Mobile Problems Reflect Participation Gap

A study by Pew Research Center provides information that helps illustrate a participation gap with mobile users.

According to the study, the majority of adults have cell phones (88%). The problems experienced however vary wilder from dropped calls to slow download speeds. The difference in problems experienced by the participants surveyed develops the idea that the different problems occur because some people are less knowledgeable about the technology and use it for different reasons.

Ethnicity affects the participation gap.

The study revealed that non-white cell phone owners “confronted all four problems at somewhat higher weekly rates than do their white counterparts.”  The research center offered a reasoning that this cause may be due to the fact that African-Americans and Hispanics are “more likely than whites to rely on their cell phones as their primary or exclusive phones for calling and for internet.” The participation gap is evident when analyzing problems occurring between cell usages among different ethnicities. Minorities may not have home computers or landline phones and rely heavily on their cellular devices.  Problems could also occur because minorities may not have the same knowledge of the National Do Not Call Registry, which would free them of all the spam calls and unwanted texts.

Smartphones may increase the participation gap.

Smartphone users observed more problems in each category compared to non-smartphone users. The research said that there was statistically significant difference between smartphone users and non-smartphone users in the categories of dropped calls, spam text messages, and slow download speeds. This finding illustrates the participation gap because as phones become more evolved, people will experience a lag time, during which they will have to learn new methods of using the technology and ways to avoid problems. The time when people are learning the new skills and ways of using smartphones will create a participation gap which will show how previous owners pick up the new technology with ease, as compared to the new learners who will take longer to learn.

I predict that the participation gap will expand when new technology first comes out, but will get smaller as the population adapts to how to operate the technology.

Companies will be continuously putting out new devices and operating systems on the market for the public to buy. As the technology gets more and more advanced, the learning curve will take longer. I predict that the participation gap will be at its peak during the time when the products are just released. As time goes on, people will become accustomed to operating the new device and the ways it can be used, therefore the participation gap will be closing. My opinion is that participation gaps fluctuate depending on how long technology has been used by the public. 

Citizen Journalism is Catching On

Citizen journalism is ordinary people reporting and sharing information.

Citizen journalism is exactly what it sounds like. With the increase availability to the Internet, everyone can be a journalist.  It doesn’t have to be just paragraphs of text either; the information can take form of pictures, audio, or video. Many podcasts and blogs are updated throughout the week with new story lines and news. Viewers can subscribe to blogs of their choice and keep up to date with information that is relevant to their interests. The Internet is key in the rise in citizen journalism because it now sends the information globally, a power that large news corporations were only capable of. News now can be spread much quicker and has everyone capable of being a contributor.

Some news corporations are supporting citizen journalism.

NBC News is a corporation that supports the growth of citizen journalism. It has a section of its website dedicated to reports written by citizens. The section titled “Citizen Journalist” has sidebars indicating trending topics as well as contact information for citizens in submitting articles and photos.  NBC also is starting to give its viewers “assignments,” which citizens go out and try to do their own investigation of topics previously chosen. In a way NBC is almost getting some of their work done for free. The co-operation between amateur and professional journalists is benefiting society as a whole with new and better information.

Social media is one of the domains for citizen journalism.

According to TheGuardian, a British news website, social media and citizen journalism is not only affecting the news corporations, but the documentary makers as well. During the past incidents in the Middle East, citizens would capture footage of events using the cameras on their cell phones. This footage is being incorporated into documentaries of those events and is a primary source for filmmakers. Social media sites are allowing witnesses to come out with their stories and share them. The witnesses can easily voice their seeing and recollection of events by simply posting pictures, videos, or text stating how they recalled the events.

Citizen journalism is now classified as normal media coverage and is allowed to cover court cases in the state of Massachusetts.

The highest court in the state of Massachusetts has now introduced an online registration process for citizens and other news organizations to use electronic devices and cameras during court hearings. In addition to the new registration process, the court amended Rule 1:19, the state’s camera-in-the-courtroom statute. One amended part defined media to include citizen journalists “who are regularly engaged in the reporting and publishing of news or information about matters of public interest.” The other amended part allowed—given permission from the judge—journalists to use smartphones, laptops, tablets, and other devices to record the hearings, including live-blogs. This is a huge step for the social media and the citizen journalists who use it. Not only are citizens classified as journalists and categorized with other news organizations, but they are also given permission to cover the hearings with electronic devices, taking advantage of the quick distribution effect of social media. Viewers will now be able to keep up to date with rulings as they occur, without delay. Massachusetts’s court information will now be spread much more efficiently with the amendment made to Rule 1:19.

Critics of citizen journalism question its credibility.

With the rise in citizen journalists and their articles, come critics that view the whole concept as “untrustworthy, shoddy and inarticulate.” Jack Kapica, an experienced Canadian journalist, worries that citizen journalists just simply “mimic what they see on TV or in the press, to varying degrees of success.” He continues his statement by mentioning that the journalists demonstrate little understanding of the concepts used to gather and present information in a “conventional form.” Other than the style of the way citizen journalists typically write, Jack says that the amateurs usually lack ways to create original content.  According to Jack, citizens do not comprehend the “necessity of interviewing people and quoting them” and “the value of original quotes cannot be overstated. “ If the citizens just take quotes from the mainstream media, then they are just that—mainstream media. With all the criticism, Jack remains optimistic about the future of citizen journalism because “when done correctly, it can be very powerful [due to] its speed and the ability of the fledgling industry to be anywhere at any time.”

Overall, citizen journalism has changed to become a major part of news.

New social media sites, faster electronic devices, updated laws, and cooperation with major news organizations all help the growth of citizen journalism.  If the amateur journalists can uphold a high standard of writing and follow basic principles of journalism, then their stories will not need to face criticism.

Show Up For Your Life!

Author of Hamlet’s Blackberry, William “Bill” Powers, makes some very good points of emphasis in his web interview with Katie Couric. His book, Hamlet’s Blackberry, covers how technology is having such an enormous impact on our lives. Unfortunately, with the enormous impact comes some drawbacks. Powers offers the ideas that technology is inhibiting our deep thinking skills, skills of multitasking, focusing, finding our truer selves, and connecting with the people physically around us.

It’s true, scientific has shown that people get chemical releases of dopamine when we get responses from our technology (texts, emails, and calls).  A New York Time’s article agrees (and so do I) with Powers idea that these gratifications become addictive and “we get bored” when we do not get that sense of being connected. Powers also brings up the topic of how our brain is an associative mechanism and that the technology, or “screens,” prohibit our deep thinking because we are always busy and rarely have downtime to create our own thoughts and process the information we take in. In my research I found several news articles that support this information. This article supports his arguments that “unplugged” time, like a “walk in nature,” will actually allow a person to better store information in their memory than if their brain was cluttered with the constant information from technology sources.

Powers does offer one argument that I do not necessarily agree with: we are unable to form original thoughts due to groupthink in the digital crowd online. In my personal experiences, I find that when reading online articles I can still form my own opinions and conclusions on the topic. If a person is having a problem forming his/her own opinions on a specific topic, he/she should not read the comments page after the article. He/she could also take a moment to digest the information before clicking to the next article.

Another serious topic that William Powers covers in his book is the weakening of our personal relationships due to technology. I, along with Kord Campbell, agree with Powers because when people are online or looking through their “screens,” they do not fully perceive the people and environment around them. They are not totally in a conversation and frequently go “huh?” or “what?” when trying to get back into the conversation. Kord Campbell, not unlike William Powers, suffered from his family life distancing due to the technology in his home. Powers suggests that with a little determination families will easily regain their connectedness (which I find to be totally true).

One of my favorite parts in William Powers’s book is his integration of past philosophers and their problems with information overload. I found it captivating that philosophers such as Socrates found distancing himself from the crowd allowed him to have clearer conversations and deeper understanding of the topics discussed. Seneca, one of the readers favorite examples, provides a great comment on the “restless energy from the hunted mind,” which states our minds are being “hunted” from relentless emails, notifications, tweets, and more.  Seneca solved his problem by focusing on blocking out all distractions and turning his mind into a garden, in which he focuses solely on one task. I thoroughly enjoy Power’s statements being supported with philosophers, it supplies breadth to his points and allows for a denser argument.

William Powers is in no way criticizing personal use of technology; in fact, he is supporting it. He believes we should learn to control our urges to be connected all hours of the day. His goal is to raise awareness of the issue and I believe that will go farther than condemning all technology users. He wants us to get the most of both technology and life. I plan to “show up for my life,” do you?

The link to William Power's Interview is found here.

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