As access to technology increases new rifts in the digital divide emerge

When the term “digital divide” was first applied the distinction was clear. Those with access to digital technology and those without depended upon whether one had or did not have a computer.  Originally the issue was minor, only big businesses, colleges, and  government organizations had the monetary and personnel means to afford and sustain such technology. Since the early days of computing, three major innovations in digital technology have emerged and evolved to sculpt the contours of the digital divide.

Image From: http://ablebrains.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83

The internet, mobile communication devices, and advancements in processing technology have all proven to be earth-movers, either intentionally or unintentionally, excavating the preexisting divisional trench while simultaneously crafting new trenches between the digital have and have not’s. Somewhat expectedly, due to the potential for new technologies to generate profit, the gap continues to grow along preexisting rifts governed by socio-economic status.

It is a fact that as technologies become dated they also become more affordable. Some technologies, specifically wired internet connections which are the most reliable and fastest means of delivering internet are reliant on an infrastructure which often times does not accommodate consumers in historically destitute regions. The following hyperlink contains a graph depicting broadband internet usage according to demographics. http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/broadband-technology-fact-sheet/.

Perhaps the most prominent statistic is the difference of broadband internet users located in rural areas, which account for over 50% of the nation’s poverty rates. Although it is possible to receive an internet connection through satellite providers, it is grossly expensive, supports very little bandwidth, and is plagued by reliability and latency issues.

While these issues may be trivial for individuals or families with economic means of affording satellite internet, they are insurmountable for schools within those districts that are unable to incorporate educational features involving internet interactivity.  For instance, the optimal bandwidth required to stream a standard definition video without interruption is approximately 1-2Mbps, and the average speed of satellite bandwidth download speed is approximately 1Mbps. (standard definition stream is calculated using 4:3 aspect ratio at 30 frames per second: 480*640*30 = 921,600, just under 1Mb without color, sound, and compression). Therefore a school located in a rural area with satellite internet capabilities would have to dedicate their entire bandwidth allocation in order to stream one educational video.

Image From: http://upload.wikimedia.org/

High costs accompanied with inadequate bandwidth capability make it entirely impractical for rural areas to be able to utilize internet connectivity for such educational purposes leaving them on the ill-fated embankment of the digital divide. All of which is a result of the lack of vital infrastructure available in many rural areas throughout the United States.  Some may likely discount such setbacks by pointing out the growing number of people with newly acquired internet access thanks to advances in mobile technology, and to some extent this is true. However, mobile devices have limited capabilities compared with computers and have begun to contribute to the digital divide in terms of usage rather than access.

In the article, “Wasting Time is the New Divide in Digital Era”, which appeared in the New York Times, May 29 2012,Matt Richtel outlines how the advancement of technology, and more specifically that of mobile device technology, has redefined where the digital divide is occurring. He states, refereeing to a Kaiser Family Foundation study, “children use 10 hours of multimedia a day, a 3.5-hour jump since 1999.”  And that number is even larger for children of non-college graduate parents who “spend 11.5 hours each day exposed to media from a variety of sources, including television, computer and other gadgets.”Assuming that children are getting 8 hours of sleep, this leaves only 4.5 -6 hours per day dedicated to school work, extra-curricular, and various other activities. Mobile technology seems to be the biggest contributor to the “wasting time” rift of the digital divide. The emergence and availability of mobile applications numbering in the millions keep users preoccupied with social media, gaming, and web browsing.

Image From: http://ablebrains.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83

Besides the affinity of mobile users to “waste time”, it is awfully impractical to use mobile devices for commonly accepted advantageous means such as studying, work, research, and creative purposes.  Although mobile devices offer internet which could be used to research information, email in order to conduct work on the go, and other useful tools such as notepads and calendars, they lack the practicality and functionality of their desktop/laptop counterparts.

For instance, it is especially difficult to program code, write a resume, populate an excel document, edit a video, or create a presentation using only a mobile device. Susan P. Crawford writes, “The vast majority of jobs require online applications, but it is hard to type up a résumé on a hand-held device; it is hard to get a college degree from a remote location using wireless. Few people would start a business using only a wireless connection.” Her article The New Digital Divide appeared in The New York Time on December 3, 2011.While having these devices augments our capabilities of having access to any one of the aforementioned products, it does not necessarily help in the implementation and creation of those products.

Simply having access is no longer enough to prevent the broadening of the digital divide. Digital usage is beginning to emerge as the major earth-mover within the divide.  The difference between the have and have not’s will soon be delineated by those who have been taught how to effectively use digital technology to improve and augment their existence, and those who have only been shown how to download apps, update social media statuses, and mindlessly navigate the vastness of the internet.

Suggested Reading:   http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/12/the_new_digital_divide_two_separate_but_unequal_internets.html

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-01-10-minorities-online_n.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/opinion/sunday/internet-access-and-the-new-divide.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/12/14/digital-divide-and-social-media-connectivity-doesnt-end-the-digital-divide-skills-do/

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/us/new-digital-divide-seen-in-wasting-time-online.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Video:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/learning/schools/the-new-digital-divide.html?play

 

NSA Spying

NSA Spying

The United States government, with aid from large telecommunication groups such as At&t and Verizon, have started in a huge surveillance of American communications and records of average Americans since at least 2001. According to the Electric Frontier Foundation (EFF), “The NSA’s domestic spying program, known in official government documents as the “President’s Surveillance Program,” (“The Program”) was implemented by President George W. Bush shortly after the attacks on September 11, 2001”. President bush admitted to a small aspect of the program called the “Terrorist Surveillance Program” in which the NSA monitored those people with suspected connections to terrorist groups.
It works like this, when anyone sends an email, or uses the internet at all, the data moves from your computer, through telecommunication companies, then to your intended recipient. The government installed devices known as fiber-optic-splitters in many telecommunication junction points in the US. These splitters make copies of the information, one of directed to the intended recipient, while the other copy is sent to the government agency.
In June of 2013, the media started publishing a series of articles along with government documentation that confirms the spying in 2005 and 2006. The report shows indefinitely that the government is collecting phone data of all the United States telecommunications under the Patriot Act. It was also found the communication companies such as At&t have been aiding the government in this task.
Many large media companies such as “Google, Micrsoft, Yahoo!, and Facebook sued for the right to disclose more information about their compliance under the Section 702 FISA amendment which is a government amendment that allows NSA spying. The EFF says “Many prominent American tech companies have also collaborated to form the Reform Government Surveillance coalition, which urges that “governments should limit surveillance to specific, known users for lawful purposes, and should not undertake bulk data collection of Internet communications”.
Many Americans and the EFF are trying to implement a “do not track” list similar to the “do not call” list with telemarketers. “How it would work would be simple. You would go to a website (or call a number) and add your name to the list, on a voluntary basis. Nobody would be forced to use the list if they didn’t want to, in other words, just like the Do Not Call list. On the website, you would make your own choices about what you didn’t want tracked. You could list your name, or your computer’s I.P. address, or your vehicle license number”. It would make it impossible for any company to track your information. Which is what we have been trying to accomplish since the new of the spying has come out.

Touched for the Very First Time: Rise of Social Media & Death of Physical Connections

When was the last time you decided to go over to someone’s place instead of texting them or snap chatting or even sending a message on Facebook to see what they were doing or to catch up with them? In this digital world we have been rerouted to be more apt in choosing connections made through social media outlets then connecting in the physical world. As a society we have replaced the face to face utilizing our senses kind of physical relationships with a multifaceted social media relationship because of the convenience and ability to make multiple connections at one time. But that is leaving the need to have those physical connections with individuals grasping for life. Lenna O in the article on WebFly “What are Psychological Effects of Social Media” asks and answers the main problem, “Are our digital lives more important than our real ones? It’s undeniable: We’re hooked on social media, and this trend is not going away anytime soon.”

To dive into this deeper you really do not even need to look at it in depth because it is so blatant and out there that if you’re missing the signs of this problem, well that’s probably because you are lost in social media and you should definitely keep reading on. The immersion of social media on people in society is drying out the need to hug someone, to be in their presence, to see their face in the present, to connect through nonsocial cues and creating a world that depicts that you can get all that from a picture or message on the computer or phone. An example that I think everyone has witnessed before is either being out with someone or seeing others out together where the people are lost in their phones and not even communicating with the person that is right in front of them but having an in depth convo with someone over Facebook or twitter. The art of communication, the ability to speak to someone directly or to exchange a physical connection is becoming the dinosaur of our time, extinct. The younger ages are growing up without knowing or understanding what is so bad about that while we are losing the need for what was once the most important need of human physical and personal connection to the war of words or images across a screen that gives the façade feeling that you have that connection when in reality the only connection you have is with your device. Chloe Anderson-Dixon of the Western Eye states, “Statistics show that a shocking 57% of people using social networking sites talk to more people online than in real life.” That is more than half of everyone on social networks losing the interest and connection of what real life relationships should be and how important they are in creating and balancing a working life.

The shocker is that we as people in this society think we gain so much from running our lives through social media that we are able to be in the know 24/7, regain and make new connections with others, and create a world that allows us to multitask efficiently. While some of those statements are true to a certain degree, we are losing the ability to be humans who use our senses, have a need for physical communication/connection and are passing up the daily real life activities happening in front of us. We are moving more to robotic stage of communication. J. Maureen Henderson of Forbes says, “Online is no substitute for offline,” and “Almost a quarter of Americans say that they’ve missed out on important life moments in their quest to capture and memorialize them for social media. Think about that the next time you’re Instagraming your anniversary dinner at P.F. Chang’s.”
There is no slowing down of the social media movement but there needs to be a rebirth of the personal communication through physical connection or at least rekindle a good balance between them. The statistics are too high for society to not realize that we are losing how to be a fully functional human to apps that let you snap your face for 10 seconds at a time. People are so concerned about the information that it has made up for the lack of the physical connections, touch is not even needed anymore, why, because there are emojis for that.
-Shawn Woolley

Suggested Reading
http://www.webfly.com/what-are-the-psychological-effects-of-social-media/
http://www.westerneye.net/comment/2012/10/is-social-media-taking-over-our-lives/
http://haydenhub.org/?p=6561
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jmaureenhenderson/2012/12/29/3-reasons-you-should-quit-social-media-in-2013/

Controlling Your Identity: Just Log In

What influences your identity? How much does your race, gender, sexual orientation or religion define who you are? What about your actions and opinions? In today’s culture, even the less computer-savvy can create a whole new identity with a simple login and profile.

These digital identities can be more important than real life personas. They can be an extension of our “true” selves or they can be a mask that we hide behind. This gives us infinite control over how we identify ourselves to the rest of the world.

Social networking sites give us this control every day. In February of this year, Facebook announced they were going beyond “male” and “female” gender options and adding a third “custom” option for sexual identities.

Example of “Custom Gender” that can be entered on Facebook profiles. CBS Photo.

“When you come to Facebook to connect with the people, causes, and organizations you care about, we want you to feel comfortable being your true, authentic self,” Facebook said in a post on its Diversity page.

Social media allows users to have more control over their life, which adds to its addictive charm. Everything from your profile picture, cover photo, who you “friend” or “follow,” status updates and tweets – can give others a glimpse of your opinions, views and daily routines.

Those who “overshare” truly allow every person they are “friends” with to follow them on their daily rituals and experiences. Bored with your own life? Don’t worry, so-and-so had bacon for breakfast, gave her cat a bath and watched chick-flicks all day.

Photo courtesy of http://www.965thebuzz.com

But this ability to share every aspect of your life can have its negative effects. The Pew Research Center conducted a focus group of teenagers to explore how teens use social media sites to navigate issues of identity.

When asked about their reputation on social media, an 18-year-old male replied that upholding a certain image was important for future connections and judgments.

“Yeah, I have some teachers who have connections that you might want to use in the future, so I feel like you always have an image to uphold. Whether I’m a person that likes to have and go crazy and go all out, but I don’t let people see that side of me because maybe it changes the judgment on me. So you post what you want people to think of you, basically.”

The idea of a “friend” on social media can be ambiguous. It could include anyone from an intimate to casual acquaintance, or a complete stranger who only knows a person’s online identity.

Meeting others online is a great way for many to expand their social community, but how people identify themselves in the social web is not necessarily reliable. Users also have the option to fabricate their identity or post things anonymously. Stacey M. Koosel, author of Exploring Digital Identity: Beyond the Private Public Paradox, describes this control.

“This power of deciding what information to share and what information to withhold is a meaningful characteristic that the creator of a digital identity has online, and not in the real world,” Koosel says.

Interactivity plays a huge role in this information sharing. Would you feel comfortable communicating the same things you post on social media, or blog, as you would face-to-face? With digital identities, there is an unbelievable amount of freedom to speak your mind and confess to opinions you may not say in real life.

But this also leads to assumptions, drama and bias.

In the Pew Research Study, a 13-year-old female discusses the challenges of managing a social media profile when so many others are “watching” and judging.

“I feel like over Facebook, people can say whatever they want to. They can message you. [On Facebook], if they say something mean, it hurts more.”

Identities can become even more realistic in virtual games. Second Life is a computer game that allows users to buy land and play out a cybernetic life. It boasts that users can, “Enter a world with infinite possibilities and live a life without boundaries, guided only by your imagination.”

After they generate an account with the 3D world, users begin by creating an avatar – a form of “profile” with the game. The avatar represents the user and allows them to modify their appearances. Those dissatisfied with their physical appearance can modify almost any aspect of their avatar – skin, height, weight, and hair and eye color. It allows a user to leave reality and step into a virtual world.

This virtual environment fulfills social and entertainment needs by providing the Internet user with a sense of self and community. For those introverted people, this digital identity can boost self-esteem and allow them an escape from the difficulties of the real world.

This also means more communication. More importantly, this means more control over our communication.

The control we as a society have over our identities is far more advanced than ever before. I believe this has resulted in numerous controversial social changes, such as Facebook allowing more gender options. Digital identities will continue to progress these changes in the future.

If you would like to learn more about online identities and the control it gives us as a society, check out the following links: http://cbsloc.al/1lmj05d, http://bit.ly/1dGqZIz and http://bit.ly/1kGvrM5

Advertising and You

 

Hello consumer, how are you doing? Have you ever thought about the many ways advertisers advertise their product or how often you see an item being advertised? Would you say 50? 200? The estimated number of ads we are exposed to is incredible and it is only going to grow. I foresee that with the growth in technology, the ever changing way of ads will also grow. This would include how we advertise a product, what is being advertised, and how we as consumers can purchase advertised products.

Jay Walker-Smith, President of the Marketing Firm Yankelovich says, “We’ve gone from being exposed to about 500 ads a day back in the 1970’s to as many as 5,000 a day today”. A lot has changed since the 1970’s in terms of technology, as shown by the chart provided by PewResearch Internet Project, so it goes to show that advertisements have changed in how we receive them. One such way is by using Sportsvision technology which uses a blank wall at a sports game and digitally places an ad for the viewer at home to see. Using this same idea, Mirriad takes it even further and places an ad over other images such as seen in Example 1a and 1b. Mirriad places an ad for one of their many clients in previous run episodes on television. Mirriad will first need to wait until, “…content owner(s) submit their content “then “…scans for available opportunities” throughout content that has been submitted. After which, Mirriad, “…finds interested brands and advertisers” to sell ad time to which advertisers can then “…submit [their] digital brand assets, or [Mirriad] can create them for you” So who are some of these clients and what should we expect in previous episodes of our favorite shows?

To name a few of their clients that offer ad space for their advertiser clients include: Fox, Viacom, Discovery Channel, Sony Pictures, Sony Music, Turner, and the list goes on. As far as what is being advertised depends on the many name brands that are in all of this: Honda, Sony, Dominos, Lexus, Pedigree, Pizza Hut, Arby’s, Nestle, Dove, Intel, PepsiCo, and many, many more. Mirriad’s fairly new technology can definitely help advertisers get that little extra air time to viewers which do not really know that they are being sold a product. Within the past two decades, the internet has really changed what sorts of products are being advertised. Take a look at Facebook and the ads on the webpage. Do you notice anything strange or oddly similar? There might be ads for soccer products after you just recently looked up soccer balls and goals or toe medicine after just Googling how to treat toe fungi.

So how do we get to buying from the advertisements seen on Facebook and other websites? Good old fashioned hyperlinks. Yes hyperlinks have been helping everyone get where they want to get to online with no exception to advertisers. The hyperlink to your toe medicine might take you to a large internet retailer in which you can purchase from. According to the news category in CNET, a little more than half of Americans owns a smartphone which is a 21 percent increase over two years. With this growing trend, advertisers are creating more and more mobile based ads to reach out to those 56%. Not only are they just advertising but they are allowing purchasing their product directly from your smartphone.

Just going fairly quickly over what has become of technology in the past decade alone and the vast amount of advertisements we get bombarded with daily, I really believe that as there is an increase in technology, there will also be an increase of advertisements. This can be seen by how we are shown a product through ads on a blank wall at a sporting event or product placement in previous episodes on television. What can be advertised with the growth of technology is almost limitless, due to certain laws and regulations, but how we can go about purchasing products is also adapting with technology such as purchasing items off of Amazon from the comfort of my Smart TV. With technology always advancing and the number of advertisements with it, will there be a point where there is just too much information?

If this article has spurred any interest, you might look into some of the following websites: http://www.mirriad.com/ , http://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2013/04/10/heres-the-future-of-advertising-according-to-google/, and http://www.esquire.com/features/future-advertising-1213.

 

                                                      Ex. 1a                                          Mirriad

                                                      Ex.1b                                          Mirriad

 

                                                             PewReserch Internet Project 

 

 

 

 

Citations:

 

Changes in Smartphone Ownership, 2011-2013. 2013. Chart. Pew InternetWeb. 3 Feb 2014. <http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Smartphone-Ownership-2013/Findings.asp&xgt;.

 

Feloni, Richard. “Stephen Colbert Riffs On Mirriad, The Company That Specializes in Retroactive Product Placement.” Business Insider. (2014): n. page. Web. 5 Feb. 2014. <http://www.businessinsider.com/stephen-colbert-mocks-mirriad-2014-1&gt;.

 

Johnson, Caitlin, dir. “Cutting Through Advertising Clutter.” CBS: 17 Sep 2006. Web. 2 Feb 2014. <http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cutting-through-advertising-clutter/2/&gt;.

 

Copyrighted Creative Expression

YouTube, a video streaming gold mine, set its sights on sharing media content beginning with its creation in 2005. Since its launch the video sharing website has grown in its popularity along with its controversy. I can still remember first hearing about the now video sharing powerhouse. The creative and new ways that we could view our media was what drew most of our interests. Various memes of our favorite television shows and all kinds of new conglomerates among media was a completely new idea at the time of its creation.  

Long Distance Relationships Remediated

photo courtesy of asdfing.com

Relationships are difficult to maintain and grow. Thanks to modern day communication technologies, we can maintain many relationships at once and get to know people quicker and more intimately easily. I would like to talk about how technology has been remixed to create better and more fulfilling long distance relationships. To understand the ease of access and possibilities these technologies offer, that we take for granted, observe how difficult it was 40 years ago to create a relationship with someone from another country.

Email: Pervasive and Doomed

E-MAIL. It’s been a primary form of communication since its creation in 1993. Mashable says that 144.8 billion emails are sent daily. But is email a convenient tool, or even worth keeping around?

Snapchat & The Great Privacy Debate

Not long ago (somewhere around New Year’s), I became aware of a hot topic in social media that spurred a great debate between parents, teens, teachers, app users, and developers. This debate exploded on my Facebook news feed and over the next few days, everyone made sure to voice their opinion on what they thought about Snapchat. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Snapchat, it is an app that was created in 2011 that allows users to instantly send photos and videos to one another for a limited time.