Lengua materna: Polaco Se inscribió el: lunes, 15 de febrero de 2010 Ubicación: Polonia
RE: Everyone else is on Facebook
Ooops, you will thus miss this unique opportunity to contribute to Progress:
More than 60 years ago, in his “Foundation” series, the science fiction novelist Isaac Asimov invented a new science — psychohistory — that combined mathematics and psychology to predict the future.
Now social scientists are trying to mine the vast resources of the Internet — Web searches and Twitter messages, Facebook and blog posts, the digital location trails generated by billions of cellphones — to do the same thing.
The most optimistic researchers believe that these storehouses of “big data” will for the first time reveal sociological laws of human behavior — enabling them to predict political crises, revolutions and other forms of social and economic instability, just as physicists and chemists can predict natural phenomena. ...
Lengua materna: Polaco Se inscribió el: lunes, 15 de febrero de 2010 Ubicación: Polonia
RE: Everyone else is on Facebook
Cell Phone Weighs Down Backpack of Self-Discovery
[snip] When I was 18, I did what many middle-class American college students have done ever since air travel became broadly accessible: I backpacked through Europe on a rail pass. Much cheap wine was consumed. Many beautiful European women were chased (unsuccessfully). Many hard-earned savings were spent at discotheques.
My buddies and I spent most of the time together, but on occasion we split up to travel through different cities with plans to rendezvous at an American Express office in northern Italy.
During my time alone, I slept on a beach in Spain, in a public park in Genoa and on the marble floor of the fascist-built Milan train station. I read Dostoevsky. Most of the time that I was on my own, I was miserable. I hurried through meals self-consciously. I sat in public parks and wrote in my journal. And I only occasionally made new acquaintances at the hostels.
Meanwhile, I spoke to my parents perhaps once a week from a public phone bank. I hurriedly told them I was alive and made sure everyone back home was, too. The conversation would take less than five minutes, and that was pretty much it when it came to communication. After all, there were better things to spend my money on.
The day I arrived, in Paris, I stood in a patisserie, my stomach grumbling, as customer after customer ordered their baked goods, and I mentally practiced my request: “Je voudrais un baguette s’il vous plait... Je voudrais un baguette s’il vous plait…” Over and over until, finally, I swallowed and spoke the words aloud -- but not loudly enough, evidently, since I was ignored in favor of other patrons. It took twice as long for me to try again -- and twice the courage to speak up even louder. Again I was ignored. I slunk out of the shop. To my back, I heard the baker shout, “Je voudrais UNE baguette! UNE! C’est feminine, la baguette!”
It was the most powerful French lesson I would ever endure -- complete with the Pavlovian reward of the still- warm loaf of bread. How was I to know the sex of a baguette? I had no iPhone translation app to tell me it is feminine. I couldn’t Google. And I was alone.
I followed pretty much the same routine during a stint in the Middle East, Latin America and various other far- flung places during the summers of my young adulthood. It gradually became easier to be alone, to meet new people and to order bread.
My story is by no means unique. It has long been a rite of passage in our culture of rugged individualism to spend a summer in Europe, or to hike the Appalachian Trail, or to bike down the West Coast. It doesn’t matter how far you go, just as long as you disconnect, cut the umbilical cord, get lost and end up with stories to tell your kids someday (edited for public consumption, and perhaps a tad exaggerated). Time away from our social networks as young adults helps us figure out who we are, and become fully individual.
As of late, however, our time in the social wilderness has been eroded by omnipresent connectivity -- that is, the mobile telecommunications device. And I’m afraid that with no solitude, we will become less, not more, connected to our friends and families. Without loneliness, our society will innovate less. The great American tradition of “finding ourselves” by leaving the social network extends further back even than Henry David Thoreau and his time on Walden Pond. The romanticization of the lone shepherd extends to Virgil. …
… we all need solitude. It is necessary not only for individualism but also for developing self-awareness and intimacy. Let me explain.
Time spent alone allows us to see ourselves as others see us. It’s important to have a backstage -- a safe, private space where we don’t have to worry about folks watching us, where we can let our hair down, practice our social routines and strike back against the indignations of life in the public square. The backstage is where our “true” self resides, as distinct from the front-stage self we present at the office or on the street.
The mobile phone in the garden erodes that private space. And, in turn, it precludes intimacy: Until we have (and can protect) that private self, we can’t be intimate with another. Intimacy, to extend the theatrical metaphor, is like giving backstage passes to a select few. It rests on the private self remaining distinct from the public self, so that you have something to offer chosen friends and family members.
Recently I found on my Facebook feed an announcement from a colleague I had never met in person: He was getting divorced. It was all going to be fine, he told me and 368 other “friends,” because he and his soon-to-be ex had reached a shared-custody arrangement and were going to have an amicable relationship. I felt squeamish for having read this painful, personal information that I really shouldn’t know. …
The generation currently entering the workforce can barely even remember the dark days before Al Gore invented the internet. These "digital natives" would — nay, will — have their phones implanted into their arms someday, and if they're forced to go more than 20 minutes without checking Facebook they may start shaking uncontrollably and begging you to "like" them. It's all terribly frightening for adults who spent their formative years playing tic-tac-toe in the dirt with a stick, but thankfully Cisco has performed a study to bridge the generational gap in the workplace.
According to CBS News, in a study of 1,400 students and 1,400 professionals ages 21 to 29 in 14 countries, Cisco found that one in three young people consider the internet to be as essential to their survival as air, water, food, and shelter. Either they're addicted to the internet, or social studies teachers are doing a horrible job with that "needs versus wants" lesson in the first week of 6th grade. The respondents said they value the internet far more than any other type of technology, with only one in 10 saying TV is the most important device they own. The results were even more dismal for books. One in five students said they hadn't bought a physical book in two years, signaling that one day people will be trying to comb their hair with books, Little Mermaid-style.
The intent of the research wasn't just to frighten elderly employers. It's also meant to confuse them. The study advises against companies blocking access to Facebook and certain websites that have "sex" in their tag line because that really ticks off young workers. Cisco found:
One in three college students and young employees under the age of 30 said would prioritize social media freedom, device flexibility, and work mobility over salary in accepting a job offer.
40 percent of college students and 45 percent of and young employees said they would accept a lower-paying job that had more flexibility with regard to device choice, social media access, and mobility than a higher-paying job with less flexibility.
81 percent want to choose the device for their job - either receiving budgeted funds to buy a work device of their choice or bringing in a personal one in addition to company-issued devices. ...
Scientists at Facebook and the University of Milan reported on Monday that the average number of acquaintances separating any two people in the world is not six but 4.74.
Lengua materna: Polaco Se inscribió el: lunes, 15 de febrero de 2010 Ubicación: Polonia
RE: Everyone else is on Facebook
Originally written by Jacek K. on November 13, 2011 9:24 PM
Cell Phone Weighs Down Backpack of Self-Discovery
[snip] Time spent alone allows us to see ourselves as others see us. It’s important to have a backstage -- a safe, private space where we don’t have to worry about folks watching us, where we can let our hair down, practice our social routines and strike back against the indignations of life in the public square. The backstage is where our “true” self resides, as distinct from the front-stage self we present at the office or on the street.
The mobile phone in the garden erodes that private space. And, in turn, it precludes intimacy: Until we have (and can protect) that private self, we can’t be intimate with another. Intimacy, to extend the theatrical metaphor, is like giving backstage passes to a select few. It rests on the private self remaining distinct from the public self, so that you have something to offer chosen friends and family members.
Recently I found on my Facebook feed an announcement from a colleague I had never met in person: He was getting divorced. It was all going to be fine, he told me and 368 other “friends,” because he and his soon-to-be ex had reached a shared-custody arrangement and were going to have an amicable relationship. I felt squeamish for having read this painful, personal information that I really shouldn’t know. …
Our culture of immediate gratification is changing our children. A teacher and author explains what we're losing
[excerpt] Demand for remedial instruction in colleges is on the rise. About 75 percent of New York City freshmen attending community college last year needed remedial math, reading or writing courses. The organization that administers the ACT found that only one in four of 2010 high school graduates who took the ACT exam were college-ready in four key subjects areas: English, math, reading and science. Statistics like these are startling, as they not only reveal serious flaws in our educational system, but also raise questions as to how these students will fare in the future if they are lacking the knowledge and critical skills needed to succeed in college and beyond.
In her new book, “The Republic of Noise,” New York City public school educator and curriculum advisor Diana Senechal argues that one reason for this problem is the students’ loss of solitude: the ability to think and reflect independently on a given topic. Schools have become more concerned with the business of keeping students busy in what Senechal deems is a flawed attempt to ensure student engagement. But as a result, students are not given the time and space to devote themselves completely to the study and understanding of one specific thing. It’s a need she finds reflected in our culture as a whole: We are a nation glued to smartphones and computer screens, checking email and Twitter feeds in our need to stay in some loop by reading and responding to rolling updates. Senechal is not advocating that we toss out our iPhones or unplug from social media, but rather that we think more slowly, give ourselves time for reflection — as such practice would only serve to enhance the very conversations new media and technology make possible. ...
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