Transcript Ch9 Broader Issues - University of Southern Mississippi

Ch9 Broader Issues
4/15/02
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Community or Isolation?
Many people feel that the impact of computers
on community, social, and interpersonal
interaction is negative and will get worse.
Will on-line shopping kill real stores and
eliminate the need for community-based
professionals?
Will the effluent pull back on support for local
schools and public services?
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Community or Isolation?
Will the ability to do so many things from home
(shop, vote, bank, etc.) cut down on people to
people interaction and result in a de-emphasis
in the importance of community?
Are there factors other than technology that
offer greater threats to the concept of
community ?
Have these other factors already killed the
sense of community?
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How Do You Measure
Community?
It has been suggested that a good measure
of “community” is the number of organizations
that people join and are active in.
Unlike studies of the early 90’s, recent
studies tend to indicate that this is not a
problem.
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What About Isolation?
There was a real concern about what the
impact of the telephone would be. It was feared
that it would negatively impact peoples ability
to talk face to face.
Many people are reporting that e-mail
correspondence has allowed them to keep in
touch with the modern dispersed family.
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Return to Mayberry?
Since the early 80’s there has been a move
from the cities to the suburbs or smaller
communities.
It has been hypothesized that it is technology
that has given us ability to remotely compute
and communicate that has made this possible.
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Blacksburg Electronic Village
BEV was put in operation in Oct of 93 as a
partnership between the town of Blacksburg,
Virginia Tech, and Bell Atlantic to improve
community networking service to the level
available on the Virginia Tech campus. Bell
Atlantic installed a switch and a T1 line to the
library and several hundred apartments while
Virginia Tech provided personnel for
management/development.
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Blacksburg Electronic Village
By 1996, 45% of the population had access to
BEV. All 20 local schools, 14 local news groups,
more than 100 community groups and 200
businesses maintained BEV sites.
Most active of the community groups were the
seniors, the Islamic Center, and the arts council.
User surveys consistently find the principle uses
of the network are learning and teaching (35% of
all traffic), civic interests, social relations, support
for work or business, consumer information,
entertainment, and medical services.
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Blacksburg Electronic Village
Users/uses include Church groups, mountain
bikers club, florist, travel agents, doctors,
current issues forums,etc.
Neat applications include a virtual science lab
(4 schools and the university), a virtual science
fair, MOOsburg (a multi-user model of the city),
and a collaborative history of the city project,
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Blacksburg Electronic Village
Want to claim success integrating distinct and
sometimes conflicting views. The vision of wide
access and participation, well-developed but
somewhat insular subcommittees,
entrepreneurial initiative, and independently
originated new applications and service
are not always compatible.
After 3 years accesses to BEV were approaching
250,000 per month.
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Computer Addiction
This is a real problem. Computer games
have knocked more than a few students
out of college.
You might have noticed that old-timers
tend to get hooked on Solitaire. (or e-bay)
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Cybersex
Stanford study published 4/99 in “Professional
Psychology: Research and Practice”
9 million people a day log on to the Internet for
sexual pursuits.
8% were determined to be sexually compulsive
because they spent more than 11 hours a week
on cybersex and felt it interfered with their lives.
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Cybersex
60% admitted to lying about their age.
40% admitted to lying about their race.
47% were married.
The three “A”s of the Internet:
affordability, accessibility, and anonymity.
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Problems with Stanford Study
1. If all of these people admit to lying then at
least that number does. Why believe them now?
2. Since when does not feeling you have a
problem mean that you don't have one?
3. Arbitrary selection of hours needed to be
addicted.
4. Sample size not given or details on how data
collected.
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Who gets hooked?
Studies have reported that Internet addicts
tend to have the personality that leads to
addiction and it is probable that if they
were not addicted to the Internet then there
would be something else such as gambling,
drug abuse, etc.
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Information Haves and
Have Nots
A family with a college education and earning
over $50,000 is five times as likely to have a
computer as one with non-graduates earning
less than $30,000.
Over half of the children of college graduates
use a computer at home while only 17% of
children in homes where the parents have
high school education or less do.
Are colleges with poorly supported computer
labs even playing fields?
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Communications Act of 1934
Under the universal service guarantee found in
the act, telephone companies are required to
provide telephone service to poor people at low
rates, subsidized by other customers.
Do we need to extend this principle to the NET?
CPSR argues that in an information-driven
society the answer is yes.
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CPSR & Universal Access
According to CPSR, Universal Access requires:
1. A place where everyone can go to get access.
2. Easily used equipment.
3. Training in the use of hardware and software.
4. Affordable access.
5. Access to the full range of features.
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"Larry Irving: Digital Divide Lives, Few People
Care"Newsbytes (04/18/02); MacMillan, Robert
Speaking at the ACM sponsored Computers
Freedom and Privacy 2002 conference in
San Francisco, Privacy Council chief
strategist and former U.S. Commerce
Undersecretary Clarence "Larry" Irving
accused both the federal and private
sectors of indifference in bridging the
digital divide between the Internet haves
and have-nots. He noted that 60 percent
of African-Americans and 70 percent of
Hispanic-Americans lack Internet access.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176000.html
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The Market's Role
Competition and technical developments have
combined to really drop the price. Initially new
technology carries a high price tag.
Are we talking about Haves and Have laters?
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Are Computers Hurting
Education?
There is a growing number of teachers that are
expressing concerns about the decline in student
performance in classes while standardized test
scores indicate stronger students.
Students seem to think, learn, and visualize
differently than their peers of earlier years.
“Independent thinking has been replaced by
double clicking.”
Haim Baruh, “Last Word”, ASEE Prism. Oct 2001, p68.
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Are Computers Hurting
Education?
An extensive study Educational Testing Service
(ETS) study of more than 6,000 fourth-graders
and 7,000 eighth-graders found that while higherorder thinking skills are affected positively by the
frequency of computer use, lower-order thinking
skills are affected negatively. The study, which
looks at both home and school use of computers,
concluded that home use of computers has a
positive effect, but “the net effect of school
computer use is negative.”
Haim Baruh, “Last Word”, ASEE Prism. Oct 2001, p68.
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Political Freedom
The case for more: what happened in Russia,
Tiananmem Square, etc., electronic newspapers
and relayed e-mail, full text of bills available.
Counter examples: Government of Iran avoiding
"cultural contamination" from U.S. television.
Singapore doing similar with the web. China
using firewalls to block certain Internet sites.
Viet Nam keeping certain political thoughts out.
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"War on E-Mail Spam Ratchets
Up in Courts, Legislatures"
Christian Science Monitor (4/18/2) P. 1; Marks, Alexandra
Much effort is currently underway to control the
proliferation of spam, including federal
legislation, new blocking technology, and a
federal crackdown on illegal spammers. States
have lead the way in the fight against unsolicited
email, as businesses in the 20 states that have
already passed anti-spam laws have filed dozens
of cases against spammers. Experts estimate
that billions of dollars are lost due to spam,
since it takes up computer server space and
employees' time in deleting the messages.
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Predictions from the Past
"I think there is a world market for maybe five
computers." (Tom Watson, Chairman IBM 1943)
"Computers in the future may ... only weigh
1.5 tons." (Popular Mechanics, 1949)
"There is no reason for any individual to have a
computer in their home." (Ken Olsen, President
DEC, 1977)
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Predictions from the Past
“No one will need more than 640K of memory.”
(Bill Gates)
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