Digital Literacy at What Price?

A cultural and cognitive shift is well underway in terms of how we access and process information via digital media. And a recent study confirms our suspicions: though we are becoming more tech savvy, it may be at the expense of creative and critical thinking. Researchers from the University of Israel (2009), tested digital literacy with a group in 2002. In 2007, they tested this same group again and found statistically significant changes on the test scores.  Is this further proof of the widening double digital divide?

White Flight in Social Networks? A Story of Another Digital Divide

Ed Note: It is with great pleasure that AiP plays host to Eric Michael Johnson as part of the Primate Diaries in Exile blog tour. Eric has written a fantastic post on the anthropology of social networks, covering the racial and economic disparities of Facebook and MySpace. You can follow other stops on this tour through his RSS feed or at the #PDEx hashtag on Twitter. Eric, you're definitely welcome any time!

Readers, thanks for joining us today—if this is your first visit to Anthropology in Practice, please make yourself comfortable and peruse the archives. You are also welcome any time.  - K

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When I was in high school in a small California town I quickly figured out that mixing cliques was difficult. My network of friends initially extended across cultural and class lines but I soon understood that I had to choose. Since I lived in the rural mountains just outside of town many of the friends I grew up with would, in high school terms, be classified as “rednecks” or “white trash.” But as I was building my self-identity I gravitated more towards my artistic and theater friends and away from those who enjoyed heavy metal and going off-roading in their pickup trucks. But in order to fit in I found I had to adopt the same style as those around me. So out went the sports T-shirts and ball caps and in came the thrift store clothing and suit jackets. I found it strange that to be an independent freethinker (what my friends in the arts saw as the most important quality) I would have to dress and act just like them. Little did I know it, but this would be an important lesson in understanding the anthropology of social networks.

Hoarding Connections: The Boundaries of the Network

Facebook users are probably already familiar with the "People You May Know Feature" on Facebook which attempts to connect users to people whom they may, well, know based on degrees of connectivity. This feature has moved toward the bottom of the page and has been replaced by a "Friend Finder" feature which offers to search the user's email address book for potential missing contacts, but the idea remains the same: network saturation. These tools are meant to maximize the potential of our online networks, but are they really working?

Sourcing the Social Web

Crib sheets are archaic. They’ve long been replaced by camera phones, MP3 players, and scientific calculators. Cheating, which has always required some creativity, has gone high-tech. And though educators are taking steps to turn technology around on dishonest students, plagiarism remains a persistent problem. A few well chosen words typed into a search engine and that 15 page paper on Napoleon’s early expedition to Egypt has all but written itself. Are high-tech solutions the answer, or is it time to think about our relationship with information?

The Psychology of Liking

We all know that person on Facebook. The one who Likes everything—let's call him Mike. Whether your cat got sick or you got a raise or went for a walk or had sushi for dinner, are feeling blue or just biked five miles, it's all Likable to Mike. How can we understand Mike's affability? As we use social media tools more frequently to connect with and communicate with others, the act of Liking is a means of creating alliances. But can Mike over-use this tool?

Put Down Your iPhone and Watch the Game: Notes on the Home Team Advantage

Baseball is not golf. Yes, in both sports players attempt to hit a ball with a stick, but that's essentially where the similarities end. Baseball, unlike golf, thrives on the noisy participation of the fans. Golf asks spectators to "remain still and quiet during a player's shot [and] crowds are strongly discouraged from cheering until after a player hits the ball." Baseball will have none of that. When the home team has the game riding on the final out, or the pitcher needs some help facing a key batter, or the umpire has—to put it delicately—something in his eye, the baseball ethos expects that spectators will be on their feet making as much noise as they possibly can. Why? Because noisy spectators can affect the outcome of the game.

The Virtual Experience of Time: VR and Online Games

In an earlier post, I explored the conflicts that can result from an attempt to compress time and space (e.g., jet lag). The question I left you with, Readers, was whether the physical and social ripples that result from navigating space-time compression can be minimized online? Recently, I suggested that the Internet may be a timeless state. But does this argument hold in virtual reality? Once the body is transported into the digital realm, it brings with it the experiences of the real world—including Time. Does VR preserve a sense of Time?

Social Networks Help World Cup Spectators Cope With Chance

Given the reduced volume of World Cup related posts in my Twitter and Facebook streams, it appears that soccer fever is abating the in US. The reach of the World Cup has been far this year, thanks in part to the role of social media outlets in encouraging discussion and raising awareness about the sport. For a few weeks, Twitter and Facebook were inundated with World Cup related posts, with Twitter reporting surges well above the general 750 Tweets-per-second (TPS) the normally constitute usage on the site. Marked by soccer ball icons and the flags of participating countries, conversations and comments about the World Cup were highly visible. How did this change the experience for World Cup spectators—particularly for Americans?

A State of Timelessness

I talked about Standard Time from a somewhat political standpoint, but there's a fair bit of history involved in the standardization of Time. And I promised you a little more information, but I've been a bit wary about lecturing. There's a ton of information on this topic (and I'm not even planning to touch daylight savings time—we really couldn't leave well enough alone, could we?) I've decided to give you a fly-by history. If you have any questions, post them in the comments and I'll be glad to try and get you some answers. 

Online Reputation Management on the Rise

It seems the iGeneration is coming of age—and they're addressing the very issues the "old timers" have been railing about far more efficiently and willingly than the group that raised concerns about online privacy and digital reputations. What steps are you taking to manage your online reputation? You may want to take a few pointers from the 18-29 crowd.

Are Baseball Announcers Necessary?

As digital and social media infiltrate the world of sports, and make teams, athletes, reporters, and information overall more accessible for fans, there is a greater opportunity for fans to connect to the game. This connection is important to the longevity of the franchises, and has largely been borne on the shoulders of the games' announcers. But why bother turning up the volume on the radio or television when you can follow the progress and emotions of a hashtag community on Twitter? Are announcers still important in this evolving landscape?

Bullying and Emotional Intelligence on the Web

Formspring, a recent entry into the social networking milieu, is finally beginning to attract mainstream attention as parents and educators have to deal with the fallout from preteens and teens who are confronted with ugly criticism on the site. Formspring allows users to post and answer questions, some of which are rather personal. And as users link the site to Facebook and other popular social networking sites, they open themselves up to comments and questions from any number of people who can post anonymously if they so choose. Sexual history, bra size, and more are all fair game on the site. Questions are delivered to the user's inbox, and the user decides which to answer. Answered questions appear on the user's profile, and a surprising number of answered questions are of the anonymously submitted personal variety. Why? And what does this signify about the state of emotional intelligence with regard to the web?

When The Human Network is a Digital One

Cisco's recent advertising campaign, featuring actress Ellen Page, has focused on the human network—a network that grows decidedly more digital with each passing day. The four Cisco ads take viewers on a tour through Lunenburg, Nova Scotia where Page visits familiar haunts and remarks on how things have changed since her last visit. The common thread in her wonderment? The connectivity of digital media.

Dealing With "Digital Distractions" in the Classroom

Apparently, an increasing number of colleges and professors are banning laptops in their classrooms, citing poor grades and general distraction. These are definitely issues worth consideration, but the article raises a good point counterpoint:

For years, educators have been clamoring to put technology in the hands of young students through partnerships with big tech companies, best symbolized by the One Laptop Per Child initiative. But by the time those kids grow up, they might well find university authorities waging a war on laptops in the classroom.

Is a blanket ban on laptops really a realistic means of dealing with perceived digital distractions in the classroom—or does it it actually create a deficit in terms of learning?

Is Your Facebook Profile Ready to Delete You? Lessons from South Park

South Park's "You Have 0 Friends" episode drives home the ways the social media giant Facebook has slowly but surely taken over our lives. Originally aired on April 8th, Comedy Central ran it again last night, and a second viewing revealed additional insights into the ways our lives have changed as a result of digital and social media—and was a hilarious good time at that. So, what would you do if you had no Facebook friends? Is your Facebook profile larger than life? [Stan in the digital world. © South Park.]

Digital Authenticity—Does Anyone Care?

Mark Schaefer, executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions, reposted a blog entry asking, "Can you outsource authenticity?" He writes:

To be successful on the social web, you need meaningful content … and LOTS of it! Some debate whether you need quality or quantity, but fact is, you need both. Five excellent blog posts in a month is better than one excellent blog post … and 10 is even better than five! And every company and non-profit is jumping on board. So where is all this quality content going to come from? [Emphasis mine.]

In other words, as long as the source is accurate, does it matter who produces it?

The Future of Thought

I had the immense pleasure of hearing Sherry Turkle speak on a panel concerning the emergence of a digital class and what it means for our social order. One of the questions raised during the discussion concerned the future of thought: As we become immersed in virtual worlds and digital media, what will happen to the structure of thought?

Online Interactions and Your Life Offline

Science Daily reported on a new study appearing in American Behavioral Scientist this April that suggests that online interactions have a positive effect in real life in that they serve in part to reaffirm connections to local communities. Authors Caroline Haythornthwaite and Lori Kendall, professors in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Illinois, indicate that the extensive reach of online technologies utilized for communicating and networking, creating and distributing content, and for storing, sharing, and retrieving files are creating ties that bind for offline communities:

"Research on who people communicate with online [technologies] shows a lot of local activity," Haythornthwaite said. "So online communication always reinforces local relationships and local identities that build networks of interacting individuals who are mutually aware of each other. Together, this demonstrates a continuous change in how we maintain local community, while also emphasizing the importance and significance of our attachments to local places and spaces."

Are we defining community too narrowly?

Death 2.0: Digital Mourning

As today is Good Friday, perhaps it's a good time to talk about death in the digital world. While millions of Catholics engage in rituals of remembering today, I'd like to talk about how Web 2.0 technologies are changing the experience of death for those charged with remembering.

In Pursuit of Authenticity in the Digital Age

I often wrangle with the idea of digital authenticity. How do we know who we're talking to online? How do we know they are accurately representing themselves? Does it matter? As an ambitious graduate student, I devised and carried out a study investigating the creation of "authenticity" on the Internet. I wanted to see if I could fake my way into an online community. How'd it turn out? I was banned; they weren't happy with me. My exaggerated emulation of other members marked me as a rat right off the bat. But it's a study that I'm prepping to revisit in my wizened old age. I think these issues are salient as we struggle to tame the digital beast that has taken hold of our lives.

In this vein, the WSJ recently ran a story concerning the intersection of public and professional lives in social media. By now you've certainly heard the horror stories (and perhaps know someone personally who's experienced a social media mishap)—for example, the guy who interviewed with CISCO and tweeted about the potential cons of the job, the intern who called in sick and then posted photos of himself at a Halloween party, the Eagles employee who should have kept his commentary to himself instead of posting his feelings to Facebook, and of course the professor whose Facebook statuses have been construed as threats against students. More and more it seems that the web is the place we turn to reveal ourselves. Behind a computer screen it's easy to feel invisible, when the truth is that we've laid clear digital trails concerning our interests, amassed scores of followers, and now can broadcast our location with the push of a button. We're anything but anonymous.

An article on CNET talks about the growth of Generation X-hibitionist, who according to Harris Interactive have few concerns about privacy and the Internet: 59 percent were happy to provide personal information to marketers. Compare this data to 1998, when 80% of people cited privacy concerns as a obstacle to shopping online. And digital and social media developers are encouraging this new-found comfort level:

At a technology conference in January, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told his audience that Internet users don't care as much about privacy anymore. The 25-year old said that, in the seven years since he started the company, "people have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people—and that social norm is just something that has evolved over time." Zuckerberg defended the company's decision in December to push users to reveal more, saying "we decided that these would be the social norms now and we just went for it." 

Thinking back to "earlier" days, digital sociality seemed in many ways to encourage individuality while protecting identity. You could create multiple screen names to cater to different aspects of your personality and keep them all separate if you so chose. (Sex fiend by night, book worm by day? Or vice versa? No one needed to know!) The emergence of avatars further encouraged this. Green skin, pink hair, surf clothes—if those attributes presented a closer representation to who you felt you were, you were free to roam cyber-space in your new skin. This removed some of the limitations we may experience in the physical world in terms of expressing ourselves—I don't think my coworkers would look at me the same if I showed up wearing green face paint.

[Avatar screen for MSN Minimise Me. © MSN]

So Zuckerberg may be right. It appears that we have been moving in this direction for some time because diminished privacy standards encourage a truer representation of who a person is. And perhaps these relaxed rules about representation online are crossing over into the physical world in the form of a more relaxed view about personal representation. Perhaps some time in the near future it'll be okay if I decide I want to wear green face paint all the time—it wouldn't raise any eyebrows on the street, people would still sit next to me on public transportation, and I wouldn't get referred to HR for an evaluation. But we're not there yet. And until that time, perhaps what we are perceiving as relaxed rules about online privacy is an attempt to author an authentic self online?