Facebook's Privacy Trainwreck: Exposure, Invasion, and Social Convergence" by Danah Boyd From Convergence (2008)

In 2004, Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg launched the social networking site Facebook. Originally open to only college student, it expanded to high school and eventually to all people. Danah Boyd’s “Facebook’s Privacy Trainwreck: Exposure, Invasion, and Social Convergence” gives in a depth look at September 2006’s newest addition of the ‘News Feeds’ to Facebook. The ‘News Feeds’ allowed for users to see various information recently preformed by Friends. News Feed highlights information that includes profile changes, upcoming events, and birthdays, among other updates. News Feed also shows conversations taking place between the walls of a user's friends. The information given in News Feed was public to all if one was so inclined to search their friend’s profiles for it. The New Feed caused much of a stir due to privacy issues. Boyd’s article discusses people’s discomfort from two angles: exposure and invasion.

As a Facebook member since 2006, I must admit the New Feed did not bother me, but maybe because I had only been on Facebook for a couple months. I could understand how people felt vulnerable, thinking their dirty little secrets were being shared with the world. The secrets were not being shared with the world, only their Facebook Friends, friends that they accepted or friended themselves. After the initial uproar Mark Zuckerberg apologized for the new feature. He explained the new privacy features that would limit people’s “secrets” from popping up on others News Feeds. People were able to limit their exposure to others. While this aricle says the News Feed does not distinguished between friends, it treats them all like equals I must disagree. My News Feed is usually filled with information strictly from people whose profiles I constantly view/view frequently.

While Facebook is heads and shoulders above MySpace on the privacy level. All the time you would hear about predators lurking on MySpace and sexually assaulting others. Facebook has not been used in this way. Due to the “friends” counters on MySpace young girls would try to build that number up by accepting strangers, Facebook was not open to young girls are first making it safe from predators. The other great use for Facebook is its ability as a networking tool. I try to friend everyone I come in contact with for the mere fact that maybe later in life I will need him or her for something related to my career. It allows for me to keep in contact with them. Mark Zuckerberg says the purpose of Facebook was to help people share information more efficiently. People should not complain when things like News Feeds are added. They know what they were getting themselves into when they signed up. They have the option to set their profile privacy.

Its ironic people would complain about this since there is no clear right to privacy specifically laid out in the Constitution. I feel like in this digital age where information is so easily obtainable on the Internet eventually new laws are going to be needed to protect us.

Mobilising of the Social by Michael Bull: Chapter from the book "Sound Moves: iPod Culture and Urban Experience" 2007

Michael Bull, or as he is known as in his field Dr. iPod, is a professor at the University of Sussex. Reviewers of his novel Sound Moves: iPod Culture and Urban Experience claim he is “the world’s only expert on the social impact of personal stereo devices.” Chapter 6 was entitled “Mobilising of the Social: Mobile Phones and iPods.” The subsequent 20 pages speak about the pros and cons of the mobile phones using personal interviews. He then goes on to conduct interviews with people who use iPods and compares and contrasts them with people who heavily use their mobile phones with people who do not heavily rely on phones. Bull makes a case for almost all the possible combinations of use between the cell phone and the iPod and lists the types of categories people would fall under depending on the usage.

The chapter starts out with the mobile phones ability to allow for “total availability” of a person, in which people no matter what the time can contact you. He believes privacy is endangered with use of a cell phone and that this concept is spilling from the business world into the lives of every day people. Bull states mobile phones are used to represent an external intrusion into the private world and an iPod is used to block out those external interruptions. Bull looks at cell phones as a “necessary evil.” He thinks iPods allow for their users to create a personalized sound world and allows for intense pleasure. He concludes mobile phones connect others and iPods to the self.

It was quite interesting and comical reading this chapter. I couldn’t help but see myself in the some of the stories and “diagnoses” that Bull creates. While I am not obsessed with my cell phone, I can have it off and feel fine, I know people who are. Some of my friends go insane when phoneless. They feel like the world is passing them by and have no way of keeping up. Since they cannot call or text they constantly worry if someone is trying to find them or ask them something. I recently lost my phone for two days. I got by just fine, but I will admit I felt a little naked. Just out of habit I was checking my pockets to see if they were vibrating while walking to class. When I got my phone back I had 5 new voicemails and a myriad of texts, but like some people in the interviews I would choose my iPod over my cell phone any day. My iPod is my child. Its customized and personalized for my life, my phone is just allows me to keep in touch, we have e-mail and AIM for that. When working out and walking to class my iPod is my entertainment and my joy. I command it, while my cell phone bosses me around when getting a call or a text. I like getting away and the idea of not being totally available 24/7. Everyone needs to have peace to themselves and putting on your favorite CD and just relaxing is the perfect way.

Technology and Ideology by John W. Carey Chapter 8 of the novel Communication as Culture 1988

In John W. Carey’s epic chapter Technology and Ideology: The Case of the Telegraph from the novel Communication as Culture he pleads his case about how the telegraph is one of the greatest inventions of all time, changing the landscape of the world. He speaks about how the telegraph was the first monopoly and allowed for the creation of capitalism. Next he goes on to speak about how the was the first of the science and engineering-based industries. His next two points discuss how the telegraph changed the nature of language and how it was a watershed of communication. Part two discusses the religious actions of the telegraph, with part two discussing the changes in the market. Part four speaks about how the telegraph changed time in the United States.

The bulk of Carey’s writing details how the telegraph split communication and transportation. It rearranged the market place in the late 1800’s after it began being used as a widespread tool for communication. People no longer needed to see what they were purchasing. Good could cross state lines after being ordered via telegraph. Arbitrage, buying goods for cheap in one state and selling it where it is in demand in a different state for a higher price, began to deteriorate due to the telegraph. All states for the first time were on an equal playing field. They could instantly communicate with one another and figure out prices in other states. It uniformly standardized goods. People also began to test out the futures market, which projected future costs of goods in order to make money. Speculation trading is still very big today when playing the stock market.

While it was a very informative 30 pages the mere fact that it was speaking of a technology that I have never come in contact with deters from it. I could not relate to what the telegraph brought to the country for the simple fact that I was not alive to ever use it. Carey obviously regards it as a life changing invention though. The most interesting part of the article is that our time zones were created due to both the railroad system and the telegraph. It’s amazing to think prior to that time zones changed every few hundred miles depending on the state. Its interesting to see in a hundred years what authors will be writing about that defined our generation technologically due to the massive improvements. Will it be the cell phone? The computer? The Internet? All of these inventions changed the market place in their own right, I guess only time will tell which was the most influential.

"An Update on the Effect of Playing Violent Videogames" by Craig Anderson from the Journal of Adolescene (2004)

“An Update on the Effects of Playing Violent Video Games” by Craig A. Anderson was the first scientific write up we’ve had to read. This made it very difficult to comprehend. The article was published in the Journal of Adolescence and it is very clear that the audience for it was scientists and physiologists. The reading was filled with high-end vocabulary and the way he followed the scientific process in attempting to sort out his findings. Anderson first introduces to past findings that have taken place with the use of violent video games and discusses their shortcomings. He thing begins to explain to the reader how his meta-analysis is being sampled and what factors he is looking for. He outlines the experiment and finally discusses his results and what they all mean.

The most important information I gathered from Anderson appeared in the last five pages. The results clearly stated that playing violent video games was associated with increases in four of the five variables he was testing. The only variable that had a decrease was helping behavior and that also was a cause for alarm. The five variables he tested for included aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, and physiological arousal. All four of these increased when kids and teenagers played violent video games. None of the variables tested contained zero in a 95% confidence interval meaning the data is not statistically significant, meaning they did not occur by chance. I took statistics last year so I am familiar with evaluating data in scientific results. Based on these results, Anderson states three facts about violent video games in his discussion, but I believe the effect video games have on children is quite overstated.

The knock on violent video games is that they make children violent and disturbed. I completely disagree. I believe it’s the parent’s fault and not video games, television, or even music. My brother and I grew up playing Grand Theft Auto, watching movies with psycho killers and gore, and listening to Eminem, but none of these things have influenced our lives in the slightest. People who are crazy and had distraught childhoods do things like Columbine and bombings. Killing people in a video game should not make a child go insane unless he is brought up in a household here he or she already hanging on by a thread. I believe video games and music and movies can push a person into doing awful things, but it’s the parent’s job to keep them from ever getting that close to the edge.

Our Cell Phones, Ourselves By Christine Rosen: Magazine Article for The New Atlantis Summer 2004

Christine Rosen’s Our Cell Phones, Ourselves discusses in depth the national phenomenon that is cell phone use. She starts by discussing some statistics over the last couple years involving phones and how they are an integral part of our society. Rosen talks about its two main reasons people own cell phones, safety and convenience. The article also goes into less obvious reasons people own phones such as to display their status in life and symbolically show power. The article then shifts to talk about some of the dangers of cell phones that have evolved due to its ease and abundance of numbers. Lastly she begins to talk about how society has become inconsiderate with its cell phone use. How the zone of privacy that every person has has slowly diminished due to new technological advances. She makes the argument that society has lost its civility.

This was a very strong article. It was a very well put together lengthy look at how society changes when a new technological invention is distributed to the masses. The article was written four years ago and some of the ideas are more prevalent nowadays. The dangers that she reveals are ahead of its time and are now at the forefront. States have outlawed driving and talking on the cell phone. iPhones have been hacked and personal information taken from them. People are addicted to cell phones, especially young girls nowadays with their Blackberrys. One can constantly hear personal stories of kid’s crazy weekends by just walking the quad. Rosen is right, we are not merely overhearing, we hear as if we are the ones the person is talking too. People have slowly lost bearings when it comes to cell phone use. It’s no longer a private phone call. People speak loud and speak proud regardless of what they are talking about. In ten years what will this situation be like?

If the same evolution continues in ten years there might not be such a thing as technological privacy outside of your own house. The “social space” has shrunk to an all time low. On Macs one can screen share with another Mac user giving them access to the other persons computer. What’s next? Rosen’s solution to how to stop these unwelcome damages is an interesting theory. If we can treat cell phone use like tobacco use maybe we have a chance to save the little privacy we still retain. Maybe the people of the world can once again regain the civility we once had.