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Ch9 Broader Issues

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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 thatoffer greater threats to the concept of community ?

Have these other factors already killed thesense of community?

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How Do You MeasureCommunity?

It has been suggested that a good measureof “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 aproblem.

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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 abilityto talk face to face.

Many people are reporting that e-mailcorrespondence has allowed them to keep in touch with the modern dispersed family.

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Computer Addiction

This is a real problem. Computer games have knocked more than a few studentsout of college.

You might have noticed that old-timers tend to get hooked on Solitaire. (or e-bay)

Probably won’t kill you but can sure messyour life up.

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Two decent articles

“How Computer Addiction Works”http://computer.howstuffworks.com/computer-addiction.htm/printable Valid 10/03/08. If not still on the web a copy of the article can be found on the class website under “HowstuffworksComputerAddiction”

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Two decent articles

“When games stop being fun” Published: April 12, 2002. I couldn’t find a copy on-line,so I’ve put a copy I made years ago on the class website under the name“GameAddiction”

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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 addiction to something else suchas gambling, drug abuse, etc.

Our focus should be on an understanding ofaddiction that leads to avoidance and/ortreatment and not simply on computerrelated manifestations.

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Who gets hooked?

If you look at the traits associated withan addictive personality you will probablynote that “many of the traits can be found inanyone. It’s often a matter of degree thatdetermines whether or not these traits driveus to seek relief through a drug of one sort ofanother.”

“Willpower’s Not Enough” by Washton and Boundy

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Blaming Others

The person who blames others rather thantake responsibility for his own actionsis particularly prone to addiction becausethis forfeits the power to change the situation.“Willpower’s Not Enough” by Washton and Boundy

[If you are going to be a professional then thereare going to be times when you are simplywrong. You need to be able to acknowledgethat when it happens or you will never be ableto clean up the mess you made.]

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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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Information Haves andHave 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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Additional Information

70% of children in the US between the ages of 7 and 17 have access to computers (Child Trends 2003; DeBell and Chapman)

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Communications Act of 1934

Under the universal service guarantee found inthe 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-drivensociety 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 newtechnology carries a very high price tag.

The rapid drop in price is allowing libraries and schools to set up computer labs. Companies and foundations are now donating new computer equipment to provide support to thepublic.

Have Nots are in fact Have Laters and the trend is for Have Laters to become Haves.

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Can They Do This?

Technology Review (02/04/09) Talbot, David

India has unveiled a prototype laptop, called Sakshat, which will reportedly cost $20 and provide a way to deliver online educational materials to students throughout the country. The Indian Education Ministry says the laptop has two gigabytes of random-access memory, wireless and fixed Ethernet connections, and consumes only two watts of power.

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Loss of Skills and Judgment

I have a spelling checker.It came with my PC.It plainly marks four my revue,Miss steaks aye can knot sea.Eye ran this poem threw it,I’m sure your pleased to no.It’s letter perfect in it’s weigh,My checker tolled me sew.

-Jerrold H. Zar- “Candidate for a Pullet Surprise”

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"Considerate Computing"

Digital gadgetry's propensity to interrupt users with alerts is not only a source of social embarrassment, but of declined productivity: Studies support the idea that interruptions in normal routines slow people down and make them more likely to commit errors. "If we couldjust give our computers and phones some understanding of the limits of human attention and memory, it would make them seem a lot more thoughtful and courteous," notes Microsoft's Eric Horvitz…Scientific American (01/05) Vol. 292, No. 1, P. 54; Gibbs, W. Wayt

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Are Computers Hurting Education?

An extensive study of both home and school use of computers by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) of more than 6,000 fourth-gradersand 7,000 eighth-graders, 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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Are Computers Hurting Education?

A growing number of teachers 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?

UCLA professor Patricia Greenfield analyzed more than 50 studies on learning and technology and concluded that critical thinking and analysis skills decline the more people use technology. One study found that college students whowatched "CNN Headline News" without the news crawl on the bottom of the screen remembered more facts from the broadcast that those who watched with the crawl. Greenfield believed this study and others like it demonstrate that multi-tasking prevents people from obtaining a deeper understanding of information. UCLA News (01/27/09)

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Are Computers Hurting Education?

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Encouragement to not Think

The loan officer plugs in factors and thendecides to approve or disapprove a loan.

Doctors will find it safer to go along with the advice of a computer than to exerciseindependent judgment when treating a patient.

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Shades of Big Brother

Your word processor will probably caution you if you use a word that “it” considers offensive.

Microsoft has pulled potentially offensivewords (including one of my favorites –“Blockhead”) from at least one Thesaurus and I’ve had at least one student with a name Microsoft found offensive.

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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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New Technologies and the Future

A phone call from the east coast to the west coast, when it first became possible, had a cost that was approximately one weeks salary for a three minute call.

It was predicted that the phone would becomeso important that every city would need one.

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Food Production and Increased Life Expectancy

In 1901 the average family spent 47% of incomeon food. That dropped to 12% in the late 90’s.

IN 1662 ONLY 25% of the people in London lived to age 26.

In 18th century France the median age for death was lower than the median age for marriage.

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First Spam

The first recognizable e-mail marketing message was sent on 3 May, 1978 to 400 people on behalf of DEC - a now-defunct computer-maker. The message was sent via Arpanet - the internet's forerunner - and won its sender much criticism from recipients.

BBC News, 2 May 2008

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First Commercial Spam

April 1994 saw another pioneering moment in the history of spam when immigration lawyers Canter and Siegel sent a commercial spam message to more than 6,000 Usenet discussion groups.The Canter and Siegel e-mail is widely seen as the moment when commercialization of the net began and opened the floodgates that led to the deluge of spam seen today.

BBC News, 2 May 2008

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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 theproliferation 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 estimatethat 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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"Spam to Overtake Real E-Mail in 2003"

Unsolicited commercial email will outnumber real email in 2003, according to an annual report from email filtering firm Message Labs. The report calculates that one in every 212 emails sent this year contained a virus. Furthermore, Sunner indicates that spam has started to exhibit virus-like traits. http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1213f.html#

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"Spam to Overtake Real E-Mail in 2003"

This October saw the release of "Friendgreeting," which is spam disguised as a greeting card that, once opened, transmits copies of itself to everyone in the recipient's address book. Spoofing, in which spammers fool recipients into opening their emails by pretending to send a note from an uninvolved third party, is also on the rise. http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1213f.html#Note: Spam for 2008 greater than 97%

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Anti-Spam Law is Unconstitutional

--US Supreme Court Lets Stand Ruling that Anti-Spam Law is Unconstitutional (3/30/09)--The US Supreme Court will not reinstate Virginia's stringent anti-spam law. Instead, the court will let stand a Virginia Supreme Court ruling that declares the law unconstitutional because it forbids political, religious and other types of messages in addition to unsolicitedcommercial messages.

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Spam Profit Margins?By hijacking a working spam network, computer scientists from University of California, Berkeley and UC, San Diego (UCSD) concluded that Spammers are turning a profit despite only getting one response for every 12.5m e-mails they send. While a big spam operation can turn over millions of dollars of profit per year the tiny response rate suggests that spammers may be susceptible to attacks that make it more costly to send junk mail. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7719281.stm

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McAfee Looks at Spam's Damage to Environment

The McAfee study found the global annual energy used to transmit, process, and filter spam is 33 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) and that spam produces the same level of green house gas (GHG) emissions as 3.1 million passenger cars using 2 billion gallons of gasoline. 80 percent of the energy consumption related to spam was found to come from end users deleting spam and searching for legitimate email. eWeek (04/16/09) Eddy, Nathan

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Predictions are Iffy

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." (Tom Watson, Chairman IBM 1943)80,000,000 PC’s delivered 3rd quarter 2008.

"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 are Iffy

“No one will need more than 640K of memory.”(Bill Gates, 1981)

"Two years from now, spam will be solved.”(Bill Gates, 2004) A Microsoft security reportstates that spam for the second half of 2008was at 97.3% down from 98.4% for the first half of the year.