Unlearning Due to Technology

Epilogue: What have you had to “unlearn” (i.e. that only phones are for having conversations) in the past 10 years due to technological change?

Answer: Although it is the example, a huge thing I did have to unlearn is that phones are only for having conversations. Now one’s phone is a portable computer, a map, an instant messaging machine, and a camera. Another thing I’ve had to unlearn is that you have to use a phonebook to find out the telephone number to a store, restaurant, or friend’s home. With technology, you can look these up on the computer, on your GPS, or do what I do which is text the store name to Google (466453) and have the number texted back to you by Google nearly immediately. Another is that you have to have a free hand talk on the phone – with Bluetooth and speaker phone this is not true. One big thing that technology has made me unlearn is that road trips have to be boring. Nowadays with tv screens, DVD players, video game console hookup ability, and satellite radio there is no reason for one not to be able to have fun in a long car ride with all of these things. You used to have to be unexcited about road trips and expect to look at the trees for hours, but now if you sit in the back seat you can look forward to watching a string of DVDs until you reach your destination. Finally, one large social thing that the past 10 years of technological changes have forced me to unlearn is the importance of face to face communication and meeting with people. With webcams, social network sites such as Facebook, the widespread use of e-mail, and text messaging, one no longer has to see another person, hear their voice, or even know where they are in order to get an important task accomplished.

Customer-Empowered Rating Systems

Chapter 11: Many online merchants today, such as eBay and Amazon, use rating systems empowered by its customers. Is this adequate for determining which products to buy, or which users to trust? Cite examples from these two merchants that support your opinion (whether it is good enough, or inadequate).

Answer: I believe that the customer-empowered rating systems on eBay and Amazon are absolutely adequate to determining the safety of people that you don’t know. For example, on eBay, you just know that if someone has a 99.9% satisfaction rating out of 20,000 total ratings and you read the positive comments that people have left about them after working with them over and over that you can trust their product. The reason I believe that this is adequate is that the people that leave these responses have worked with that person and, on eBay, can only leave feedback if they have either bought from or sold to that user. The people leaving feedback are people that were once in your shoes, and if they say that a vendor of textbooks shipped the book promptly and it was in good condition as described, and 5,000 people have also had this experience, you should have no reason to believe that that vendor will personally seek you out and screw you over when they have treated everyone else so well. This is really the only way to rate people as the customers are the only who experience each other on these websites, not the sites themselves, and you know that they will be honest because if they got screwed over they wouldn’t. The system also works as a deterrent against poor dealings. A vendor knows that if he takes someone’s money and either does not send out the product or sends one with less quality than bargained for that that person will rip into them verbally on the ratings and feedback system and then people in the future will see that and choose not to buy from that person.

Finding Info from a Social Website

Chapter 11: James Surowiecki’s book mentioned in this chapter outlines four elements to create a so-called “wise crowd,” one that can make decisions better than experts. These include “diversity of opinion” and “independence.” Since social groups online seem to form crowds of many like-minded people, what caution would you give someone using information they find from a socialized website or resource?

Answer: When a social group online forms a crowd of many like-minded people, this breeds a problem that can cause incredibility of information and the spreading of often incorrect and biased information. A group of like-minded people will be biased towards one direction of a situation and may not give you the factual response that you desire. These groups of people can also experience groupthink. That is, if you search for information on a discussion board of a social learning or social website in general, the information may look as if it is agreed upon and appears to be absolutely valid when it really is just a group of people agreeing with each other without the desire to break from the norm opinion. The bottom line is that when you are searching for information and especially information that is debatable, you want the ability to see the situation from different viewpoints and perspectives in order to ultimately asses in your own mind the correct answer based on different points of info. When you pull information from a website that consists of all like-minded individuals, you do not have the ability to receive the information from different types of viewpoints and you therefore can not trust it. It can be too biased and therefore mislead you from the truth.

Opportunities to Experiment and "Fail"

Question: Think back to your experiences in middle and high school. How many opportunities were you given to experiment and “fail” in solving a problem? How could a school work today where students were regularly offered such opportunities?

I am having trouble recounting specific examples of when this happened in middle school and high school, but I do remember that there was a good amount of times throughout that we were given a problem where we were set up to try it a certain way and ultimately fail by design. I think that it would do one’s education great things if this were employed by schools more often. Much like Shirky’s point that “Success is 99% failure,” I believe that much success comes from trial and error or getting close to success and then finding where you erred to perfect it. I know for instance that in my COB 202 course, the teacher often put us in groups and set us up to negotiate with one another that would ultimately leave us all unhappy with the result, but we would do our best to ensure that we still reached our goals as much as possible in the process.

I believe that a school could work where students are regularly offered such opportunities. I think that in order for this to work however, grading will need to be adjusted. I like this idea regardless. Grading should be less-focused on the end result, but the process by which you got there. This would work if students were given opportunities to experiment and fail in solving a problem. In this process, students would be able to focus more on the process of solving a problem, would not be pressured to cheat, and would be able to learn how to correct mistakes and follow the process of trial and error – something that they will continue to see in the real world.

FOAF-style Networking

Question: What professional benefits do you see by investing time into a FOAF-style network?

From a personal standpoint, investing time into a Friend of a Friend network can do great things as far as networking goes in the professional world. In recent years, I have been told time and time again that in order to get a job, you truly need to know someone. This is where FOAF comes in. By expressing yourself on an FOAF-style network, you can spread yourself and who are you are to people all over the world, create relationships, and ultimately aid in the process of “selling yourself” for job purposes.

From a corporate standpoint, investing time for research purposes can provide monumentally valuable information to a company in aiding in their marketing strategy. One of every company’s toughest tasks is to identify accurate market segments of different populations of people to whom they will market and sell their products too. An FOAF-style network allows businesses to not only research the product desires and suggestions of many different people, but social aspect allows for firms to more accurately identify the number of potential customers in different target areas. Any information like this enhances a firm’s ability to earn profits and cut costs by not wasting marketing time, money, and energy on people that this type of social network can tell them to disregard.

Online vs. Print Media

I don’t truly make a distinction between online and print media because I expect the same exact information to be on both. If I look at the Pilot Online (Norfolk, VA) or the Atlanta Journal Constitution, I expect it to have the same, but more updated, news stories as is printed on the newspaper at my doorstep in the morning. I think that there has to be an advantage for online media because it is more time-sensitive. Online sites are updated by IT people all day, everday. This is something that you can not do with print media. I do however still respect print media and enjoy its ability to be transported, unlike a computer.

Is eBay safe?

I used to argue to my peers that eBay was completely safe and reliable – until this semester. I had ordered textbooks, video games, clothes and more from eBay for years and likely will take more precaution in the future. Why? Because I ordered textbooks this semester that never came and as a result my grades suffered. Overall, as I do have to admit that these books were from the same eBay user and I have had large successes from eBay in the past, eBay ought to work for most people for many items. I believe that as long as you follow the user’s rating, take note of their posted location and watch for potentially risky items, you should be fine. Most people are scared to order a car on eBay because it is such a big purchase, but I think that I likely will in the future because of great prices and PayPal protection. There is risk, but I believe that sites like this do work and should continue to work with the insurance of PayPal.