| Social Media Journal Blog: 12-8-14, 2010 I want to bring to your attention the views of Nicholas Carr, author of Does IT Matter: Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage (2004) published by Harvard Business School Publishing Press, and The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, which I have on audio. The following podcast on Carr’s recent talk at The National Academy of Sciences here in New York is fascinating as he has researched and presented some of the effects of the last twenty years of the Internet’s existence on our society and ourselves. In his book, Does It Matter, he reviews the history of inventions that changes business practices, not to mention society. Here he reviews businesses that acquired technology early which gave them a distinct advantage and the present time when most all businesses have technology because everyone does. The point he makes is that that advantage is no longer there as technology has become commonplace, and a business must just have it, as it has become a cost of doing business. Really fascinating is the second book in which he has researched and has definite conclusions on technology changing the brain. Carr points out recent research which finds that the brain that was in the past thought of as fixed in development relatively early by today’s standards is indeed “plastic” meaning that it can form new pathways and continue to expand particularly when challenged with new endeavors. He feels that given this information, the brain will certainly be changed with people using technology more and more. He used the term “adaptive” in relation to the brain changing with repeated experiences. Statistics are given as to the number of hours people are spending on the Internet and several effects noted were the shortened attention span, multitasking and the effect on working memory being that short term memory is not taking in learning in such a way as it goes into long term memory. Our long-term memory is our repository of learning according to Carr. Please listen to this podcast for further and more a more in- depth discussion. Nicholas Carr: Nat. Academy of Sciences: podcast.. http://ne.edgecastcdn.net/000210/podcasts/120310carr.mp3
New York Academy of Sciences: www.nyas.org http://www.nyas.org/Publications/Media/VideoDetail.aspx?cid=ecb4b4d5-248a-40fa-a945-b753437f9400 This is a terrific site and I often go to the lectures which at 4 World Trade Center, next to Ground Zero. It is a new building built after 9/11 and has fantastic views of Manhattan from the 40th floor. Amazing scientists talk on their research. They have a 6 part series that I went to the first session, To Be Or Not To Be, on Tuesday called : Perspectives on the Self: Conversations on Identity and Consciousness, that is funded by The Nour Foundation, which is well worth looking up as they are a 35 yr. old foundation connected to the UN Economic and Social Council. Their spokesman said that their purpose was “to explore meaning and commonality... (with a) multidisciplinary (focus)... that combines science and humanity” (NAS lecture attended, Dec. 7, 2010). During the question and answer period, one question asked the panels opinion on the impact of social media on stream of consciousness. One panelist, Tomas Metzinger, felt that it is underestimated and that we have no idea how this technology will affect the brain and change it. We know the brain is adaptive and can be trained, so it was suggested that the aspect of constant interruption much of which is self-directed would have an impact on attention, the term “attentional agency” was used and it was further suggested that if one loses “attentional control” that is learned from infancy, there would be changes. Another panelist, Evan Thompson, pointed out the contribution of William James and free will, i.e. that one has “the ability to direct and sustain attention” and the notion of habits. Please see the site to get the names and biographical information on the panelists who were moderated by Krista Tippettt who has her own organization and has written several books on these issues and is the creator and host of Public Radio’s Being, www.onbeing.org. http://www.nyas.org/Events/Detail.aspx?cid=94c002ca-3da3-4e37-8f75-7b8d67554909
FYI: Books on Qualitative Research I was looking for a book about research using the Internet and I found this entry on ABEbooks.com which is a good site and often has books that I can’t find on amazon.com. This author/editor Pranee Liamputtong has a variety of books on qualitative research, one on sensitive populations, and several on cross-cultural research, several on Asian mothers, ect.
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| About the Book | Bookseller & Payment Information |
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| Bibliographic Details Publisher: GAZELLE DISTRIBUTION Description:Retail Price £74.50, you save 18%. Browns Books - selling books online since 1999 softcover. Bookseller Inventory # 1594548196 Editorial Reviews:Synopsis: Chen and colleagues (2004: 157) contend, online technologies provide researchers with an array of alternative arenas for data collection. As we shall see in this volume, there are numerous ways for social researchers to undertake their research. In many ways, online research provides researchers with numerous attractive environments that offline research may not be able to do. But we shall see too that online researchers have come to realise that many issues that we have adopted for offline research can be problematic when we attempt to do the same for online research and this includes the methods of data collection and ethics. Online research can also be problematic and there are important issues which researchers need to think through and deal with. I have attempted to cover these issues in the chapters in this volume. Essentially, contributors discuss more or less along the methodological, practical and personal issues in doing their online research. Some chapters may lean towards a more formal type of writing and are more theoretical while others may be more subjective and practical. But this is the intention of this book, as reflected in its title. ...Shrink | |||
Social Media News Briefs have been too numerous in the past few weeks to do justice to them in this blog. This makes me realize the benefit of Twitter for almost instant and continuous updates on developments. Certainly, the timeliness of the news stories on WikiLeaks has captivated everyone and the number of articles from different points of view is staggering, at least in the New York Times every day. I will try to sort through my pile and give you the highlights in case you missed them on some aspects. The privacy issues are far greater and more significant in some areas, such as government security and diplomacy as well as relevant to us, health care and confidentiality, HIPPA rules, ect. I was saddened today, Dec. 14, to read that the number of deaths of UN aid workers is higher than ever in Afganistan.
Also of note for us is the article on the front page of the NYT Business section yesterday, Dec. 13, titled, “Facebook’s Mean Streets”. Author Miguel Helft talks about Mr. Willner, 26, and his associates in the “hate and harassment team” who are charged with policing the Facebook site for illegal content that violates the terms of service contracts. This is quite a job given the number of entries a day, which he states as more than one billion by the over 500 million member uploaders. The article goes on to say that a page was taken down which was put up to attack sites that did not support Wikeleaks while leaving on WikeLeaks’s pages. Social media’s most successful agent, FaceBook, is in the forefront of Internet freedom of speech debates, which continue among all ages and even into space.
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