Is Technology Making Us Stupid?

Nobel Prize winner, Dora Lessing, made her prize winning speech about how technology has made humans stupid. She argues that

We are in a fragmenting culture, where our certainties of even a few decades ago are questioned and where it is common for young men and women, who have had years of education, to know nothing of the world, to have read nothing, knowing only some speciality or other, for instance, computers.

This woman has grown up before the computer era and has definitely does not realize that people haven't become more stupid with technology, but just more dependent. We use technology to find the answers to all our problems. It is a much easier, more efficient method of running our lives. In this time in history, people are all worried about every second of the day. They are more strained and get less sleep because they need all 24 hours in the day to fill their busy lives. The internet makes people smarter because they have easier access to information.

The Controversies of Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing is an interesting idea. The website Wikipedia works off of it, but how popular of an idea is it? In The Myth of Crowdsourcing (http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/28/crowdsourcing-enterprise-innovation-technology-cio-network-jargonspy.html), the author mentions that Wikipedia isn't a true example of crowdsourcing because a "vast majority are the product of a motivated individual". Even still, since Wikipedia is open to the public to edit and update, it should still be considered an example of crowdsourcing. Most of the time in groups, there is one motivated individual that does a lot of the work, and this carries through into crowdsourcing.

Crowdsourcing is not too intense because it isn't efficient or smart for companies to open their networks to the rest of the world to updated their data. However, employees in firms that deal with encyclopedias and other reference works should watch out for crowdsourcing because sometimes, the people that know the most about a certain subject aren't the ones working for reference companies. In that case, crowdsourcing is definitely the best bet for sharing information.

Blog # 1- 1/18/2010

6 Myths about Informal Networks

This article mentioned a lot of myths and the realities of these myths. It brought forward an interesting point of view, but i disagree with some of the realities. The article said that people should be connected only when a strategic payoff is necessary. I think everyone should be connected, whether a payoff is necessary or not, because it improves efficiency and allows everyone access to all information about their company. It feeds into the myth that each employee knows everything about their company, which they dont. This will allow them to know more about their company.

Social Networking Analysis

Barry Wellman knows a lot about social networks. He does a great job of explaining what a social network is. He uses previous cases to explain the scientific facts about social networks. His article is mainly informative and really useful.

My First Blog Post

I am a student blogging for a class. On my honor, all my posts on this blog are my own.