Have you guys heard about Path? It’s a personal networking site. Well, those of you in COM 125 class would probably have heard of it!
Being only able to have up to 50 friends as a user, it is indeed an “anti-social” networking site! For people who are not yet aware of Path, you might be thinking that such a site would probably be created by a group of people who are anti-Facebook or something. But no! Path was actually created by Dave Morin, one of Facebook’s early architects. He was the one who helped to build Facebook Connect and the Facebook Platform, but left the company early last year to start his own venture – Path.
Basically, Path is created to allow exclusivity to the close ones of everybody. Since only a maximum of 50 friends is allowed per user, only people who are truly close enough are entitled to fall under his/her friend list in Path. This way, users would be able to openly share photos without being afraid that there would be “people out there” seeing and judging them. Path’s intentions were to allow its users to be themselves and share their lives with their loved ones.
However, I personally do foresee a couple of problems with this personal networking site.
Firstly, just imagine yourself to be a subscriber of Path. One fine day you realized that an old friend of yours had just deleted you from his/ her friends list in Path. How would you feel? You may still see him/her as a close buddy, but it really seem that he/she has got better friends at that point of time. Moreover, it is easy to realize that someone has deleted you. (You only have a maximum of 50 friends.) In such cases, Path amplifies the sad truth, and digs it in.
Everyone has probably faced situations whereby someone whom you deem merely as an acquaintance thinks of you as his best friend. Being the nice person as you are, you just let him be and do not want to declare what you think of him straight in his face. Such cases would very possibly lead to the second point I am going to make about the Path.
Imagine the situation when such a person requests to be in your friends list in Path. As much as you don’t want to hurt his feelings and ego, you already have 47 friends out of the maximum of 50 and you would really want to leave the 3 slots for people who are truly worthy.
How would you want to reject him then?
“Sorry, but I only have 3 slots left and I really do have 3 other very close friends whom I think should take those slots.”
Or
“Oh you are a step too late! 3 friends just asked me before you! Sorry.”
Seriously??
Well, no matter what you say in the example above, it can be bluntly interpreted as “Sorry to tell you, but you are not within by top 50.”
Boohoo, and he walks away. You have just successfully hurt someone’s ego.
Now do you see the fact that Path may really put you in extremely difficult positions?
Last but not least, think again about what Facebook can do for you when it comes to exclusivity. Do you vaguely remember that on the top right hand corner there’s a “account” button, where you can change your settings from who can see your friends list to who can see certain albums of yours.
And oh yes! There’s an option called “custom”.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Is the internet a great teacher?
The Internet has unequivocally become a necessitous element for us in the modern world, and children are not excluded. It is undeniably the most knowledgeable tool in the history of mankind. However, beyond any doubt, it can very well pass off as one ultra powerful teacher of evil.
Where on the Internet would you most likely go to in order to start on most researches, to search for any images, or merely to clear any doubts?
I would go to Google.
Just to proof my point, I went on to ask 10 other random strangers in the library this question as I was writing this entry.
Without any biased prompts from me, 9 out of 10 of them gave the same answer as I did. Except for one who was trying to funny and told me he would go to the library.
Right.
Indeed, there really isn’t many other search engines around which can beat Google for now. Moreover, according to market research published by Comscore in November 2009, Google is the dominant search engine in the world, with a market share of 65.6% in the United States, and 57% in Singapore.
For more information on Google, you can take a look at the following websites:
http://www.gadgetmedia.co.cc/2010/12/google-search-engine.html
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/03/googles-market-share-in-your-country.html
However, just 3 days ago, Google almost made me lose my job.
I am a part-time primary school tutor, and I have this 7 years old Korean boy as one of my tutees. As he had lived in Korea for most of his life, he is not very proficient in his English. I, on the other hand, am not proficient in Korean either. Therefore, what I sometimes did to explain certain vocabularies to him is to type the words on Google images, so that he can see the exact images of them.
Last Wednesday, he asked me what is a babysitter. So, as usual, I used his desktop and typed in the word, “babysitter” on Google images.
And to my horror, almost 50% of the images shown were pornographic!
You guys have to see it yourselves
http://www.google.com.sg/images?hl=en&safe=off&gbv=2&q=babysitter&psj=1&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1280&bih=609
Of course, my tutee saw everything. Not for long though, as I quickly clicked on the “x” button. And just a few seconds later, his mother came into the room to pass me a glass of water.
Close, super close!
It was partially my fault though; I did not check if the Google Safesearch was on. But come on, that was definitely still an unpleasant surprise at that time.
More importantly, this experience did not merely come as an unpleasant surprise, but it gave me some thoughts on the possible negative effects of the Internet on children too. Any child can type whatever he or she wants on Google, either for learning, or merely out of curiosity. And they can also be accidentally exposed to extensive pornographic content when they type in key words that seemed to be innocent into a search engine. Moreover, it is probably really common for children to type in names of singers such as Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera as the children’s exposure to their music would probably trigger their curiosity about the celebrities. They would end up seeing more than what they should see. Worse, liking what they saw.
Really, parents should start recognizing the accessibility of the Internet to their children, and of course, the negative effects as well. They should also start coming to a realization of their ignorance and underestimation of the evils of the Internet, as much as it being a powerful source of information.
Parents, it may really be an accident these days if you catch your child sitting in front of the computer screen filled with naked woman.
Where on the Internet would you most likely go to in order to start on most researches, to search for any images, or merely to clear any doubts?
I would go to Google.
Just to proof my point, I went on to ask 10 other random strangers in the library this question as I was writing this entry.
Without any biased prompts from me, 9 out of 10 of them gave the same answer as I did. Except for one who was trying to funny and told me he would go to the library.
Right.
Indeed, there really isn’t many other search engines around which can beat Google for now. Moreover, according to market research published by Comscore in November 2009, Google is the dominant search engine in the world, with a market share of 65.6% in the United States, and 57% in Singapore.
For more information on Google, you can take a look at the following websites:
http://www.gadgetmedia.co.cc/2010/12/google-search-engine.html
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/03/googles-market-share-in-your-country.html
However, just 3 days ago, Google almost made me lose my job.
I am a part-time primary school tutor, and I have this 7 years old Korean boy as one of my tutees. As he had lived in Korea for most of his life, he is not very proficient in his English. I, on the other hand, am not proficient in Korean either. Therefore, what I sometimes did to explain certain vocabularies to him is to type the words on Google images, so that he can see the exact images of them.
Last Wednesday, he asked me what is a babysitter. So, as usual, I used his desktop and typed in the word, “babysitter” on Google images.
And to my horror, almost 50% of the images shown were pornographic!
You guys have to see it yourselves
http://www.google.com.sg/images?hl=en&safe=off&gbv=2&q=babysitter&psj=1&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1280&bih=609
Of course, my tutee saw everything. Not for long though, as I quickly clicked on the “x” button. And just a few seconds later, his mother came into the room to pass me a glass of water.
Close, super close!
It was partially my fault though; I did not check if the Google Safesearch was on. But come on, that was definitely still an unpleasant surprise at that time.
More importantly, this experience did not merely come as an unpleasant surprise, but it gave me some thoughts on the possible negative effects of the Internet on children too. Any child can type whatever he or she wants on Google, either for learning, or merely out of curiosity. And they can also be accidentally exposed to extensive pornographic content when they type in key words that seemed to be innocent into a search engine. Moreover, it is probably really common for children to type in names of singers such as Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera as the children’s exposure to their music would probably trigger their curiosity about the celebrities. They would end up seeing more than what they should see. Worse, liking what they saw.
Really, parents should start recognizing the accessibility of the Internet to their children, and of course, the negative effects as well. They should also start coming to a realization of their ignorance and underestimation of the evils of the Internet, as much as it being a powerful source of information.
Parents, it may really be an accident these days if you catch your child sitting in front of the computer screen filled with naked woman.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Interesting IRC
Over the decades, social networking on the internet has undergone very extreme and rapid changes. One of the earlier forms of social network would be none other than the traditional chat rooms – the equivalent “Facebook” or “Twitter” our older friends or cousins used to subscribe to when they were teenagers. One of the classic examples of these chat rooms would be the Internet Relay Chat (IRC). It was extremely popular. Was.
Just like our MSN messenger and Facebook chat now, the IRC was designed to allow real-time, synchronous chats. Users have the option to either engage in group communications, aka channels, or one to one communications via private message.
I personally have had little experience with this classic form of social network, but I did hear a few funny stories from friends and family members who used to be loyal subscribers! Unlike Facebook or even Friendster, the traditional IRC did not have the application for users to put up their photos. Hence, you really do not know how exactly every person in the chat rooms look like. This could be the reason why it was really common for people, especially teenagers, to ask one another in the chat rooms to describe his or her appearance.
Now, this is the amusing part. From what I have heard, it seemed like there were basically only a few criteria for a guy to be deemed as “good-looking” by many Singaporean teenage girls then. So my friend was talking to this girl on IRC a couple of years back, and she asked him if he is good-looking. As usual, he humbly, and partially jokingly said that he looks really ugly. The conversation then continued as shown below (as accurate as what my friend can remember after these years):
Girl: Hmm…ur hairstyle lyk wad one? (Translation: What is your hairstyle?)
Friend: Center parting loh
Girl: Oic…do euux wear specs? (Translation: Oh I see, do you wear spectacles?)
Friend: No leh why?
Girl: Eh lyk dat shld be nort bad wad… whr got ugly? Lolx (;
(Translation: In that case, you shouldn’t look too bad right?)
Friend: HAHA
Me: HAHAHAHAHA
So what were the 2 criteria to be deemed as handsome on IRC?
1) Centre parting hairstyle
2) Does not wear spectacles
The funny thing is that my friend has actually encountered such judgments quite a few times from different people. This really let us see how naïve some users of IRC were at that time. This could very well be one of the reasons why there were cases of teenage girls being cheated into meeting some 40 years old man from the chat rooms. But again, I must also make it clear that the above example is not in any way intended to generalize or insult users of IRC. It is nothing more than a funny story.
Upon writing all these, it suddenly came to me that the story is so amusing only because of the underrated fact that technology has improved so drastically over the years. Unlike in the past, we can now easily see a photo of someone else, and we are so used to it. I realized that I almost could not imagine myself asking someone to describe his/her looks, only because there is no such need now. But again, at that time, how else could one get an idea of the physical appearance of the other party in the chat room other than asking for a verbal description? The girl in the above story could then be very well compared to those today who believe that the “handsome” guy on Facebook is putting up his real photo.
Just like our MSN messenger and Facebook chat now, the IRC was designed to allow real-time, synchronous chats. Users have the option to either engage in group communications, aka channels, or one to one communications via private message.
I personally have had little experience with this classic form of social network, but I did hear a few funny stories from friends and family members who used to be loyal subscribers! Unlike Facebook or even Friendster, the traditional IRC did not have the application for users to put up their photos. Hence, you really do not know how exactly every person in the chat rooms look like. This could be the reason why it was really common for people, especially teenagers, to ask one another in the chat rooms to describe his or her appearance.
Now, this is the amusing part. From what I have heard, it seemed like there were basically only a few criteria for a guy to be deemed as “good-looking” by many Singaporean teenage girls then. So my friend was talking to this girl on IRC a couple of years back, and she asked him if he is good-looking. As usual, he humbly, and partially jokingly said that he looks really ugly. The conversation then continued as shown below (as accurate as what my friend can remember after these years):
Girl: Hmm…ur hairstyle lyk wad one? (Translation: What is your hairstyle?)
Friend: Center parting loh
Girl: Oic…do euux wear specs? (Translation: Oh I see, do you wear spectacles?)
Friend: No leh why?
Girl: Eh lyk dat shld be nort bad wad… whr got ugly? Lolx (;
(Translation: In that case, you shouldn’t look too bad right?)
Friend: HAHA
Me: HAHAHAHAHA
So what were the 2 criteria to be deemed as handsome on IRC?
1) Centre parting hairstyle
2) Does not wear spectacles
The funny thing is that my friend has actually encountered such judgments quite a few times from different people. This really let us see how naïve some users of IRC were at that time. This could very well be one of the reasons why there were cases of teenage girls being cheated into meeting some 40 years old man from the chat rooms. But again, I must also make it clear that the above example is not in any way intended to generalize or insult users of IRC. It is nothing more than a funny story.
Upon writing all these, it suddenly came to me that the story is so amusing only because of the underrated fact that technology has improved so drastically over the years. Unlike in the past, we can now easily see a photo of someone else, and we are so used to it. I realized that I almost could not imagine myself asking someone to describe his/her looks, only because there is no such need now. But again, at that time, how else could one get an idea of the physical appearance of the other party in the chat room other than asking for a verbal description? The girl in the above story could then be very well compared to those today who believe that the “handsome” guy on Facebook is putting up his real photo.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
CMC - with great powers comes greater responsibilities.
Computer mediated communication (CMC) has indeed invaded many different realms of the lives of mankind. Many facets of human activities involve CMC and it has proven itself to be extremely influential and has definitely become an essential to aid us in different ways. One powerful form of CMC that plays a big part in almost every individual’s life today is social networking sites like facebook and twitter. According to a separate report from Compete.com, Facebook has also surpassed Yahoo, as the number two most popular site (behind Google) in the U.S., with nearly 134 million unique visitors in January 2010. In fact, the Compete.com data showed that 11.6% of all time spent online in January was spent on Facebook (compared to 4.25% for Yahoo and 4.1% for Google). Another recent report from the leading technology blog Tech Crunch highlighted the expanding role social sites such as Facebook are playing in sharing widgets and applications. Incorporating data from Gigya, a company that powers widgets on more than 5,000 sites, Tech Crunch found that the distribution of shared items broke down as follows:
Facebook (44%) Twitter (29%) Yahoo (18%) MySpace (9%)
Some people, especially those from the older generation might think that these sites like facebook are merely for basic networking purposes or maybe for people to meet some new friends. Well, I do not blame them for that as it is really forgivable for them to not be very familiar with this form of CMC. But I do have to correct them in thinking that way. In fact, facebook even played a part in influencing the outcome of the 2008 presidential election in the United States of America! It was in January 2007 when Farouk Olu Aregbe, a student government coordinator at the University of Missouri, launched a Facebook group, "One Million Strong for Barack." A year later, the group had signed up half a million "friends" (in Facebook lingo) as Obama supporters.
However, as these social networking sites invade our lives in positive ways, they absolutely do have the potential to create atrociously undesirable effects as well. One of such is the rise of cyber-bullying cases. This is also one type of bullying that many parents of victims (students) do not have much knowledge of, thus underestimating the depressing effects it can cause to the victims.
To read more on this recent article, go to:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6275UG20100309
Cyber-bullying basically consists of 8 types, namely, exclusion, outing, harassment, cyber-stalking, masquerading, flaming, pseudonym and anonymity. All of these can truly result in emotional as well as psychosocial effects on the lives of the victims. And according to psychologist Eric Erikson, whatever challenges or difficulty an individual experiences in each stage of his life would carry over as an extra difficulty in later life if it is not being solved satisfactorily. This may result in those victims not be able to present him/herself as confidently as others in certain situations he/she faces in the future. And in the worst cases, some of those victims had even committed suicide due to the inability to handle the psychological effects from the bullying cases. Some of these cases were even being discussed in the recent Oprah Winfrey show. As you can see, it may truly cause extremely tragic results if nobody actually takes the effort to look into these situations and continue having the complacent thinking that these forms of bullying through CMC can never be as deadly as physical bullying.
The Internet was built on freedom of expression. Yet, society wants someone held accountable when that freedom is abused.
Facebook (44%) Twitter (29%) Yahoo (18%) MySpace (9%)
Some people, especially those from the older generation might think that these sites like facebook are merely for basic networking purposes or maybe for people to meet some new friends. Well, I do not blame them for that as it is really forgivable for them to not be very familiar with this form of CMC. But I do have to correct them in thinking that way. In fact, facebook even played a part in influencing the outcome of the 2008 presidential election in the United States of America! It was in January 2007 when Farouk Olu Aregbe, a student government coordinator at the University of Missouri, launched a Facebook group, "One Million Strong for Barack." A year later, the group had signed up half a million "friends" (in Facebook lingo) as Obama supporters.
However, as these social networking sites invade our lives in positive ways, they absolutely do have the potential to create atrociously undesirable effects as well. One of such is the rise of cyber-bullying cases. This is also one type of bullying that many parents of victims (students) do not have much knowledge of, thus underestimating the depressing effects it can cause to the victims.
To read more on this recent article, go to:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6275UG20100309
Cyber-bullying basically consists of 8 types, namely, exclusion, outing, harassment, cyber-stalking, masquerading, flaming, pseudonym and anonymity. All of these can truly result in emotional as well as psychosocial effects on the lives of the victims. And according to psychologist Eric Erikson, whatever challenges or difficulty an individual experiences in each stage of his life would carry over as an extra difficulty in later life if it is not being solved satisfactorily. This may result in those victims not be able to present him/herself as confidently as others in certain situations he/she faces in the future. And in the worst cases, some of those victims had even committed suicide due to the inability to handle the psychological effects from the bullying cases. Some of these cases were even being discussed in the recent Oprah Winfrey show. As you can see, it may truly cause extremely tragic results if nobody actually takes the effort to look into these situations and continue having the complacent thinking that these forms of bullying through CMC can never be as deadly as physical bullying.
The Internet was built on freedom of expression. Yet, society wants someone held accountable when that freedom is abused.
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