Facebook Effect Part 1

It is very interesting to read about the start of face book and how it has become the social powerhouse it is today.  Zuckerberg ran into many issues while first building face book into what is it today, but the choices he made turned out to be the right ones, and face book has now become a revolutionary movement in the social network realm.  The idea started out relatively small, with only targeting college students and requiring an .edu email address.  By expanding on other social networks already available, Zuckerberg was able to expand face book into what it is today.

It is interesting to think back before the time of face book and remember when AOL instant messaging was one of the most popular ways to be involved in social networking and chat with friends.  This concept has been expanded by face book and other social networks to a much more intricate and sophisticated way to build social networks.  With millions of people now joining the face book movement, people from all over the world and multiply languages can all join in on the largest social network in the world.  The social implications that face book has on society is the ability to be far apart from people, but still be able to keep in touch with them.  The way society is communicating with each other is changing, and the normal face to face interactions has now moved onto the internet.  I think that the future will only expand on this notion and face book will become more and more apart of peoples lives.  Although I have face book, I think the fact that people are using face book rather then having face to face interactions will have a negative effect on society.  As we move into the future, we will see just how big the face book effect will become, and its overall effect on our society and culture.

Wikipedia Midterm analysis

I thought that our assignment on the Wikipedia audit was very interesting and also eye opening.  By taking a deeper look into Wikipedia, I was able to learn where the information from these articles was coming from.  Ive learned that Wikipedia isn't really the best source for information about certain topics.  I think the main function that Wikipedia holds in terms of information seeking is that it can touch the surface on topics to give the reader the main idea of the situation, but I wouldn't recommend using it as a scholarly source.  In our audit of the Katrina article on Wikipedia, we found that many of the sources were bias especially the information on the sociopolitical aspect of the article.  Although the factual information about the storm was accurate, such as statistical damage and other quantitative information.  The overall analysis of Wikipedia is that it contains a large amount of bias that needs to be taken into consideration while using Wikipedia to gain information.

Made to Break Part 3

The third part of Giles Slade's book "Made to Break"  continues the argument of how technology in America is planned obsolescence.  Despite the large amount of positive things that technology has provided us, there is a large amount of negativity as well.  I thought it was interesting to learn things about the cold war and how planned obsolescence can be applied to war situations and weapon manufacturing.  What is most interesting to me is how this concept of planned obsolescence has evolved from first being introduced from small things like female products to the large mass production of things like computers that will be out of date within a year.

Its also very interesting that this notion of obsolescence is somewhat hidden to the majority of the public.  People cannot realize the harmful effect that constant technological advances has on society.  This notion is also deeply embedded into our culture that its hard to see the other side of things.  For example, I am not one that believes in the idea of leasing a car.  I think its not to smart to basically "rent" a car for three years and just trade it in for something else.  Although you get to use the car everyday but you still aren't really paying towards something.  Many people that I know lease cars and they prefer not to have it any other way.  Everyone wants something new, but they are not exposed to the giant waste that is being produced.

Although Slade mainly displays the negative effect that technological obsolescence has on society, I think that there is still some positive effects to this.  For instance, we use technology in our hospitals that help save lives everyday.  We are constantly evolving our technology in our hospitals to better serve to public and save lives.  We have technology now that we didn't have ten years ago, and this fact is keeping people alive from things like injuries and cancer.

Although technological obsolescence is mainly a negative concept for society, I think it would be best to find some sort of balance that can ultimately cut down on our waste but improve other things to help us be a cleaner, more efficient society.