# Reading Responses (Set 1) ------------ ## Reading Responses 5 out of 5 ------------------ ## Jan 26 Tue: "Superconnected" by Mary Chayko What has become readily apparent in the past three decades is that the internet is not a simple tool, one which is used and then set aside through most of the day. As emphasized in the chapter "More Benefits and Hazards of 24/7 Superconnectedness" from Mary Chayko's *Superconnected*, there are substantial elements of the new digital age that have changed how millions live. She lists a myriad of different concerns that have been raised about the new status quo: supposed feelings of isolation, addiction to games and services, and increasing temptations to (unsuccessfully) multi-task. Chayko acknowledges these concerns, but largely considers them moot, either by emphasizing that forms of these issues existing prior to the internet or by noting advancements such as women's emotional labor being supported by social media connections. At times however, Chayko's arguments carry a sting of "whataboutism," or essentially trying to handwave away valid concerns as "old fashioned". Regarding video games, she mentions a study performed by Nick Yee, which found that 45% of studied gamers displayed symptoms of excessive involvement in interactive media to avoid/escape problems (p. 192). Chayko brushes this aside, citing Dmitri Williams, who noted that an obsessive reader wouldn't be viewed with such concern, and that fear of digital media is based on a Protestant work ethic (p. 192). This, as well as other statements, suggest that much of the negative portrayals of the internet in the chapter are meant to be the exception that proves the rule. ---------------- ## Feb 05 Fri: Fake News A striking element in these readings was, unfortunately, the relative downward spiral we seem to be on. Silverman's piece on 2016 Facebook misinformation puts out a clear statistic: fake materials, usually from a far-right perspective, tend to have the highest engagement levels. danah boyd's 2017 post on media literacy's failures/backfires provides a logic for *why* misleading material does well. She points to a complicated blend of anti-intellectualism and individualist research, with a bit of material analysis mixed-in. After all, legitimate outlets often cost money, or doctors that dispel anti-vaccination movements are expensive to visit. The newest reading, Emily Dreyfuss's deconstruction of a single misinformation campaign, demonstrates where four years have taken us: to such powerful and believed misinformation that a single edited video clip can be a key cause of the January 6th incident that killed several. A notable point that both boyd and Dreyfuss (though more implicitly, in her case) make is that media literacy campaigns are unlikely to reduce this problem. In fact, boyd accuses such efforts of potentially exacerbating our present situation. Quite the bind is presented: media literacy is often paternalistic or doesn't work, there are motivated misinformation entrepreneurs, and a substantial portion of those in power are willing to exploit the spread of lies. It's tempting to suggest that the technological innovations that brought us to this point will somehow pull us out, via veracity warnings or adjustments to algorithms. That's partially correct: I suspect banning Trump and others like him from major platforms will lower the societal temperature partially. But what broader societal developments might help shift the rhetorical and psychological window offline more substantially? Relying on platforms alone to cure social ills seems like a fools-errand, and perhaps more material changes, be they in employment, healthcare, or societal structures are needed to repair deeper wounds. --------------- ## Feb 09 Tue: Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning The subject of this excerpt was a tad ironic considering the medium these words are appearing in: a reading response, one meant to retrieve knowledge of the piece as well as synthesize the information into new questions or critique. The authors of this piece, Peter Brown, Henry Roediger, and McDaniel would likely agree with this approach. Their book strongly emphasizes that the common models of learning, based on repetition and tight blocks of drilling, aren't as successful as they feel in the short-term. Testing, according to their findings, is by far the most effective way of ensuring information and skills stick in the long-term. Not only that, retrieval is essential for generating knowledge that can be built upon and modified, not merely used in its initial context. The authors emphasize repeatedly that the dogma of repetition has cemented itself in much of education and sports merely through history. They claim that *this* is the dominant strain of learning and practice. Simultaneously however, they make sure to note the backlash against testing, especially of the standardized variety. While they make a convincing case for the use of testing as a study tool (rather than a "dipstick"(p. 21)), this discontent suggests that testing is at least common enough that it's a cultural issue, regardless of the reasoning behind that testing. Are we really suffering from a dearth of testing in education, or scenarios that force retrieval? Or is it merely an error in how testing is conceived at this moment, one to be rectified by educators? -------------- ## Feb 16 Tue: Cooperation It's often assumed that humans are selfish and occasionally brutish, only seeking out their own ultimate goals. That's the entire rationale for the Hobbesian "Leviathan", and the emphasis in some ideologies on repression or utilization of these supposed "base" instincts. Martin Nowak's research, based on game theory and modeling, comes to a notably different conclusion: given repetition, familiarity, or the chance to be seen assisting others, people will come to favor collaboration as a means of survival and thriving. At a fundamental logical level, it makes sense that collaboration would aid the general survival, and Nowak alludes to collaboration behaviors occurring even in non-sentient lifeforms (such as yeast). Often the basis for the belief in humanity's selfishness is Darwinian natural selection, but Darwin himself claimed that a tribe that "were always ready to aid one another, and to sacrifice themselves for the common good" would be naturally selected over "tribes" divided by selfish aims (as cited in Nowak, p. 38). While there obviously remain numerous situations where collective action struggles, it's found in myriad scenarios that the cooperation and critical thinking of "the many" is far more beneficial to all parties than individual gains would be alone. Nowak makes clear: humans are the most collaborative species on Earth, and that's what has placed them on their seat at the top of the food chain. The greatest challenge in my mind is when this collaboration leads to developments that can morph into existential threats. For example, it takes the collaboration of millions to develop and power the technologies that have improved countless lives, but those same advances are slowly (or not so slowly) going to cause disastrous climate effects. The need for a kind of "counter-collaboration", one which goes against the previous arc of development, is challenging to conceive of. The deeper question is, we may have the fundamental human nature to handle the task, but have certain institutional and societal barriers been erected that make turning the ship too difficult? And if we truly are best off in our tight bundles of "known" communities (150 members), what does that mean for the modern, isolated world we largely live in? -------- # Feb 23 Tue: Dark Web In the past, I've jokingly referred to the internet as "the most double-edged of swords". If the standard, google-able internet has such stark pros and cons, the "Darknet" is even more of a stark case. As described by [David Kusher in his piece for Rolling Stone](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-darknet-is-the-government-destroying-the-wild-west-of-the-internet-198271/), the Onion Protocol that's foundational to the modern Darknet was originally created in the 90s as a tool for state security and dissident privacy. The Tor browser was publicly released in 2003, to add more public users to the network, both for altruistic reasons and simply to add more non-military users to the userbase. Now however, with the concept popularly seen (by both the public and law enforcement) as a hive of scum and villainy, there's an active effort going on decrypt the userbase, or at the very least, to find successful ways of scraping public information that can be found on secured illicit sites. As Kushner puts it, there is an almost comedic note to it all, as different American defense agencies are pitted against each other, either trying to eliminate or improve the Onion Protocol system. The efforts both by the Naval Research Lab in the 90s and now the decryption work by the FBI/NSA strike me as an ongoing, and largely unavoidable issue in international security policy's intersection with technology: there's always blowback, and it's usually *quite* foreseeable, but policymakers go through with it anyway. The ends may justify the means, but there is a consistent trend of not realizing the "ends" are usually not "the end" of the story. A similar example is the "Zero Day" hacks instigated by the US/Israeli governments with the "Stuxnet" worm and similar tools, which have now become significantly widespread. Essentially an exponentially increasing curve of issues ensue, as more fires pop up that will be put out in a way that only encourages worse damage later. Reading about efforts such as the encryption/decryption of networks, or even the more "benign" reading on cryptocurrency, there's a distinct feeling of so many complicated and shifting technical issues creating an instability. Eventually the center will be unable to hold, and somehow all of it will come crashing down. Perhaps that's just my own pessimism and limited technical competency speaking, but I can't say these developments have me hopeful that they'll somehow generate improved quality of life in the long run. Any time there's a hint of positivity (say, Tor being used for democracy protests), their actual useful bits are reversed (decryption software getting those same activists jailed). Are we essentially doomed to a loop of advancement followed by blowback?
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Reading Responses (Set 2)

Mar 23 Tue - Finding Someone & Living Alone It's easy to believe that internet dating is ruining romance, that it's defined by shallowness, vanity, and brief flings that leave people feeling hollow and isolated. Some of that is true: for example, people on the dating site OkCupid did tend to lie about their height, finances, and looks (OkCupid, 2010). But Reberto Ferdman's (2016) interview with sociologist Michael Rosenfeld suggest otherwise, with online dating actually simplifying and improving relationships, even long-term ones. Rosenfeld emphasizes that online dating, with its inherent selectivity and periods of pre-conversation before a date, can actually whittle partners down much more quickly than previous forms of dating could. Instead of dating someone for a few months (who you met at work) and finding out your interests clash too much, you can find someone from your entire metro area who shares your tastes. In terms of downsides, he refutes the shallowness argument as essentially part of human nature, and notes that the jury is still out on people still dating within ethnic groups and not being more intermingled (it could just be algorithmic selection on the apps' part). There can be no argument that online dating hasn't completely changed how people interact with romance, and it almost certainly introduces new complications. One aspect Rosenfeld doesn't discuss is how much work online dating can be, how there's a lot of time and emotional labor that can go into it that conventional dating simply doesn't, at least not in the early stages. Speaking from a man's perspective (it can be dramatically different for women) it's not like matches are rushing to message you. It's not just my looks I hope, considering it's a similar story from many men I know, but I could be wrong. It can take a long time to match with anyone, and even longer to progress the conversation to a point where coffee or dinner sounds like a good idea. But a dramatic benefit, and one that wasn't really mentioned in the Ferdman piece is how it clearly sets the stakes, at least as one of two options. With online dating, the end result is either a temporary physical engagement or a proper relationship (unless one party is just looking for a free meal). When asking someone you know in school or work out, there are a lot more questions: Will they think this is just a friendly gesture? How could this change our dynamic in our workplace? Is this entirely within the rules of our organization (like hierarchy or disclosure rules with relationships in workplaces)? Dating apps eliminate all of these concerns, simplifying the purpose of the conversation in a distinctive way. After you've had to awkwardly navigate the dynamics of a single bad date with a colleague, it's hard not to prefer to the distance and clarity that dating apps bring. Mar 26 Fri - Breakup It's a bit inaccurate to say that technology has made ending relationships more complicated. Breaking up has always been a messy, challenging affair, one prone to uncertainty and people avoiding hard conversations. However, as outlined in the chapter "How Do You Know?" by Illana Gershon, what digital communication has introduced is several rich layers of indirect messaging with varying meanings. Gershon refers to this indirect messaging as "second-order information," essentially the context and meta-intent of digital acts that can convey meanings not clearly stated by words (p. 123). Examples of these second-order messages existed before digital communication too: letter writing can have plenty of subtleties, coded messages, and accidental revelations of the writer's opinions. Nonetheless, digital communication presents several new avenues for sending new meanings to an audience, intentionally or not. This is especially important in the fraught and occasionally tense world of romantic relationships, where digital natives can use the various tools of social media to signal displeasure in a partner, such as by flicking one's relationship status to "it's complicated" (p. 134). The amount of uncertainty that this convoluted world of second-order information introduces can leave people uncertain if they've truly broken up with a partner until the other person publicly reveals they're dating someone else (p. 140). While many of Gershon's examples are dated to the era when Facebook was a dominant platform for college-age students, many of the complications still remain. I would argue that several of the issues presented by second-order communication are inherently bound up in the cowardice and fickleness of youth. Age and maturity are what allow people to have difficult conversations easier, though I suppose plenty of people fail to ever develop those skills. I was struck by the Pew Research article by Lenhart, Anderson, & Smith, where it was found that a majority of teenagers found a breakup by text distasteful, but still several had either experienced it or done it themselves. As was also alluded to in Gershon's piece, it seems that many people find communicating through second-order information or indirect communication unpleasant and wrong, but people still readily do it. It speaks to a fundamental human tendency where we can recognize bad behavior, but if it makes our lives easier, and allows us to control how others interact with us, we'll do it. Recognizing the humanity and emotions of other people can be incredibly difficult. It's hard to really get to know people, or to see them cry in front of you when you hurt them. It's much easier to reduce someone to an item external to ourselves, a face on a page, a check-mark saying a message has been read, and a block button at the ready when it all seems a bit much. Is this a permanent progression? Are we stuck guessing at the second-order intentions of people more and more, as digital selves become real selves? Or can digital communication reach a point where those layers of metaphor and abstraction are reduced?

4/19/2021
Filter and Label Your Email

Email Filtering Exercise Reading Engagement There's a distinct irony in the rather contradictory analysis of the condition of present internet culture and its effects on democracy. The subject of analysis is a lack of consensus and "truth," while the academics discussing the matter seemingly don't share a common thesis either. The main author discussed in all three readings, Eli Pariser is firmly in the camp that filtering bubbles are real, and likely quite negative. Facebook's own findings (to the extent they can be trusted), as well as writers such as Jacob Weisberg, disagree with a number of Pariser's raised concerns. They suggest that Facebook doesn't hide as much opposing content as has been suggested, or that Google search results aren't as user-specific as Pariser found (in a very small-N study) (Echo Chamber Revisited). There's a certain contradiction at the heart of concerns about internet misinformation. On one hand, we worry about filter bubbles: the idea that people are only taking in like-minded information. On the other, there's a concern about the sheer quantity of information that an individual can come across, both factual and false. The problem there being that if there's too much to ascertain the veracity of, people will default to what they will agree with. But that "problem" fundamentally means that people are being exposed to other views, potentially even over-exposed. Clay Shirky hints at this idea, though more from the angle of aggravation, that in fact being online allows people to realize just how many people exist with opposing viewpoints, which actually causes them to double-down and become more polarized (Echo Chamber Revisited).

2/11/2021
Web Search and Evaluation

Google Searches Wikipedia Search Initial search (11,400 results): English-only: Skate Fish Huskies (2001-2002)

2/2/2021
Bryan's Home Page

Required assignments Wiki tutorial Web search and evaluation Filter and label your email Adblocking Privacy footprint Reading responses

1/22/2021
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