Petrified Wood: Virtual Worlds, Education, Enjoyment v-a-v Csikszentmhalyi's 'Flow,' Yesterday's Info Tech & Soc Class Transcript on Harvard's Island

Welcome to Information Technology and Society

Week 10



Here's the wiki with course material: http://socinfotech.pbworks.com/FrontPage.





In this class we'll focus on how the information technology revolution developed, especially vis-a-vis long time Berkeley Professor Manuel Castells' research on the Network Society, as well as http://webnographers.org - a wiki bibliography on virtual ethnography.



I invite your questions, and I'll post a version of the text from each class to http://socinfotech.pbworks.com/FrontPage over the weeks.

There's already a lot of information on this wiki, which will develop with this class.



And please join the Google Group for World University and School - like Wikipedia with MIT Open Course Ware -

http://groups.google.com/group/World-University-and-School.





[11:03] Sophie Zuta is Online

[11:03] Luna Bliss is Online

[11:03] Eme Capalini is Online

[11:03] Reed Steamroller is Online

[11:03] Cat Abeyante is Online

[11:03] Bon McLeod is Online

[11:03] Lemondrop Serendipity is Online

[11:03] Pooky Amsterdam is Online

[11:03] Kate Miranda is Online

[11:03] go1984 Winsmore is Online

[11:03] Patio Plasma is Online

[11:03] Arawn Spitteler is Online

[11:03] Buffy Beale is Online

[11:03] Dallas Trefoil is Online

[11:03] JenzZa Misfit is Online

[11:03] zippidy Serendipity is Online

[11:03] Breeze Underwood is Online

[11:03] Spider Mycron is Online

[11:03] Connecting to in-world Voice Chat...

[11:03] You decline Friends Meeting, Sea Turtle Island (188, 21, 25) from A group member named Scot Jung.

[11:03] Connected

[11:03] Pooky Amsterdam is Offline

[11:04] Aphilo Aarde: Hello Buffy and Dallas!

[11:04] Buffy Beale: Hi Aphilo! and Dallas

[11:04] Aphilo Aarde: How are things for you?

[11:05] Dallas Trefoil: hello

[11:05] Dallas Trefoil: Not sure if I'm in the right place?

[11:05] Buffy Beale: things are good for me thanks, just back from holidays

[11:05] Aphilo Aarde: Information Technology and Society class will begin in 5 minutes.

[11:05] Aphilo Aarde: Here's the wiki:

[11:06] Aphilo Aarde: http://socinfotech.pbworks.com/

[11:06] Dallas Trefoil: Yes, I'm looking at it now... thanks!

[11:06] Aphilo Aarde: It's the first class at World University & School

[11:06] Aphilo Aarde: which is like Wikipedia with MIT Open Course Ware and UC Berkeley Webcasts

[11:07] Aphilo Aarde: There's a lot here already - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Courses - for example, there's a free Ph.D. from Harvard for 2011 and 2012

[11:07] Aphilo Aarde: Dallas

[11:07] Aphilo Aarde: I think we met about 3 weeks ago

[11:07] Dallas Trefoil: yes?

[11:08] Aphilo Aarde: on another virtual island where you were teaching, or the moderator for a class

[11:08] Aphilo Aarde: Is that right?

[11:08] Dallas Trefoil: I recall now. On sloodle island?

[11:08] Aphilo Aarde: Welcome.

[11:08] Aphilo Aarde: That's right.

[11:08] Aphilo Aarde: Sloodle is here on the

[11:08] Dallas Trefoil: I'm interested in the Ph.D....

[11:08] Aphilo Aarde: World University wiki -

[11:09] Aphilo Aarde: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Educational_Software#Course_Management_Systems

[11:09] Aphilo Aarde: I hope people will continue to add free Ph.D.s from around the world, as we can

[11:09] Pooky Amsterdam is Online

[11:09] Dallas Trefoil: yes

[11:09] Aphilo Aarde: But this Harvard Ph.D. involves applying to Harvard

[11:10] Keystone Bouchard is Online

[11:10] Aphilo Aarde: Here is the free Ph.D. section: worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Courses#Free_Ph.D.s

[11:11] Aphilo Aarde: I'm curious, too, about what you would choose to learn, if you could learn anything.

[11:11] Aphilo Aarde: Already, WUaS has much open, free content - including great, free software

[11:11] Dallas Trefoil: :)

[11:11] Aphilo Aarde: worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Educational_Software

[11:12] Aphilo Aarde: There's a budding music school

[11:12] Lemondrop Serendipity is Offline

[11:12] Dallas Trefoil: People will probably learn what is most beneficial to their active community

[11:12] Dallas Trefoil: We thrive when we contribute impact to a group.

[11:12] Aphilo Aarde: We will begin with what I'd like to focus on today in a moment, waiting to see if other people come.

[11:12] Tara Yeats is Online

[11:12] Aphilo Aarde: True - and I know you, Dallas, have written about education and digital technologies.

[11:13] Aphilo Aarde: I found one article you read edifying.

[11:13] Malburns Writer is Online

[11:13] Dallas Trefoil: What is the topic of your talk today?

[11:13] Dallas Trefoil: ty

[11:13] Aphilo Aarde: But the articulation of place and learning, gets rewritten by this real time world wide communication network,

[11:14] Aphilo Aarde: or community, place and learning - which frees up words and representation in new ways, vis-a-vis text - since Gutenberg, say

[11:14] Lemondrop Serendipity is Online

[11:14] In Kenzo is Online

[11:15] Aphilo Aarde: What I'd like to focus on today continues an examination of sociality, alienation and empirical studies of the internet.

[11:15] Aphilo Aarde: We're at about week 9 of this course which will probably end on

[11:15] Aphilo Aarde: May 1.

[11:16] Ju Roussel is Online

[11:16] Aphilo Aarde: And the transcripts are on the wiki - http://socinfotech.pbworks.com/

[11:16] Aphilo Aarde: Hello Oronoque

[11:16] Oronoque Westland: sorry to be late

[11:16] Oronoque Westland: hello

[11:16] Buffy Beale: Oro hi!

[11:16] Aphilo Aarde: Welcome to "Information Technology and Society"

[11:16] Oronoque Westland: Hi Buffy...long time lol

[11:16] Aphilo Aarde: Here is the wiki - http://socinfotech.pbworks.com/

[11:17] Buffy Beale: before you start Aphilo, did you disable the friend notifications in the chat history?

[11:17] Buffy Beale: lol Oro yes

[11:17] Aphilo Aarde: And I'll invite you shortly to the SL group, and give you a notecard with more relevant information.

[11:17] Aphilo Aarde: Hello Ju!

[11:17] Ju Roussel: Hello!

[11:17] Buffy Beale: Hi Ju

[11:17] Dallas Trefoil: brb... coffee

[11:17] Aphilo Aarde: No I don't think so, Buffy - I haven't used them before, actually.

[11:18] Ju Roussel is Offline

[11:18] Ju Roussel is Online

[11:18] Buffy Beale: Edit - Prefs - Communication - deselect "Show online Friend notifications'

[11:18] Dallas Trefoil accepted your inventory offer.

[11:18] Oronoque Westland accepted your inventory offer.

[11:19] Dallas Trefoil: ready!

[11:19] Buffy Beale: just makes for a cleaner chat log

[11:19] Dallas Trefoil: ready willing and caffeinated

[11:19] Aphilo Aarde: Great ... Welcome Rudd to a class on the info tech revolution

[11:20] Buffy Beale: oh, and can deselect "Include IM in chat console" too

[11:20] Aphilo Aarde: Thanks - done ...

[11:20] Buffy Beale: :)

[11:20] Oronoque Westland: Thanks

[11:21] Aphilo Aarde: I encourage all of you who haven't been in this course to come to the first talks when they happen again -

[11:22] Aphilo Aarde: I engage Berkeley Prof. Manuel Castells' work on the Network Society and they offer a fascinating overview of the IT revolution.

[11:22] Aphilo Aarde: They are all in the transcripts, but the interaction in Second Life is more edifying.

[11:22] Aphilo Aarde: ... because it's in real time and offers the possibility for conversation.

[11:22] Ju Roussel: Oldbies can confirm that :)

[11:23] Aphilo Aarde: ... which I welcome heartily - leading as it does to multiple lines of reasoning, a transcript which is a form of group knowledge production from conversation

[11:23] Aphilo Aarde: and the possibility to follow up on various lines of the conversation throughout.

[11:24] Aphilo Aarde: Backchat is also edifying, because people engage, while not being disruptive

[11:24] Aphilo Aarde: And when people engage in learning, I find we all learn more

[11:24] Aphilo Aarde: I also find that avatar mediated communication in Second Life

[11:24] Dallas Trefoil: contributory and participatory learning

[11:24] Buffy Beale: yes and informal learning too

[11:25] Aphilo Aarde: opens up possibilities for a kind of change in the social psychology of a class

[11:25] Aphilo Aarde: :) yes

[11:25] Dallas Trefoil: and more relaxing than on a webcam!

[11:25] Aphilo Aarde: where because many of us are somewhat unknown or anonymous, the teacher and student roles get rewritten

[11:25] Aphilo Aarde: agreed, Dallas

[11:26] Dallas Trefoil: community of learners then right?

[11:26] Dallas Trefoil: just in time!

[11:26] Aphilo Aarde: A clear sense of where the teacher wants to go, within the class conversation

[11:26] Aphilo Aarde: is also important ... to help focus

[11:26] Aphilo Aarde: Yes, Dallas - so I welcome and we welcome all of our real time observations and questions,

[11:27] Aphilo Aarde: which many of may be able to respond to, or have answers for.

[11:27] Aphilo Aarde: So, to begin, where we left off two weeks ago - last week I had a conversation primarily with Xiu - who is from China living in London

[11:28] Aphilo Aarde: In looking at the emergence of community and sociality online in the mid

[11:28] Aphilo Aarde: 1990s when the browser helped

[11:28] Aphilo Aarde: popularize the world wide web dramatically

[11:28] Aphilo Aarde: first through Mosaic and the graphical user interface and then Netscape and early internet explorer

[11:28] Dallas Trefoil: community centered around static artifact (ie web page) more than interaction?

[11:29] Aphilo Aarde: the Media jumped on the world wide web and portrayed it in a somewhat negative way

[11:29] Dallas Trefoil: I recall

[11:29] Aphilo Aarde: about which empirical social science research began to study what was actually happening on the web

[11:30] Aphilo Aarde: Partly, Dallas

[11:30] Aphilo Aarde: virtual worlds certainly create a lot of interesting

[11:30] Aphilo Aarde: interactive possibilities and they have been around actually since the 1980s, I think

[11:31] Aphilo Aarde: But web pages were predominantly engaged in the mid 90s, as web use grew by jumps and bounds

[11:31] Oronoque Westland: I was just posting something yesterday about how advances in virtual worlds helps take "distance" out of distance learning

[11:31] Dallas Trefoil: cool!

[11:32] Aphilo Aarde: There's a course on Virtual Worlds by Rebecca Nesson at Harvard at World University and School, which you might like to glance

[11:32] Buffy Beale: great ty

[11:32] Dallas Trefoil: I like that. Time/space/identity barriers removed

[11:32] Oronoque Westland: thanks

[11:32] Aphilo Aarde: through - worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Courses#Individual_courses - It's the bottom most course

[11:32] Aphilo Aarde: Those are interesting developments due to the web

[11:33] Aphilo Aarde: It's true, remarkably, Oronoque- but

[11:33] Aphilo Aarde: it's still not a readily engaged substitute either ...

[11:33] Dallas Trefoil: how so?

[11:34] Aphilo Aarde: What I find interesting and distinctive about the multimedia on the web, to respond to both Dallas and Oronoque

[11:34] Aphilo Aarde: are the following 5 attributes of multimedia

[11:35] Dallas Trefoil: You've go my attention... :)

[11:35] Dallas Trefoil: *got

[11:35] Aphilo Aarde: These are interactivity, immersion, hypermedia

[11:36] Aphilo Aarde: integration and hypermedia

[11:37] Aphilo Aarde: And Packer and Jordan in "Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality" identify these in their examination of a remarkable series of advances in virtual reality since Wagner

[11:38] You decline Music Island, Sea Turtle Island (46, 26, 22) from A group member named Kate Miranda.

[11:38] Aphilo Aarde: This book is at webnographers.org - a remarkable resource of most of the academic literature on

[11:38] Aphilo Aarde: or relating to virtual ethnography

[11:39] Oronoque Westland: for me personally there is the tension between the social distances that virtual worlds reduce, and the digital distances (aka divides) that the systems requirements of virtual worlds create...hence my interest in mixed reality so that you can create a certain amount of redundancy across platforms

[11:39] Aphilo Aarde: webnographers.org/index.php?title=Books#Multimedia.2C_Hypermedia_and_Telecommunications

[11:39] Aphilo Aarde: Yes, Oronoque

[11:39] Oronoque Westland: I wish I knew about your course earlier...you are a regular Fort Knox of resources

[11:39] Aphilo Aarde: The digital divide is an ongoing challenge world wide

[11:39] Dallas Trefoil: wider base for multiple intelligences then?

[11:40] Aphilo Aarde: with One Laptop per Child being most proactive

[11:40] Aphilo Aarde: in changing this

[11:40] Aphilo Aarde: but to respond to an earlier thought of both of yours - education online isn't common and widespread yet

[11:40] Dallas Trefoil: what if the child's critical mind is left behind? :)

[11:40] Aphilo Aarde: And perhaps it's due to what you observe Oronoque

[11:41] Aphilo Aarde: And empirical research engaged, Dallas - such as by those academics who have published vis-a-vis http://webnographers.org

[11:41] Aphilo Aarde: ?

[11:42] Aphilo Aarde: Does mixed media mean, for you Oronoque, both classroom and digital?

[11:43] Aphilo Aarde: I look forward to the time when a class in a virtual world and with digital technologies can be more exciting and engaging than your favorite classes in real life ever.

[11:43] Oronoque Westland: it can, but right now I was thinking of mixed reality, e.g. something like Sloodle...where the materials are available in both SL and on Moodle

[11:43] Aphilo Aarde: ... because the information technologies make possible new forms of 'flow' and around academic problematics

[11:43] Aphilo Aarde: if that's people's interest, or anything.

[11:43] Oronoque Westland: those of us who can access SL are here, and those who cannot are in Moodle...yet we are communicating

[11:43] Aphilo Aarde: And I hope World University and School -

[11:44] Buffy Beale: and augmented reality will increase that even more

[11:44] Aphilo Aarde: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Subjects

[11:44] Aphilo Aarde: with all it's many resources which are public open and free

[11:44] Dallas Trefoil: And we could be streaming to Ustream.tv simultaneously for others how want visual impact

[11:44] Aphilo Aarde: - all the open source and free content I know of - will focus this

[11:44] Dallas Trefoil: augmenting with mobile will be critical to underdeveloped countries.

[11:45] Buffy Beale: agree Dallas

[11:45] Aphilo Aarde: Yes, Oronoque ... that kind of interoperability enhances ...

[11:45] Aphilo Aarde: but simply getting a critical mass of people in Second Life focusing on shared, somewhat serious, questions of common interest doesn't happen very often.

[11:45] Oronoque Westland: Yes, Aphilo...a few short years ago I would not have been exposed to you in such a free and easy going way...I would need to be a Harvard student...or at an academic conference

[11:46] Aphilo Aarde: It's nice to open things up

[11:46] Dallas Trefoil: The last 2 conferences I spoke at offered hundreds of sessions running simultaneously.

[11:46] Dallas Trefoil: Virtual platforms offer greater flexibility at lower cost.

[11:47] Aphilo Aarde: That's another issue Dallas - like a University - so much choice -

[11:47] Aphilo Aarde: How does one own research questions then focus one's engagement with this richness of resources - becomes my question.

[11:47] Aphilo Aarde: And I'm particularly interested in 'flow' - enjoyment.

[11:48] Aphilo Aarde: vis-a-vis learning ... how can idea exchange 'rock'

[11:48] Aphilo Aarde: I found Manuel Castells lectures at Berkeley 10 years ago captivating and riveting.

[11:48] Aphilo Aarde: Welcome Sandhya

[11:48] Oronoque Westland: heehee...now if that happened in a classroom the Prof might get "bummed out"

[11:48] Dallas Trefoil: :)

[11:48] Aphilo Aarde: His trilogy on the Network Society - "The Rise of the Network Society"

[11:49] Dallas Trefoil: Explain your question a bit more, Aphilo... I'm interested.

[11:49] Aphilo Aarde: seems to broadly explain the Information Technology revolution

[11:49] Buffy Beale: yes was wondering what 'flow enjoyment is

[11:49] Aphilo Aarde: more than any one else I've read, or whose book you might find at http://webnographers.rog

[11:50] Aphilo Aarde: There's a 6 page UC Berkeley Globetrotter interview with him here:

[11:50] Dallas Trefoil: Clay shirky has an amazing talk on Ted.com about the changing trends from institutionalized learning to networked learning.... http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/clay_shirky_on_institutions_versus_collaboration.html

[11:50] Aphilo Aarde: globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people/Castells/castells-con0.html

[11:51] Dallas Trefoil: And there's a great explanation of flow here: ted.com/talks/lang/eng/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow.html

[11:51] Buffy Beale: ty

[11:51] Dallas Trefoil: When you feel as though you are outside yourself

[11:51] Aphilo Aarde: :)

[11:51] Aphilo Aarde: Clay Shirky's organization focus is interesting.

[11:52] Dallas Trefoil: The ecstasy experienced by athletes during top performance.

[11:52] Dallas Trefoil: that's flow

[11:52] Aphilo Aarde: Yes, Dallas - agreed - Csikszentmihalyi's "flow' is a rigorous examination of enjoyment, empirically grounded a good defin

[11:52] Dallas Trefoil: when a poet "watches" his hand write...

[11:52] Aphilo Aarde: and flow happens in his research when people are focused - absorbed minds -

[11:53] Aphilo Aarde: and it happens when challenge is at the right level

[11:53] Dallas Trefoil: identifying barriers to flow and what to avoid that "breaks" flow would be useful to teachers then.

[11:53] Aphilo Aarde: and in his research, it's in a structured situation - where there are 'rules' implicit or explicit

[11:53] Oronoque Westland: there are questions being raised now about the decreased likelihood of focus in a world that enables increased multitasking

[11:54] Aphilo Aarde: and he uses the examples of a physics problem, conversation (implicit rules), chess game, or tennis

[11:54] Dallas Trefoil: The increase is intrinsically centered rather than top-down mandated.

[11:54] Aphilo Aarde: need to glance back at what all of you have said

[11:54] Aphilo Aarde: Riffing as conversation in a virtual world is a 'flow' experience for me

[11:55] Dallas Trefoil: More amateur today than professional but amateur comes from passion rather than duty.

[11:55] Aphilo Aarde: but it's not like musical instruments together, where the feedback is immediate and harmonious

[11:55] Dallas Trefoil: May be more indicative of ??

[11:55] Aphilo Aarde: a kind of flow I enjoy most, in many ways.

[11:56] Aphilo Aarde: To go back to 11:47

[11:56] Aphilo Aarde: How does one own research questions then focus one's engagement with this richness of resources - becomes my question?

[11:56] Oronoque Westland: I suspect you are a jazz lover

[11:57] Aphilo Aarde: to explain, Dallas, with so many learning opportunities in a virtual world, or at a university, it helps to focus so much possibility with academic questions, - so loosely within scholarly 'rules' vis-a-vis the flow idea

[11:58] Aphilo Aarde: And webnographers.org's books and papers are all examples of that.

[11:58] Dallas Trefoil: I like how tech can "create" flow beyond the community as in the Virtual Choir example: youtube.com/v/D7o7BrlbaDs

[11:58] Oronoque Westland: My apologies...I have a conference to return to. This has been a eal pleasure. I hope to take part again.

[11:59] Buffy Beale: bye Oro nice to see you

[11:59] Dallas Trefoil: I'm in the same conference y'all.

[11:59] Dallas Trefoil: Hate to leave. So engagine!

[11:59] Aphilo Aarde: I am a jazz love - for flow Oro

[11:59] Dallas Trefoil: Thanks, Aphilo!!

[11:59] Dallas Trefoil: Nice meeting you all!!

[11:59] Aphilo Aarde: I'll check out Virtual Choir

[11:59] Aphilo Aarde: Likewise - bye Oro

[12:00] Aphilo Aarde: :)

[12:00] Aphilo Aarde: We'll focus on my talk in the second half

[12:01] Aphilo Aarde: Welcome Sybex!

[12:01] Sybex Drachnyd: sorry I am late

[12:02] Aphilo Aarde: I'd like to take a short break after the first hour ...

[12:02] Aphilo Aarde: back at 10 after

[12:03] Buffy Beale: ok

[12:03] sandhya2 Patel: np

[12:11] Aphilo Aarde: Hi All

[12:11] Aphilo Aarde: Here's the page for today's transcript - http://socinfotech.pbworks.com/InfoTechSoc10

[12:12] Buffy Beale: back

[12:12] Aphilo Aarde: Talking as we did in the first half of class

[12:12] Aphilo Aarde: can be very engaging

[12:12] Aphilo Aarde: Observations or questions as we begin to look at

[12:13] Aphilo Aarde: ways in which academic research begin to dispel myths of the media?

[12:13] Ju Roussel: And yet Myhai C. would probably have some critical notes for us.

[12:13] Aphilo Aarde: generated in the mid-1990s, which came to define the Internet in the public sphere?

[12:14] Aphilo Aarde: Myahi C?

[12:14] Ju Roussel: The author of "Flow" concept - I'm always aprehensive about misspelling his name.

[12:14] Aphilo Aarde: I like to add people's research papers and books to http://webnographers.org

[12:14] Aphilo Aarde: :) Csikszentmihalyi

[12:15] Aphilo Aarde: Interesting observation Ju

[12:16] Aphilo Aarde: I don't know of any empirical research yet which examines how suring and focusing on the internet is a flow experience

[12:16] Aphilo Aarde: Although I could clearly postulate that surfing is very enjoyable,

[12:16] Ju Roussel: Enough was given to that in the first part though. It seems that internet added more to ADHD than to work-loving ethics that Csikszentmihalyi advocated.

[12:16] Aphilo Aarde: in that so many people spend so much time surfing the internet

[12:17] Ju Roussel: <-- completely agrees...

[12:17] Aphilo Aarde: (Always riding a crest of a wave - I don't know the etymological origin of 'surfing' vis-a-vis the intenret)

[12:18] Aphilo Aarde: I think the methods Csikszentmihalyi used in what I think are numerous research projects - pagers and surveys -

[12:18] Aphilo Aarde: could easily be applied to web studies.

[12:18] Aphilo Aarde: And I wouldn't be surprised if some researchers have done this.

[12:19] Aphilo Aarde: And yes, Csikszentmihalyi, seems to have contextualized his research within a kind of work or 'challenge at the right level' context

[12:19] Aphilo Aarde: but not exclusively

[12:20] Aphilo Aarde: perhaps this is a flaw in his studies, but perhaps he was able also to reach more readers of his scientific work than otherwise if he had focused on qualities of flow which were all enjoyment - music listening, music playing for proficient musicians ... warm water

[12:21] Ju Roussel: Well he is a positive psychology school, so the focus of his research is all around essense of human happiness, in the most pure form of it.

[12:22] Aphilo Aarde: He overlaps with that school ... but his work is significantly rooted in empiricism - his studies, I think, focusing on flow.

[12:22] Ju Roussel: no no, that sort of enjoyment is NOT the most productive in C's system

[12:22] Aphilo Aarde: In one study, he paged people who were working and when they were on vacation on the beach

[12:23] Aphilo Aarde: and found that people reported more enjoyment when they were engaged with work, than lying in the sun on the beach.

[12:23] Aphilo Aarde: He also found that people work on 75% of the time, in this study, that they're at work - data

[12:23] Aphilo Aarde: employers would love ...

[12:23] Ju Roussel: right, and then he goes on about people that do work while waiting in the airport - thus enhancing the flow experience instead of getting bored.

[12:24] Aphilo Aarde: But let's return to the emregence of community the internet and the media

[12:25] Aphilo Aarde: So, the media, I was suggesting 2 weeks ago, in the mid 1990s - probably because "bad news sells"

[12:25] Aphilo Aarde: suggested 3 profiles

[12:25] Aphilo Aarde: of internet users in this time of early widening usage

[12:26] Aphilo Aarde: 1 that everybody can form his or her own experience online, according to preferences, sociability and solidarity online.

[12:27] Aphilo Aarde: 2 that the World Wide Web was an instrument of social deviants, - and that if they're not, they will become so. And in the mid 1990s, this was a dominant view of the media - that the internet was a medium of alienated masses -

[12:27] Aphilo Aarde: I don't know how prevalent this view still is ... it's certainly around

[12:28] Aphilo Aarde: And 3 that the internet was an instrument of role playing - of building fake identities

[12:29] Aphilo Aarde: These were some ways the media was interpreting the rise of this real time world wide communication network, with no precedent in history

[12:29] Aphilo Aarde: But these interpretations in many ways are boring

[12:29] Aphilo Aarde: What really was happening?

[12:29] Aphilo Aarde: There were some good sociological studies in different countries - the U.S. England, etc.

[12:30] Aphilo Aarde: And what was happening? Not much

[12:30] Aphilo Aarde: People were using the world wide web to adapt to life

[12:30] Aphilo Aarde: They were putting information online at the service of what they wanted

[12:31] Aphilo Aarde: People were twisting and adapting to this new medium.

[12:31] Aphilo Aarde: People's sociability was moving to the internet, was what these studies found.

[12:32] Aphilo Aarde: Concrete statistics were needed.

[12:33] Aphilo Aarde: And the Pew internet Research project emerged to gather statistics, right

[12:33] Aphilo Aarde: from the beginning of the internet's growth in popularity.

[12:34] Aphilo Aarde: Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project

[12:34] Aphilo Aarde: pewinternet.org/

[12:34] Aphilo Aarde: which has a remarkable amound of data and studies dating from around 1993 or 94 I think.

[12:35] Aphilo Aarde: The first set of questions all of these empirical studies were asking had to do with patterns of sociability.

[12:36] Aphilo Aarde: For example, how much do people meet with their families and neighbors now with with the internet, compared with prior to the Internet.

[12:36] Aphilo Aarde: And what do people do with these meetings?

[12:36] Aphilo Aarde: Another set of questions they asked had to do with activiites that people were doing with the internet beyond work.

[12:37] Aphilo Aarde: And what the Pew Center concluded was that the use of the Internet was either unrelated to social interaction or positively related.

[12:37] Buffy Beale: interesting how it's changed

[12:37] Aphilo Aarde: This was significant first empirical data.

[12:37] Aphilo Aarde: How so, Buffy?

[12:38] Aphilo Aarde: That the empirical research is showing new data?

[12:38] Buffy Beale: well now it's all about collaborating and meeting

[12:38] JonathanE Cortes: hello al , sorry late could not on SL proper

[12:38] Buffy Beale: facebook myspace twitter etc

[12:38] Buffy Beale: hi JonE

[12:38] Aphilo Aarde: I see, you are observing that people have simply extended sociality in new ways thanks to the internet.

[12:38] Buffy Beale: but back then very few had computers at home

[12:38] Aphilo Aarde: Welcome Jonathan

[12:38] Buffy Beale: yes

[12:39] Aphilo Aarde: Yes, social networking is one very significant trajectory ... and these early studies showed that the seeds of this were happening, empirically.

[12:40] Aphilo Aarde: Here's one resource: pewinternet.org/topics/social-networking.aspx

[12:40] Aphilo Aarde: And here's another: webnographers.org/index.php?title=Books#Social_Networking

[12:41] Aphilo Aarde: webnographers.org/index.php?title=Papers#Social_Networks

[12:41] Aphilo Aarde: And those are papers about this topic.

[12:41] Aphilo Aarde: carrying on this research started in the early mid 1990s.

[12:41] Buffy Beale: oh oh Aphilo, think this is a griefer attack

[12:42] Buffy Beale: the smilie face boxes

[12:42] Aphilo Aarde: :) here's another

[12:43] Aphilo Aarde: So using the internet then was positively associated with sociality, especially compared with prior to the internet, to see it in comparative analysis.

[12:43] Aphilo Aarde: And what these studies did was compare Internet and non Internet usage vis-a-vis social behavior.

[12:44] Aphilo Aarde: And what they found was that internet use and family reinforce each other.

[12:44] Aphilo Aarde: sorry what they found was that internet use and telecommunications access positively reinforce each other.

[12:45] Aphilo Aarde: BUT that there was no relation whatsoever

[12:45] Aphilo Aarde: to acutal changes in patterns of sociability

[12:45] Aphilo Aarde: Boring

[12:45] Ju Roussel: paralelly, church attendance has been found to reinsforce family communication too...

[12:45] Aphilo Aarde: Other studies emerged from this, as well as interpretations

[12:46] Aphilo Aarde: interesting .. JU ... haven't seen a comparison with internet use and church attendance yet, .. and I'm curious.

[12:46] Ju Roussel: No, it's the family research that was looking into marriage longevity factors.

[12:47] Aphilo Aarde: So these further studies began to look at the usage time of the internet daily

[12:47] Aphilo Aarde: comparing those who have the internet and those who don't

[12:47] Ju Roussel: But probably one does not exclude the other. I observed especially in US, church is actively entering use of internet...

[12:47] Aphilo Aarde: interesting Ju ... I'm also curious about such data compared with internet use

[12:48] Aphilo Aarde: Adn they found that those who had fewer friends still had fewer friends.

[12:48] Aphilo Aarde: And those who had more friends, still had more friends.

[12:49] Aphilo Aarde: The ONLY positively related correlate that these studies found

[12:49] Ju Roussel: I'll have to look it up. Have not noticed anything that would include all the three - families, internet, and tradition - either reinforcing or conflicting

[12:49] Aphilo Aarde: was that when you have Internet access you spend more time on email - but no other difference in sociability.

[12:50] Aphilo Aarde: Please add any studies you find to webnographers.org! - would be useful data

[12:50] Aphilo Aarde: So, to recap, before we perhaps converse in these last 10 minutes,

[12:51] Aphilo Aarde: the internet didn't change very much vis-a-vis sociality when people started

[12:51] Aphilo Aarde: to use the Internet a lot in the mid 1990s, is what these studies showed.

[12:52] Aphilo Aarde: The only solid data researchers found was that more internet access meant more email use

[12:52] Aphilo Aarde: Hmmm

[12:53] Aphilo Aarde: I'm curious in the last few minutes what each of you find vis-a-vis the internet and sociality, which you might understand as a little negative

[12:53] Aphilo Aarde: and how you might change this?

[12:53] Aphilo Aarde: So that we might study some of these questions empirically - anthorpologically perhaps - drawing on our own experiene.

[12:54] Ju Roussel: I gather there is a wast distance between personal perception of the issue and whatever research might find.

[12:54] Aphilo Aarde: I greatly appreciate the internet, but I found I sometimes get absorbed with it - enjoyably - in a way that makes my eyes tired, for example.

[12:54] Aphilo Aarde: Let's see if we can articulate these perspectives, Ju.

[12:54] Aphilo Aarde: Perhaps you're research for your Ph.D will show something different.

[12:55] sandhya2 Patel: I find i do not move around enough when using the internet

[12:55] Aphilo Aarde: I'm also curious how we might engage the internet to elicit the neurophysiology of bliss, for example.

[12:55] sandhya2 Patel: thus i have to exercise more to counteract my lack of motion

[12:55] Ju Roussel: I "leach" on observing families and close friends tweeting their cozy feelings. My PhD is unfortunately not about these.

[12:55] sandhya2 Patel: sometimes my hands or neck get tired

[12:55] Aphilo Aarde: greed, Sandhya

[12:55] Aphilo Aarde: Good solution.

[12:56] Aphilo Aarde: agreed8*

[12:56] Aphilo Aarde: *agreed, Sandhya

[12:56] Buffy Beale: Yes, I find I have to unplug myself often, it consumes a lot of time

[12:56] Aphilo Aarde: And I feel more 'connected' when I am fit and exercising a lot ... and media in general can lead to more sedentary life styles

[12:57] Sybex Drachnyd: When i am at meetings with friends they are constantly using thier phones to b e on the net

[12:57] Aphilo Aarde: Leach? Ju? - sounds like your interest in family dovetails with some of this empirical research.

[12:57] Aphilo Aarde: Yes, Buffy , scheduling time away because the internet is absorbing to me, is helpful.

[12:57] Ju Roussel: Ha, for someone who lugs laptop to the gym in order to have the favourite workout routine videos... you can reconcile the 2 :)

[12:57] Sybex Drachnyd: i wonder if they are really all the way with me or of devided attention means they are getting less understanding.

[12:58] Aphilo Aarde: Interesting Sybex ... mobile usage is a widespread phenomena

[12:58] Aphilo Aarde: There's a fair amount of research hear on webnographers.org about that

[12:58] Aphilo Aarde: webnographers.org/index.php?title=Papers#Mobile_Communication_Webnography

[12:58] Aphilo Aarde: *here

[12:58] Ju Roussel: Oh well, in that other life that they call RL, I am very social, but also extremely lonely. Perusing through that empirics is my hobby of sorts.

[12:59] Aphilo Aarde: So, in that the internet is social, and many people experience loneliness, I wonder how the internet could be a tool or technology for moving beyond loneliness - to the contrary

[13:00] Ju Roussel: I see a lot of polarization entering... what most see in trends of income distribution, can be easily seen in human relations.

[13:01] Aphilo Aarde: If only from new ideas - for example - 'Re-evaluation counseling " is a practice of listening the same amount of time mutually with a co-counselor - listening closely

[13:01] Aphilo Aarde: and could be done on the web.

[13:01] Aphilo Aarde: Here's World University & School's 'edit this page' 'Psychotherapy' section

[13:01] Aphilo Aarde: worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Psychotherapy

[13:01] Ju Roussel: People with support networks can use technologies to add to the strength of those networks. The loners can get on the faulty path of illusion.

[13:01] Buffy Beale: thats already happening now in SL with nonprofit support groups

[13:02] Aphilo Aarde: And the reevaluation counseling RC web site is here - it's a good practice

[13:02] Aphilo Aarde: might start a different section with it

[13:03] Aphilo Aarde: It's different kinds of attention and sociality mediated by the web, but I wouldn't call it illusion - and I like face-to-face positive attention.

[13:03] Aphilo Aarde: ... over the internet - I do find avatar mediated communication fascinating helpful and great, but face to face conversation and listening with a friend is also great

[13:04] Aphilo Aarde: Well let's close for today

[13:04] Buffy Beale: Aphilo the f2f is essential in my mind

[13:04] Ju Roussel: :) Great session as always. Mr. C, btw, has talked about acquired taste for solitude , too :)

[13:05] Aphilo Aarde: Agreed, Buffy ... and it won't go away given our evolutionary and social histories - it's how to cultivate these in ways that rock that's interesting to me.

[13:05] Aphilo Aarde: Mr.C.?

[13:05] Buffy Beale: yes, but for the next genners they'll be much more at ease using the web tools

[13:06] Ju Roussel: The flow author :). I pronounce the name by now, just don't spell. This is how all management professors call him: Mr. C.!

[13:06] Aphilo Aarde: Agreed ... Digital Natives is another body of research

[13:06] Aphilo Aarde: webnographers.org/index.php?title=Papers#Digital_Natives_and_Youth

[13:07] Buffy Beale: thanks for another great session Aphilo, see you next week

[13:07] Aphilo Aarde: :)

[13:07] Aphilo Aarde: See you next week.

[13:07] Ju Roussel: Oh, no to forget. Metanomics having their 100th show next Wednesday, and OK Cupid creators are on :). Everybody welcome

[13:07] Buffy Beale: by all

[13:08] Buffy Beale: oh yes great thanks for reminder Ju

[13:08] Aphilo Aarde: Bye, Buffy!

[13:08] Buffy Beale: :)

[13:08] Ju Roussel: a dose of sociology of relationships building, I expect.

[13:08] Aphilo Aarde: Thanks, Ju, for the information![13:08] Sybex Drachnyd: Thank you aphilo

[13:08] Sybex Drachnyd: interestin class as usual

[13:08] Ju Roussel: Let me know if you'd like an invite to the group - I volunteer for Metanomics.

[13:09] Aphilo Aarde: socinfotech.pbworks.com/InfoTechSoc10 - is the transcript

[13:09] Aphilo Aarde: Yes, please invite metanomics people to this course, Ju!

[13:09] Aphilo Aarde: Thanks, Sybex.






(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/04/petrified-wood-virtual-worlds-education.html - April 11, 2010)