Week II Article Reviews

“It takes a Village to Find a Phone” by Clay Shirky

In the article “it takes a village to find a phone”, written by Clay Shirky, is about a woman named Ivanna left her SideKick cell phone in the backseat of a taxi cab. Ivanna has her friend Evan, a programmer in the financial industry, emails her cell phone to try to get a hold of who took the phone. After a few days pass, Ivanna finds out that the cell phone is in the hands of a girl from queens, as seen from a photo that she recovered from her new phone. Ivanna tries to convince the girl named Sasha to return her “SideKick” back to her. While Sasha continues to refuse, Ivanna uses Evans network intelligence to post this story across multiple social media  sites. As time passes and still no return of the cell phone, Ivanna and Evan try to look towards the police for help. The police report this issue as a lost phone and not stolen, so they could not do anything about it. Evan then goes back on social media and posts about the police and their inaction towards the situation. All of this grabs the publics attention and they begin to retaliate across more social media platforms and the police change the report as stolen. Sasha then gets arrested by the NYPD and Ivanna gets her “SideKick” back. And this story goes viral.

“The Future of Reputation” by Daniel J. Solove

In a Subway in South Korea, a woman dog poops on the ground in the middle of the subway. Passengers tell her to clean it up, she then tells everyone to mind their own business. She then posts pictures of this occurrence on her blog over social media. Within hours, the public attacked this woman and she was known as the “dog shit girl”. Places she went and even family was recognizing her picture from the web and the public sees her as “she doesn’t deserve privacy”. This story then became mainstream and it was almost impossible for this girl to get away from all these speculations and rumors.

How does new technology enable a new kind of group-formation?

-Technology has brought us social media platforms that millions of people are on daily. I believe our society is more connected now that technology is available to us because we are more interested in whats happening in other peoples lives besides our own. The public will remain connected because it has just became a way of life for us humans.

On page 17, Clay Shirky refers to Tim O’Reilly’s concept of “architecture of participation.” What does that mean in the context of these two articles.

Author, Clay Shirky expresses Tim O’Reilly’s concept of “an architecture of participation”, this is basically saying that the internet has became a social satire for our everyday lives. In these particular articles, the social media platforms have become a baseline for connection. Many Years ago if these situations were to happen, then the sidekick would not have been retrieved and Ivanna would still be without her sidekick. With so many people on the internet so often,there is always someone listening to what you have to say, people will help and stay intrigued by stories over websites and apps. This has shaped the way our society acts today.

“When we change the way we communicate, we change society.” Discuss this statement by making reference to the contents of the two articles.

Once all the social media platforms were available for the public to use, that changed our society immensely. Well explained in the article “the future of reputation” written by Daniel J. Solve, we are more prone to gossip and cyber bullying and our information to be leaked. These may be bad, yet we also are more connected with our society and have brought people closer to one another. Communication is easier yet human interaction has weakened. Also, society is so engaged in their phones and television that news is brought to the public within seconds and people hear about things way earlier than they would if technology weren’t around. Although, humans communicating over the internet has made our society introverts in a way and more reliant on a device than ourselves.

After reading these two articles, what do you think motivates people to share information? What is the source of trust, for example, when sharing information on an online dating site? What makes people take the risk?

I believe, people share their information and stories over the internet for attention and the feel of acceptance. There is a sensation of connection to the world when you post or like something on the web. Yet sometimes it may not be trustworthy to do and sketchy at times, the internet can be a good source to make friends, to meet your love, and to even land a job. I believe all these factors is what makes us humans want to post and look on the web to be a part of the new generation and stay connected.

What are the most important lessons you have learnr from these two articles about communication technologies and their effect on our society?

Some lessons I learned after reading these articles is that, i need to watch what I post sometimes because you never can know when something you say is wrong and could backfire on me because all it takes is a rumor to scatter across the web. Also, I know that other people will have my back on the internet and i can make a big impact on something by asking the publics opinion on things. I also know that internet isn’t terrible, yet can help me at most times in need.

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