Internet Addiction

Internet Addiction and Disorder on Prezi

How much is too much Internet use? When you feel more comfortable with your online friends than your real ones, or you can’t stop yourself from playing games, gambling, or compulsively surfing, than you may be using the Internet too much. Or even worse, are an Internet addict.

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Wiki for Scientists

One of the commonest complaints of scientists and people involved in research is the amount of time spent on writing papers, submitting them to journals, waiting for the peer-reviewed paper to come back and to rewriting according to specifications before these papers are published. The various journals realize this time delay and have taken the step of publishing papers online before the hard-copy comes out. Many scientists think that more should or could be done. Scientist Fabio Casati suggests that scientists should just post their papers in their websites like a wiki. Information Society Technologies (ICT) reports,

Don’t print it; post it

Following the lead of physicists and mathematicians who for years have been posting early versions of their papers on a website called arXiv.com for quick dissemination and peer critiques, Casati and his colleagues propose that all scientists jump start the dissemination of their findings by posting them online.

“The idea is that when people write papers, they put them on their webpage quickly, easily and for zero cost,” Casati says.

At the same time, Casati suggests, every scientist and research group can create its own “liquid journal” which groups publications that are interesting and relevant to a given topic.

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Online The Scientist journal adds to the discussion. One of the worries is whether the papers will be up to standard. Wikipedia who have millions of articles boost an accuracy rate compatible to the Britannica. Will it work with scientific papers? Can scientists police themselves and an 'invisible college' acts to maintain standards?

Image: Wikimedia commons, Gflores

Now, information engineer Fabio Casati of the University of Trento in Italy and his collaborators are suggesting science publishing try something entirely new, taking full advantage of the rapidly evolving Web 2.0 technology.

They suggest making research -- including formal manuscripts, datasets, presentation slides, and other presentations -- available through the web without any sort of traditional peer-review process. That research would then be searchable and citable by the rest of the scientific community at no cost.

"In this way -- by looking at what people do in terms of reading, sharing, or connecting scientific knowledge -- we can have a way of finding out which scientific resources are considered good and interesting by the scientific community," Casati said.

Specifically, he and his team envision a new age of scientific journals, created by the users themselves -- the scientists. "I [could] have my own journal, which I maintain on peer review, for example," he explains. "[When I find an interesting paper], I drag and drop the pdf file [in] the journal" using the platform provided by LiquidPublication, which recognizes the file, obtains the url, and retrieves the metadata, etc. "I do this because I want to keep track of it for myself [and alert] all my team, [but] by doing this, we also share [our thoughts on the research] with the world."

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Book Review on Qualman's Socialnomics

Erik Qualman (2009), Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business, Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc

Erik Qualman is Global Vice President of Online Marketing for EF Education with extensive experience in e-marketing, e-business, search engines, and maximising the impact of the social media. Social media includes social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace, twittering, blogs and the internet. Qualman wakens the world to a new reality. As he writes, "the world as it was, no longer is"(p.14). This cryptic remark is the key construct of his book as he tries to show how social media has changed the way people connects, communicates, interacts, and changes their perception of reality.

Qualman confirms what most of us are aware-that social media is changing the very fabric of our society. His chapter on how Obama became president is illuminative. The data mining of people's use of search engine may predict future social trends is interesting. The little known fact that Pepsi, by using Yahoo's search engine data, was able to predict Britney Spears' popularity a few months in advance and are able to sign her up for their commercial is telling. Unfortunately this did not able to save her from the dangers of becoming a celebrity.

Social media especially micro-blogging such as twitter and texting, argues Qualman, actually makes people better because whatever they have sent into the internet will remains as a permanent record. While the records are permanent, it is debatable whether most people actually care about that-except maybe politicians and CEOs. People will continue to spin a more than perfect image of themselves online.

It is hard to prove that the economic influence of the social media is as powerful as Qualman suggests. People who are active in social media, called soialmedioraties, still remains a small segment of the demography which may not be identical to the demography that has the purchasing power. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile studying the trend especially since Facebook membership has reached half a million people. Still only a small fraction of this many people are active. Most will have an account with which they access for an occasional update.

In a people-driven economy, social media has potential for an increasing role. However as most of the people of less developed countries do not have internet access to this social media, one does wonders how this will translate to the rest of the world.

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Buddhism in a Global Age of Technology

A distinguished scholar of Buddhism, Lewis Lancaster founded the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative to use the latest computer technology to map the spread of various strands of Buddhism from the distant past to the present. Series: "Burke Lectureship on Religion & Society"

Wales and the Founding of Wikipedia

Jimmy Wales: Founder of Wikipedia

With a vision for a free online encyclopedia, Wales assembled legions of volunteer contributors, gave them tools for collaborating, and created the self-organizing, self-correcting, ever-expanding, multilingual encyclopedia of the future.

Jimmy Wales went from betting on interest rates and foreign-currency fluctuations (as an option trader) to betting on the willingness of people to share their knowledge. That's how Wikipedia, imagined in 2001, became one of the most-referenced, most-used repositories of knowledge on the planet, with more than one million articles in English (compared with the Britannica's 80,000) and hundreds of thousands in dozens of other languages, all freely available.

The "wiki" in the name refers to software that allows anyone with Internet access to add, delete or edit entries. This has led to controversies about the reliability of the information, prompting the Wikimedia Foundation to set tighter rules for editors, while still keeping Wikipedia open-source. One thing is certain: Wikipedia will never be finished. In the meantime Wales has started working on Wikiasari, a wiki-style search engine.

"Wikipedia represents a belief in the supremacy of reason and the goodness of others. ... From the respectful clash of opposing viewpoints and the combined wisdom of the many, something resembling the truth will emerge. Most of the time."

WIRED

Tapsctott on Grown Up Digital

In the Global Conversation on Technology which in was mention in my post Digital Great Commission, Al Erishem mentions the book Growing up Digital. Here is my review of the book.

Tapscott: Grown Up Digital

Don Tapscott (2009) Grown Up Digital : How the Net Generation is Changing Your World, (New York, NY: McGraw Hill)

This is a much anticipated book and I have been looking forward to reading it. Don Tapscott is Chairman of nGenera Innovation Network which is a research company and adjunct professor of management at the Joseph L. Rahman School of Management, University of Toronto. Tapscott is well respected for insightful comments in his books which include Wikinomics, Paradigm Shift, The Digital Economy and Growing Up Digital.

Grown Up Digital is a followup on Tapscott’s earlier 1997 work, Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation in which he clarified how different the present generation is from the previous ones because of the improvement in communication technology especially the Internet. Now a decade later, there are enough data to confirm his hypothesis.

This present book is based on the findings of a $4 million research project, “The Net Generation: A Strategic Investigation.” More than 10,000 people were interviewed in 2007 and at least 40 reports have been generated. From his findings a clearer picture of this Net generation is emerging.

Where there are many areas of interest touched upon in this book, almost all are based on the eight “norms’ characteristics of the Net generation. These may be summarised as:

1. They want freedom in everything they do, from freedom of choice to freedom of expression
2. They love to customize, personalize
3. They are the new scrutinizers
4. They look for corporate integrity and openness when deciding what to buy and where to work
5. They wants entertainment and play in their work, education, and social life
6. They are collaboration and relationship generation
7. The Net Gen has a need for speed
8. They are the innovators

Using these descriptive behavioural norms, Tapscott seeks to explain their effect on culture, work attitudes, markets, family, learning and education. The section on the need to adapt learning and education to these norms are especially helpful.

While Tappscott paints an overall positive picture of the Net Gen, it must be pointed out that he is dealing with a particular narrow segment of the North American privileged group of young people (and he seems to model heavily on his own children). It will be interesting to know about the characteristics of the Asian Net Gen or South American Net Gen. One also needs to take into account the digital divide in the Net Gen itself.

Together with the launch of the book, Tappscott has created a website, Grown Up Digital in which a new initiative Net Gen Educator Challenge was also launched. To visit the site, click here.

This is a good book to read about the younger generation and indispensible for educators. Highly recommended.

Endnote:

Four Generations: From 1946 to Present

1. The Baby Boom generation: January 1946 to December 1964 – 19 years

2. Generation X January 1965 to December 1976 – 12 years

3. The Net Generation: January 1977 to December 1997 – 21 years

4. Generation Next: January 1998 to present

The Digital Great Commission

In my article The Influence of Globalisation on Christian Spiritual Formation in Churches In Malaysia and Singapore I highlight the use of technology may be missional.

Globalisation is not necessary bad. Using the improved communication and extensive networking provided by new technologies, it is easier to proclaim the Gospel to the whole world than before. The Internet has made it possible to reach even the remotest part of any country as long as there is Internet access. It has also allowed even the remotest part of the world with Internet access to be readily accessible. A Christian website may be accessed by anyone, even those in areas not accessible to missionaries. Social networking allows people to connect over long distances which otherwise will not know of one other’s existence. Streaming videos and MP3 allow download of materials anywhere in the world. The global culture has a made inroads into many other cultures. It is a two-way street. Local cultures may influence global culture. There is much potential in the wise use of art, music, video and writings to spread the Gospel. Anyone can upload something onto the Internet and have it viewed by thousands within the hour! YouTube may be used as a media for evangelisation. Virtual Christian faith communities may be set up online. The degree of Christian spiritual formation that may be done through the Internet has not been fully explored.

Christianity Today runs a Global Conversation on technology and mission.

THE GLOBAL CONVERSATION The Face-to-Face Gospel and the Death of Distance Al Erisman says we need to think about ministry in the digital culture the way missionaries think about the culture of the people they serve. Interview by Tim Stafford RESPONSES: Nigel M. de S. Cameron: Sci-Fi Reality Wha-Chul Son: Technological Divide Juan D. Rogers: Not Just Tools Haron Wachira: Blessings & Curses of Technology Video: Emotional Robots .