comments on issues raised in class...

A melting pot of reactions rising from discussions in class:

About survey results... I am always really skeptical of survey results. In my pov, they are simply too subjective to be worth much. What I THINK I am doing online is not necessarily EXACTLY what I AM doing. I wish there were more results from direct observation, time logs, and all. (I simply think of how much money my friend in the online porn industry is making hourly, and... it just doesn't fit with the results from surveys... ;)

We talk about how people who have internet access use it to get information about nutrition, health, etc., in order to make pre-visit, pre-purchase decisions. For example, before buying an MP3 player, a computer-savvy person might go online, read reviews, compare prices, post questions on list servs, etc. However, one has to question the new type of exclusion this creates: WWW-illiterate people cannot make as good and as well-informed decisions than their counterparts. The cycle of poverty and exclusion is in fact reinforced by the web, an issue that Castell evaluates in length. On similar issues, something I got from one of the class blogs... (See the full entry here) The digital divide "... is a much more powerful form of discrimination than racial hate literature because it is occuring at a systemic nature." As MK says, we have to deal with the digital divide before we can move on...

From the class blog, now... a comment on Charles McGrath's New York Times article... Its conclusion just supports an idea that I have been playing with recently... People love email and txt msgs (!) because they are not intrusive. Speaking with a good friend of mine in Boston yesterday, we talked about the implicit 'pact' that is now being made by giving out your phone number: You are allowing one to invade your PRIVATE space, to disturb you on THEIR schedule. You make yourself vulnerable, unlike the Chinese people who love text messaging because "everyone's dignity" is preserved through it... ;)

Translation-class time! Eeek!