Students find call of gadgets irresistible

THREE out of four of Singapore's tech-mad youngsters may be just a bit too fond of their electronic gadgets, suffering physically and socially as a result.

In a survey of 600 polytechnic and university students, three-quarters admitted to constantly fiddling with their mobile phones and other electronic gadgets.

Many of the respondents aged 17 to 25 checked their phones or laptops every few seconds, and took those gadgets with them wherever they went.

More than two in five, for instance, took their mobile phones everywhere - including the toilet. And one in 50 respondents admitted to getting chided 'all the time' for ignoring those around them in favour of their gadgets.

Miss Christine Tan, a final-year undergraduate at Nanyang Technological University's Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, said her four-man team decided to look into the issue because 'we saw it in ourselves and our peers...where nothing else matters when we are on our gadgets'.

While technology had many proven benefits, like allowing users to work away from the office and increasing productivity, Miss Tan and her team wanted to red-flag what they believed was a rise in the number of young people so compulsively dependent on their gadgets that they suffered negative side effects.

The most obvious were physical pains such as aches in the head, neck and thumbs.

Raffles Hospital clinical director for pain management, Dr Ho Kok Yuen, said he had seen an increase in the number of younger people suffering from chronic pain - a condition earlier seen only in people aged 60 and above.

'Most people who continue using their gadgets do not realise that their usage patterns can have a very serious impact on their physical well-being,' said Dr Ho.

Those with the condition, which is increasingly being referred to as 'gadget over-dependency', may be affected in less obvious ways as well.

According to a New York Times article, those constantly exposed to a deluge of information find themselves unable to focus on tasks at hand, and also face increased stress.

Long-term exposure to a constant diet of text messages, Facebook updates and Twitter posts, say neuroscientists in the Times report, can 'rewire' human brains to the point that key areas such as analytical ability and creativity might potentially be impaired.

Compulsive usage, said psychologist Nicholas Lim, also 'robs you of the ability to know what controls you and what you control'.

This has the ring of familiarity for private school student Lynn Lim, 22.

'A few years ago, I was at an interview for a part-time job, and there was an alert on my phone. I took it out, checked the message and replied because that is what I always do. When I looked up, the look on the interviewer's face was priceless... No, I didn't get the job.

From ST

Social Media - Lethal invasion of Privacy

If you're 20 years old or younger, you probably grew up using computers, cellphones, iPods and Facebook. Photos, for you, are images not necessarily printed on paper. CDs are old hat. You take digital -- digital everything -- for granted.

In such a world, how easy is it to record and be recorded, to share your -- or someone else's -- most intimate secrets by posting them on the Web? All too easy.

Easy gathering and distribution of information are hallmarks of the digital age. They played out all too disastrously for first-year Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi.

Clementi committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge in New York on Sept. 22, three days after roommate Dharun Ravi, 18, allegedly made and streamed online a secret video of an intimate encounter between Clementi and another man.

Clementi's body was identified Sept. 29. Ravi and Rutgers freshman Molly Wei, also 18, have been charged with invading his privacy, and Middlesex County, N.J., prosecutors say bias-crime charges are possible.

Clementi even said farewell via Facebook: "Jumping off the gw bridge sorry."

Clementi's death has spurred fierce debate, on and off campus and on the Internet, about social media, changing notions of privacy, and whether or not what happened was a crime.

Emily Nussbaum, frequent writer on social media and privacy issues and editor at large for New York magazine, said, "I am completely baffled about why people don't make a distinction between what you do and do not post."

But she also sees three important forces at work in this story: "The availability and ease of the technology; the growing normalcy of porn, especially the rise of amateur porn, in which you post sexual images of yourself or others, and the social networking change in people's attitude toward privacy."

Neil Bernstein is an adolescent psychologist in Washington and author of "How To Keep Your Teenager Out of Trouble and What to Do If You Can't." He sees two trends converging: the "dilution of intimacy" brought about by the new media, and what he calls "behavior contagion," or the tendency of people to do what those around them are doing.

The Web can connect people in strong, healthy ways, Bernstein said. But the dark side is that our notion of intimacy may be diluted.

"There's a decreased empathy that sometimes comes with social media," he said. "Because they're online, people will consider themselves intimate with people they don't really know at all. And this has an impact on relationships."

Then there's "behavior contagion." All around you, your friends and acquaintances post information once thought "private": names of boy- or girlfriends, social plans, secrets.

Technology does change attitudes, and fast. "When phones became cameras," Nussbaum said, "every friend you had became your paparazzo. All the previous ethical boundaries about taking photos of someone else without express permission, which used to be seen as an invasion of privacy -- that's all but gone now."

Which leaves all of us vulnerable. Rob D'Ovidio, associate professor of criminal justice in the department of culture and communications at Philadelphia's Drexel University, says that low-cost, miniaturized recording technology is "entering the widespread public domain."

In the past, we needed to worry only about Big Brother: government and corporate entities with the power to gather and manipulate private info. "Now," said D'Ovidio, "we're in the era where we have to watch everyone, including other consumers, our colleagues, our classmates -- we have to watch everyone from now on.

"Big Brother has trickled down to the Everyperson."

Opportunity -- and temptation -- to misuse social media are everywhere. "The will to betray, the will to deceive, is out there," said Gary T. Marx, professor emeritus of social science at MIT. Social media simply make it easier.

Also involved is the culture of "pranking," with its overtones of humiliation, harassment and bullying. According to the Associated Press, since 2003 in the United States at least a dozen children or young adults between 11 and 18 have killed themselves after some form of cyberbullying. Perhaps best known is the case of 13-year-old Megan Meier of Dardenne Prairie, Mo., who hanged herself in 2006 after getting MySpace messages supposedly from a boy breaking up with her. The messages were really sent by the mother of a friend.

Much of the Internet debate focuses on whether what happened to Clementi amounts to a hate-crime against gays. Hayley Gorenberg, an attorney with Lambda Legal, a national gay-rights organization, said she was "terribly saddened" but not at all shocked to learn of Clementi's death.

"We know the rates of suicide among LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) youth who do not feel supported are sky-high," she said. "Social media can be a fantastic source of support for youth who feel isolated, but the potential is there for depersonalization that removes perpetrators from the face-to-face interaction."

Based on an article in Times Union, a US-based online newspaper.

The impact of the Social Media tutorial

This is what is inside your head after the Social Media tutorial. Freedom huh? Interesting...

Kanye West and How Twitter Has Changed the Way We Communicate

Its amazing that Kanye West has made an impact on how we conduct ourselves in a media-dominated world. Check out this article about it and also:

Twitter vs Iran Elections

Twitter vs The Rest of the World

Iphone for charity

Egyptian Arrest

Burglars use FB to pick targets

Since the world is presently overloaded with information and as a test on how our discussion has affected you, pls post a SINGLE word that captures the said issue. Remember only ONE word yea....

Social Impact of the Web

There are many areas where the internet has led to changes and innovations. The impact of the Web is undeniable and ubiquitous. But specifically what are the different areas that have the most social impact? Identify 3 areas in which the social impact the Web is clearly seen and provide evidence via links or points.

Twitter means so many things...

Twitter has definitely changed the world in leaps and bounds but this article from Guardian dispels many myths. One is that the popularity of Twitter is not propelled by teens. This insight by a 15 year-old seems to be ground-breaking to Morgan Stanley. Why so?

Rockstar: Only "Terrible Parents" Buy Our Games for Their Kids

Radio personality and Rockstar producer Lazlow Jones has a message for people who buy Rockstar games for their kids: "You're a terrible parent."

Rockstar games are awesome. They're also most definitely not for kids. From Grand Theft Auto to Manhunt to the new Red Dead Redemption, just about everyone agrees that these are games that parents should keep far away from their children. And for those parents who do let their kids play them, because they don't know any better or they just don't care, Rockstar has a message: You suck.

"Our games are not designed for young people," said Lazlow Jones, who hooked up with Rockstar in 2001 by writing and performing in radio segments in Grand Theft Auto 3. "If you're a parent and buy one of our games for your child, you're a terrible parent."

"We design games for adults because we're adults," he continued. "There's a lot of kids' games out there that we're not interested in playing. Just like you enjoy watching movies and TV shows with adult themes and language and violence, that's the kind of thing we seek to produce."

He claimed that despite its reputation, Rockstar gets relatively little "pushback" from rating boards, although he noted that the videogame industry in general faces far greater challenges than other media when it comes to producing mature content. "If you tell a gritty crime drama with violence and profanity and call it The Sopranos you're handed a load of awards to put up on the shelf," he said. "You do the same and call it a videogame and you'll have certain organizations up in arms."

But times are changing and Lazlow thinks Rockstar deserves a lot of credit for "pushing the boundaries" of what's acceptable in videogames today. "I think ever since GTA IV came out and there were such rave reviews by major publications saying that this is actually art the restrictions about being politically correct have largely fallen away," he said.

Source: TheEscapist

Facebook chats exposed

SAN FRANCISCO - FACEBOOK on Wednesday temporarily shut down its online chat feature after a software glitch let people's friends in the online community see each others' private chat messages.

For a 'limited period of time' chat messages and pending friend requests could be made visible to friends, according to Facebook.

For peeks at the usually walled-off information, Facebook users had to manipulate a 'preview my profile' feature in a particular way, according to Facebook. 'When we received reports of the problem, our engineers promptly diagnosed it and temporarily disabled the chat function,' a Facebook spokesman said in an email response to an AFP inquiry. 'We also pushed out a fix to take care of the visible friend requests.'

Chat was back in action for most Facebook users by 1900 GMT (3am Thursday Singapore time) and it was expected to be working across the website after.

'We worked quickly to resolve this matter, ensuring that once the bug was reported to us, a solution was quickly found and implemented,' the Facebook spokesman said. The software glitch struck as the world's top online social-networking service is increasingly scrutinised regarding the privacy of members.

Slightly more than half of adult users of social networks have posted 'risky personal information' such as birth dates or children's photos to profile pages, according to a Consumer Reports survey titled 'Social Insecurity'. The survey indicated that 23 per cent of Facebook's users 'either didn't know that the site offered privacy controls or chose not to use them.' --AFP

Click here for article

'Long-term harm' of too much TV for toddlers

The more TV a toddler watches, the higher the likelihood they will do badly at school and have poor health at the age of 10, researchers warn.

Go to BBC to read the original article.

Iranian women bloggers lauded

PARIS - INTERNET giant Google on Thursday joined a top journalists' rights group in rewarding a collective of Iranian women bloggers for their reporting on last year's post-election unrest.

The online journalists of women's rights blog we-change.org were given the 'Net Citizen' award, a new prize by Google and French media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) to defend freedom of expression online.

Dozens of the Iranian site's contributors have been detained for reporting online on huge anti-government demonstrations that broke out amid claims of fraud in Iran's election, RSF said.

'The Iranian women's movement has always shown resistance... Now the movement is bringing its experience and methods of working democratically into cyberspace,' said one of its members, Mr Parvin Adalan, accepting the award at Google's Paris offices.

Google and RSF said in a statement that the site, formed in 2006, 'has become a point of reference for information on women's rights in Iranian society', and 'Iranian cyber-feminists have created new spaces for expression'. 'Female online journalists show the world the abuses of power suffered in recent months by demonstrators and the population in general' in Iran, they said.

Among others shortlisted for the prize was Mr Tan Zuoren, a 55-year-old Chinese journalist jailed for five years for his reporting on poorly built schools that were destroyed in the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, south-western China. -- AFP

Source: AFP

TV 'ban' for Aussie toddlers

SYDNEY - CHILDREN should not watch television until they turn two because it can hurt their language development and ability to concentrate, according to new guidelines for Australians.

The government recommendations, expected to be released next week, also say that children aged two to five should watch no more than an hour of television a day, The Australian newspaper reported Monday.

The draft guidelines, which have been designed for childcare centres but also offer advice for parents, are intended to help curb the spread of the obesity epidemic which has left Australian children heavier than ever.

'Based on recent research, it is recommended that children younger than two years of age should not spend any time watching television or using other electronic media (DVDs, computer and other electronic games),' they say.

'Screen time... may reduce the amount of time they have for active play, social contact with others and chances for language development,' a draft copy of the guidelines obtained by The Australian said.

'(It may) affect the development of a full range of eye movement (and)... reduce the length of time they can stay focused.' The government would not confirm the report, saying that the guidelines were still being finalised. -- AFP

- From Straits Times 12th October

Singapore youths addicted to games

SINGAPORE students spend 27 hours a week playing video games like Maple Story and World of Warcraft.

The statistic, uncovered by an ongoing National Institute of Education (NIE) study, is raising concern over the impact of such games, and the extent of gaming addiction here.

The three-year study, the biggest of its kind in Singapore, is looking at more than 3,000 primary and secondary school students' gaming habits, and will be finished at the end of the year.

NIE declined to reveal more about it pending an analysis of the results.

One thing is clear though: Singapore youth really like video games.

Acting Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts Lui Tuck Yew, who revealed the 27-hour statistic at a Singapore Press Club event last month, said he was 'quite surprised and a little bit shocked' that the figure was so high.

From ST

What Is Web 2.0?

Web 1.0 was focused on a relatively small number of companies and advertisers producing content for users to access—some people called the web at the time the “brochure web.” Web 2.0involves the user—not only is the content often created by users, but users help organize it, share it, remix it, critique it, update it, etc. One way to look at Web 1.0 is as a lecture, a small number of professors informing a large audience of students. In comparison, Web 2.0 is aconversation, with everyone having the opportunity to speak and share views.

Web 2.0 embraces an architecture of participation—a design that encourages user interaction and community contributions. You, the user, are the most important aspect of Web 2.0—so important, in fact, that in 2006, TIME Magazine’s “Person of the Year” was “you.” The article recognized the social phenomenon of Web 2.0—the shift away from a powerful few to an empowered many.

“We can’t be device centric...we must be user centric.”

—Bill Gates, MIX06 conference

Many Web 2.0 companies are built almost entirely on user-generated content and harnessing collective intelligence. The significance is not just in having user-generated content, but in how it is used. Google—the leading search engine and Internet advertising company—sends its users to user-generated websites by considering what users collectively have valued in the past. For websites like MySpace^®, Flickr™, YouTube and Wikipedia^®, users create the content, while the sites provide the platforms. These companies trust their users—without such trust, users cannot make significant contributions to the sites.

“A platform beats an application every time.”

—Tim O’Reilly

The architecture of participation is seen in software development as well. Open software is available for anyone to use and modify with few or no restrictions—this has played a major role in Web 2.0 development. Harnessing collective intelligence, communities collaborate to develop software that many people believe is better than proprietary software.

You, the user, are not only contributing content and developing open source software, but you are also directing how media is delivered, and deciding which news and information outlets you trust. Many popularblogs now compete with traditional media powerhouses. Social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us and Ma.gnolia allow users to recommend their favorite sites to others. Social media sites such as Digg™ or Reddit enable the community to decide which news articles are the most significant. You are also changing the way we find the information on these sites by tagging (i.e., labeling) web content by subject or keyword in a way that helps anyone locate information more effectively. This is just one of the ways Web 2.0 helps users identify new meaning in already existing content.RSS feeds (Chapter 14, XML and RSS) enable you to receive new information as it is updated—pushing the content right to your desktop.

The rise ofsocial networks has changed the way we interact and network. MySpace— the largest social network—has rapidly become the world’s most popular website. Other popular social networking sites include Facebook, Bebo, LinkedIn, and Second Life—a 3D virtual world where you interact with others via your online persona called an avatar.

User-Generated Content

User-generated content has been the key to success for many of today’s leading Web 2.0 companies, such as Amazon, eBay and Monster. The community adds value to these sites, which, in many cases, are almost entirely built on user-generated content. For example, eBay (an online auction site) relies on the community to buy and sell auction items, and Monster (a job search engine) connects job seekers with employers and recruiters.

User-generated content includes explicitly generated content such as articles, home videos and photos. It can also include implicitly generated content—information that is gathered from the users’ actions online. For example, every product you buy from Amazon and every video you watch on YouTube provides these sites with valuable information about your interests. Companies like Amazon have developed massive databases of anonymous user data to understand how users interact with their site. For example, Amazon uses your purchase history and compares it to purchases made by other users with similar interests to make personalized recommendations (e.g., “customers who bought this item also bought...”). Implicitly generated content is often considered hidden content. For example, web links and tags are hidden content; every site you link to from your own site or bookmark on a social bookmarking site could be considered a vote for that site’s importance. Search engines such as Google (which uses the PageRank algorithm) use the number and quality of these links to a site to determine the importance of a site in search results.

Source:

http://www.deitel.com/eBook/WhatIsWeb20/tabid/2483/Default.aspx

https://php.radford.edu/~tlc/wordpress/

Facebook to own info?

NEW YORK - TENS of thousands of Facebook users are protesting new policies that they say grant the social-networking site the ability to control their information forever, even after they cancel their accounts.Facebook's new terms of use, updated Feb 4, largely went unnoticed until the popular consumer rights advocacy blog Consumerist.com pointed out the changes on Sunday.

That prompted a clarification from Facebook's founder, Mark Zuckerberg, although the new terms remain in force. Mr Zuckerberg told users in a blog post Monday that 'on Facebook, people own their information and control who they share it with'.

When someone shares a photo, a message or a status update telling friends what they are up to at the moment, they first need to grant Facebook a license so the site can pass that information along to authorized friends, Zuckerberg said. Without the license, he said, Facebook wouldn't be able to help people share information.

Zuckerberg said the new terms are necessary to reflect the fact that friends may retain a copy of that message or other information once a user shares it with them.

'Even if the person deactivates their account, their friend still has a copy of that message,' Mr Zuckerberg said. 'We think this is the right way for Facebook to work, and it is consistent with how other services like e-mail work. One of the reasons we updated our terms was to make this more clear.' Mr Zuckerberg did acknowledge that Facebook, which boasts 175 million users around the world, still has 'work to do to communicate more clearly' about how information is shared on the site.

The rapidly growing site has had several run-ins with users over its short history.

In late 2007, for example, a tracking tool called 'Beacon' caught users off-guard by broadcasting information about their shopping habits and activities at other websites. After initially defending the practice, Facebook ultimately allowed users to turn Beacon off. -- AP