Do New Media Technologies Connect or Divide Society

My theme for this blog has been, “Do new media technologies connect or divide communities.” To answer this question I have a few other questions. What is a community? Webster’s Dictionary defines a community in many different ways. I want to look at the definition of community as society at large. If a community is society then what does a society need to function? Society needs a future so education of their children is important. Society needs government or some means of law enforcement. Society needs some way of communicating on small and large scales. Finally society needs some view of confidentiality. The last question is what does it mean to connect a society? I define this as the majority of society being unified in he means of communicating, their view of education, involvement in government, and their view of privacy.

New media technologies have opened the way for communication to flow. Vinny Cahill and Siobhan Clarke claim that we live in a truly connected society, because “3G cellular data networks have literally brought the Internet to the man in the street at broadband speeds”. This has connected society in means of communication on both scales. It brings global news to almost anyone at anyplace at anytime. It also allows individuals to have one-on-one conversations. The internet has become the means of communication. VoIP is taking over land lines, and cell phones are needed to be considered in the loop.

Steps to government involvement are increasing. Facebook has allowed people to coordinate protests as well as get the word out about campaigns. Many states have implemented electronic voting machines, yeah no more dangling or dimpled chads. Another step that is being considered is vote by SMS. In Estonia, the parliament passed a bill allowing its voters to cast their ballots via SMS by 2011. What an idea, for security they are issuing chips or codes that match them with their registration. I believe that would increase voting by millions if you could just text your vote in, no lines.

Education is extremely important for a society to progress. Formal education brings the majority of society to the same level. New media technologies have pushed the envelope in where students can learn and what they can learn. The Internet and global communication has put education into the hands of the students. They can connect to schools online or they can Google a topic to find out about any subject. It has brought a learn-at-your-own-speed connection to every person who has access to these resources.

Finally the perception of privacy changes with each generation. It seems that society generalizes that we as a society are willing to give up privacy for convenience. But as Gary Marx states in “Privacy and technology” this is a fallacy. Technology has given ways to increase privacy. PGP and RSA encryption are the two strongest encryption algorithms out there. VPN (virtual private networks) also give secure connections for transferring data across the Internet. As technology increases loop holes for intrusion of privacy, it also finds new ways of protecting the information from the intruders.

New media technology is connecting society, globally and locally. And it will continue to do so with each passing generation.

For full articles:
Cahill & Clarke

Estonia SMS voting

Advertising The Way to Pay: NOT!

For class we read multiple articles about advertising and the web. On of the more thought provocative ones was called “The End of Free Lunch – Again”. It discussed how relatively few companies are able to make money off of Internet advertising. Google is the best example of making it big from advertising, but it is one of the few elite Internet companies to do so. Google also makes its money by selling services and collecting royalties. Prime examples of this are the E-commerce shopping cart, which brings in approximately 2% of the transaction cost; Google Site Search, costs at a minimum $100 per year; and Google Earth Enterprise Edition, costs around $400.

We live in a capitalistic society. You can make as much money as your product and services are worth, but not more. Many companies choose to sell their products and services for less; this dropped their value to its current state. Now many of these companies are beginning to charge for their services and are making very little to no profit at all. They had a large user base when they were free, but customer loyalty isn’t enough to make their clients pay for what they got for free.

A really cool site in my mind I have been keeping track of has been qtrax.com. Qtrax is a music distribution site that gives music away. It is entirely free and legal, having signed contracts with three of the biggest recording companies in the US. Qtrax’s model is to pay royalties for the music played from advertising on their site. From the discussion in class I wonder how long this site will remain like this. I am super excited to use Qtrax, but is it able to sustain itself from advertising alone. Since music is an extremely important part of society I feel that it will be able to survive on advertising revenue.

The next thing I think of is open source. Open source vendors don’t charge for their software and their sites aren’t riddled with advertisements. Open source projects are sustained by donations and don’t use advertising at all. Many of the programs I use are open source. I don’t donate but I do produce open source programs and I beta test many programs as well. I can’t support them monetarily but I do what I can to help move the project forward.

Society is already divided by those who use the web for purchases and products, but that gap is getting more and more one sided as the older generation is shrinking in numbers. Another gap that is more dominant is those who pay versus those who find the free alternative. There is a large group that sits in the middle who are willing to use, but don’t want to look for and learn, the free alternative. Will this divide remain or will it come together if more companies discontinue their free services? Will the middle ground people move towards one of the extremes if there are less “Free Lunches”. I hope Facebook, and Qtrax don’t start charging.

Ubiquitous Computing: Future of Man

In class we discussed Ubiquitous Computing (UbC). UbC is the seamless integration of technology into society. Computers and computer software will be everywhere, and accessible by anyone at any time. Computers will be so integrated they won’t be noticed unless they aren’t there.

The weekly reading was “Ubiquitous Computing” by R. Jason Weiss and J. Philip Craiger. Weiss and Craiger argue that UbC will make life easier for both the computer savvy people as well as those who have very little interaction with computers. They say that currently to use computer you must know how to use it, but with UbC the computer will teach you how to use it. I find that this divides society into those who know how and those who don’t. However with as much integration as UbC hopes to achieve, everyone will have to learn to use the technology implemented to be apart of society. This will connect society, at least in using the same technology.

One of the really cool things about UbC, is that it is not too far away. In class we saw a presentation of a technology called the sixth sense. It was a camera, projector, and a top of the line cell phone, connected together to bring the Internet to any where we go. It was amazing to see. The demonstrator was in a grocery store and used the sixth sense to check on the best buy for toilet paper. There is no keyboard and all he needs is a surface for the projector to display on for him access the data, anywhere at anytime. Also mention in the presentation was that the parts for this device cost about $350.00, pricing for almost anyone.

At the beginning of the PC age, we were tethered to our desks. Then the laptop, PDA, and smart phone entered the picture. We could move away from the desk and wander about. With sixth sense and other UbC devices we will be able to have our technology interact with our environment. I like the comic at this site http://www.ubiq.com/hypertext/weiser/VRvsUbi.gif because it shows what UbC can bring into society.

With all of this wonderful technology being used and integrated into society. What will happen if it breaks down? Will there be catastrophic panics throughout the populous? Will we be able to function without the aid of UbC devices? I am really excited to incorporate UbC devices, but I wonder if we become so dependent on it. Will our very identity as a people will become so integrated with technology that we cannot function as a society when it is taken away?

Pirvacy a Lost Art

On Monday, we discussed privacy and how the technology affects our Fourth Amendment rights. The Fourth Amendment states:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
A big conflict in society a few years ago was the Patriot Act I and II. The Patriot Act gave the government the privilege to tap phone conversations, search emails, and place any person in the US under surveillance without a warrant. In the early 2000’s it was a huge deal and was debated heavily. However, now it isn’t brought up in news or political press. The Patriot Act is still in effect, but the greater majority of the US has just accepted the fact that they are being listened in on.

We read a paper by Gary Marx called “Privacy and technology”. It was very interesting to read about what Marx said about the importance of privacy. He listed ten reasons; the one that caught my eye was number 9 “Privacy can help provide the solitude and peace necessary to mental health and creativity in a dynamic society. Here, it is a question of control over what is taken in, rather than what is given out”. I found the statement to be true in my own life. I have felt anxiety when I find out that a large majority of information is online. I Googled my full name and luckily there was no results found. But it worried me that this technology is being used by employers to gather information about employee candidates.

We also discussed how the expectation for privacy has declined from generation to generation. What level of privacy does the current college student expect? I believe that society as a whole has given up privacy for convenience and security. But in the words of Benjamin Franklin, “When you give up liberty for security, you lose both” (paraphrased). I translate that, when you give up something like privacy or liberty for security or convenience you end up losing both. How far will society give up privacy and liberty, before they give up too much? Will society divide even more by the level of privacy expected in our daily lives?