye-hand coordination in children. The worst that can be said is that they sanction, and even promote aggression and violent responses to conflict. But what can be said with much greater certainty is this: most computer games are a colossal waste of time.” But where reading is concerned, the advice is quite different: “I suggest you begin to foster in your children a love of reading and the printed word from the start. . . . What is important is that your child be an avid reader.”1 In the middle of 2004, the National Endowment for the Arts released 2 a study that showed that reading for pleasure had declined steadily among all major American demographic groups. The writer Andre.
Parker 1
Nameo Parker
Professor Munro
English 102-102
26 October 2017
Mobile Tech: Cellular Stranger Danger
It’s probably safe to say that most people can be accused of, more often than not, peering down towards their mobile phones fairly often throughout the day; to check for emails or status updates or simply, just pass the time. It would be an unusual sight to be practically anywhere, and not see someone looking down toward a mobile device. Not surprisingly, “[t]he average American spends nearly half a day staring at a screen;” nearly eleven hours each day is spent consuming media; astonishingly, this number was calculated on media usage only and didn’t include time spent texting or taking pictures (Howard). Perhaps one could admit, through the constant use of mobile devices, complacency is becoming the new norm. Personal contact, good listening skills and our physical/mental health are all affected by the incessant need to stay updated and connected.
In the 1800's, a railroad construction worker by the name of Phineas Gage, permanently damaged the left half of his brain, the frontal lobe, when a large iron rod pierced through his cheek and out of his skull: "Gage not only survived the incident but also apparently never fully lost consciousness" (Guidotti). Before the accident he was known as being "reliable, systematic, and hardworking;" after the incident and the damage to his frontal lobe, Gage became "impulsive" and neurotic in his behavior (Guidotti). At the time, physicians didn't realize that the frontal lobe is the area of the brain that is "responsible for decoding and comprehending social interactions;" it is through this area of the brain that we learn how to read numerous facial cues and personal flair that one exhibits when interacting with others (Margalit). In the early 1900's a psychosurgical procedure called the prefrontal lobotomy was first performed on humans. This "surgical operation separat[ed] the frontal brain lobes from the thalamus to relieve extreme anxiety" and was proclaimed a miracle cure for those suffering from mental disease (Shaffer). Some fifty years later the lobotomy became unpopular because "the operation caused mental deterioration" and would eventually be replaced with chemical versions of treatment; i.e., antipsychotic drugs, tranquilizers (Shaffer). Over time, scientist have begun to realize that when replacing real-life contact with symbols and text through a screen, the capabilities of the brains frontal lobe lose effectiveness; empathetic abilities dwindle and engaged interactions with real people become more and more difficult. Some addicted tech users have issues with depression and anxiety when having to interact with a real human being; through constant engagement with a screen and habitually less real-world interactions and relationships, we are losing our abilities to care, to understand, to feel emotion.
Is our desire to stay in touch and be in the know diminishing other aspects of our .
1. Effects of Internet Use, Gaming, or
Texting on Your Child’s Cognitive
Processes
Presented in Support of Media Use
by
Christina Friis -- MSPP
2. Steven Johnson: Everything Bad is
Good For You
• “for decades, we’ve worked under the
assumption that mass culture follows a
steadily declining path toward lowest-
common-denominator standards, presumably
because the ‘masses’ want dumb, simple
pleasures and big media companies want to
give the masses what they want. But in fact,
the exact opposite is happening: the culture is
getting more intellectually demanding, not
less” (2006, p. 9).
3. But my kids would rather play video
games than read books!
• Andrew Solomon, NY Times: those who read
are “many times more likely… to visit
museums… attend musical performances…
perform volunteer and charity work…” while
“non-readers – more than half the population
– have settled into apathy” (The Closing of the
American Book, 2004).
4. Cognitive processes don’t stop once
the controller is put down
• “the clearest measure of the cognitive
challenges posted by modern games is the
sheer size of the cottage industry devoted to
publishing game guides, sometimes called
walk-throughs, that give you detailed, step-by-
step explanations of how to complete the
game” (Johnson, Everything Bad is Good For
You, 2006, p. 28).
5. Of course, the industrial tax
http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/p480x480/644281_10151554572819866_77938503_n.jpg
6. Hold on, I’ll Google it
• “The results of four studies suggest that when
faced with difficult questions, people are primed
to think about computers and that when people
expect to have future access to information, they
have lower rates of recall of the information itself
and enhanced recall instead for where to access
it” (Sparrow, et al, 2011, p. 1).
• From Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive
Consequences of Having Information at Our
Fingertips.
7. I just can’t quit you, Google.
• “It may be no more than nostalgia, at this point,
to wish we were less dependent on our gadgets.
The experience of losing our internet connection
becomes more and more like losing a friend. We
must remain plugged in to know what Google
knows” (Sparrow, et al, 2011, p. 4).
• From Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive
Consequences of Having Information at Our
Fingertips.
8. Attention and Multi-tasking and Eating
and Drinking and Talking and Walking
• “Attention is… the taking into possession of
the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of
what seem several simultaneously possible
objects or trains of thought.
Focalisation, concentration, of consciousness
are of its essence”
– William James (Eysenck, 2010, p. 153).
9. Divided is our attention, united is our mind
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_XBLJ3QFIXjE/TJzykKao0RI/AAAAAAAAA-8/1AvqkrBYk-8/s1600/pat+your+head.jpg
10. Draw me a map
• Visuo-spatial sketchpad: “a component of
working memory (short-term memory store
including attention, speech-based
information, visual information, and
temporary storage) that is involved in visual
and spatial processing of information”
(Eysenck, 2010, p. 211-212).
11.
12. References
• Eysenck, M., & Keane, M. (2010). Cognitive
Psychology: A Student’s Handbook, 6th
Edition. N.Y.: Psychology Press.
• Johnson, S. (2006). Everything bad is good for
you. New York, NY: Riverhead Books.
• Soloman, A. (2004). The closing of the American
Book. The New York Times.
• Sparrow, Betsy (2011) Google effects on
memory: Cognitive consequences of having
information at our fingertips. Science, 333,
1-6.
Editor's Notes
With the constant introduction of new media, we are at the mercy of current society and run the risk of being barraged into a corner with updates for the newest computer or software trend. However, thanks to all of this media, we have never been smarter. This is not something we are being taught in school or in conferences; the lessons are right at our fingertips on our iphones and ipads, and on our televisions. Although the widespread belief is that popular culture is all about escapism and non-thinking, everything from video games to film and television shows have gotten increasingly complex.The internet has also facilitated a completely dialed-in society. With blogging, social networking, chatting, emailing, and information sharing, those on the web are applying focus and intent. According to Steven Johnson, author of the book Everything Bad is Good for You, there is a process at work with media, by way of video games that require decision-making and growing complexity in the narrative and structure of television and film that create an environment likely to enhance problem-solving skills.
Besides the typical arguments regarding content and inactivity due to sitting in front of a television, there is another way to look at media today: as a cognitive workout. By looking at these forms of entertainment as stimulation for the brain, the impact is positive. The argument that children should be reading books instead of playing video games is a bit of a misdirected topic. Marshall McLuhan observed that it’s very difficult to have an unbiased view on things like video games when we already have the knowledge fresh in our minds that reading is such an intellectual enhancement. If you look at today’s increasingly complex popular culture and media, you would see the same skills being used by readers – attention, memory, following threads and plots – and yet different skills being developed, such as decision-making, probing, and telescoping. Probing being learning information about the given environment and telescoping being organizing and strategizing necessary goals to be achieved in hopes of completing a much bigger goal.
Not all gaming is superficial fun. If a gamer comes to an impasse in a game, there might be a time to put the controller down and walk away to do something else. Interestingly, though, the hurdle is still under scrutiny in the gamer’s mind. Even when someone moves back into the real world, the mental problem is still being wrestled with. And these issues don’t always provide instant gratification – it may take hours or days to reach the final goal. Hence, the walk-throughs.
Johnson tells the story of a time when he was showing his seven year old nephew the computer game SimCity – it’s a very complex game in which you can run your own city by way of building houses, office buildings, laying roads and sewer pipe, everything that goes into an actual city. Anyway, after about an hour of showing his nephew his city and trying to revive a particularly run-down manufacturing district, the seven year old chimes in with “I think we need to lower our industrial tax rates.” How does a seven year old even know what that means or why it should be done? After an hour of watching some game play, he already knew that this would make a difference. If industrial tax rates were being taught in class, it would be likely that all the children would be asleep after two seconds. And I’d bet that most adults would be, too.
Now, there have been studies on the Internet’s in particular, Google’s, effects on a person’s memory. The results showed that when we are faced with a gap in our knowledge, we are primed to turn to the computer to rectify the situation. When we don’t know the answer to a general knowledge question, we feel the need to search for the answer – and we find that search with Google. Also, when people don’t believe they will need the information later, for example, in an exam, they do not recall it at the same rate as when they believe they will need it. If we know we can look up something later, we are less likely to make an effort to remember it. Since we are usually always able to Google something, it might leave us in a constant state of not feeling like we need to encode what we learn.
That being said, the studies also showed that although we might not remember something, we do remember where to find it. The preliminary evidence could argue that we have adapted our memories – using the computer and Google as external memory sources that can be accessed any time. We remember what we think we need to remember and we don’t remember what we don’t find necessary to remember. Relying on our computers to find information uses several of the same transactive memory processes that are used in social sharing. We know who knows what in our families and offices, so that when we need to know something or can’t remember something, we know who to ask. Just like with Google. We have become dependent on Google the same way we have become dependent on our friend remembering something we don’t.
Many comments are made about multitasking and intake. With attention spread so thinly over so many different things – texting, watching tv, doing homework, scanning your Facebook newsfeed – not one of those activities will get the attention it deserves. Focused attention is when we try to attend to only one source of information while ignoring other stimuli. We are susceptible to distraction when the task at hand involves lower perceptional load – our brains would not be working at full capacity, therefore we would be able to spare processing capacity on another stimulus. However, it should be considered quite a talent to balance so many forms of information at once. Our senses are adapting, just like our minds are being trained to handle the influx of media. Television shows have been doing this slowly over time – increasing its demands on our attention and ability to keep up with storylines.
How successful we are at multi-tasking obviously depends very much on the two tasks in question. Most of us can easily walk and have a conversation at the same time, but find it surprisingly difficult to rub our stomach with one hand while patting our head with the other. There has been a huge amount of research using the dual-task approach to assess our ability to perform two tasks at the same time. Three things were looked at: task similarity, practice, and task difficulty. Treisman and Davies found that two monitoring tasks interfered with each other when the stimuli on both tasks were in the same sense modality – visual or auditory. Spelke, Hirst, and Neisser found that practicing doing two things at once actually improves performance. And Sullivan found that the ability to perform two tasks together is definitely dependent on their difficulty.
Excuse me while I get a bit more technical for a minute. The visuo-spatial sketchpad is used for the temporary storage and manipulation of visual patterns and spatial movement. We use this every day in many different situations – finding a route when walking, or playing a video game. Logie and others studied performance on a complex computer game. It was called Space Fortress and it involved maneuvering a space ship around the screen. At first, when participants playing the game were asked to perform a secondary visuo-spatial task, performance was severely impaired. Then, after 25 hours of practice, the hindrance on performance was greatly reduced. In other words, the visuo-spatial sketchpad was used during training, but then less so after practice. In better words, functioning decreased, but performance increased.
Kids are learning more than ever would have been possible; and not just being able to learn new information, but also the inner-workings of the Internet. Anyone who has had to install software is learning very complex and intricate things in a relatively short time. With or without consulting a manual, it’s an entirely different language. We shouldn’t be upset at the fact that our kids can program the VCR and set up a new computer straight out of the box. The internet provides us with educational materials as well as being an educational material itself. You’re exercising cognitive muscles interacting with the form of the media – learning the tricks of an email client or configuring the video chat software. Our minds are meant to process information – to put it into action, to solve problems, to analyze, to interact and so on. The internet, video games, and texting are providing this cognitive workout to our kids in a ways that we never had.