digital divide

It happened a while back when we were going to Lothal on bikes early in the morning. Before going off, we were sitting at Chhota (canteen in MICA) for tea. I heard a rajasthani/kutchie folk song being played somewhere. It sounded interesting. It was coming off a cell phone of boy who worked at Chhota. (the guy in the pic) I asked him if it was radio and what channel. He said that it was mp3s. i was intrigued. i asked where he got it from. He replied 'internet pe milta hai na'.. He had downloaded the songs on a friend's cell phone, then from there he bluetoothed it to his cell.
we were all :O then. Among the ten of us who were going to the trip, hardly half had bluetooth or GPRS enabled phones. :P Here I am. I write paper on digital natives. Am intereseted in media effects of new media. and I still havent used bluetooth (except for on laptop). :|
It was a wonderful moment :D

an experiment

When one talk of DN, some of the strongest ramifications of this concept is in the field of education. Indeed, the increasing ineffectiveness of education system n pedagogy were the reasons that the concept of DN came to fore.
A few days back, I was thinking of the same while attending a lecture, and thought of an experiment. Essentially, I want to experiment if teaching efficacy increases if we uses multiple media simultaneously during the course of lecture. A normal class here at MICA, employs visual aids (projector, boards, charts, papers), audio aids (speakers, mics) but the use of this media is mostly one sided (though the class participation usually is quite high in conventional sense. Laptops are 'down' during lecture though, faculty just doesn't trust us :P).
what i propose is use of social media such as twitter, social networks, wikis etc real time during a lecture to create a more collaborative atmosphere in a lecture. I talked with prof. Chandan Chatterjee about this idea, and he seemed enthused by it. I am busy for a while due to the course load, however, soon i hope that the class is conducted as soon as we define the matrix to measure the result by and other modalities of it. Please share your ideas to refine this experiment, so that it be more fruitful.

I found something pertinent and am posting it here verbatim -

A search of the Nexis database of English-language publications worldwide finds zero uses of the phrase before 2005 but 600 since then. It appeared in The New York Times apparently for the first time in a quote on May 24:

“Unlike people 65 and older who immigrated online after spending their youths thumbing through reference books, today’s children are digital natives who are fluent in the language of online searches,” said Marc Prensky, an educational consultant and the author of ‘’Don’t Bother Me Mom — I’m Learning!'’

Escape to the other real

It all started with emoticons.
the simple one's - :P, ;)
the anime one's - (0_0) , (u_u), (^-^)b...
then avatars in chat.
Secondlife took it to a whole other level, where an alternate reality is constructed. It is an internet based virtual world launched in 2003, developed by Linden Research, Inc. A downloadable client program called the Second Life Viewer enables its users, called "Residents", to interact with each other through motional avatars, providing an advanced level of a social network service combined with general aspects of a metaverse. Residents can explore, meet other Residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, and create and trade items (virtual property) and services with one another. (source - wikipedia article)

well, the real thing of consequence about second life is that, that it has a virtual currency - Linden Dollar (Linden, or L$) and is exchangeable for real world currencies in a resident to resident marketplace facilitated by Linden Lab. This allows for second life to be more than just a leisurely diversion to a serious alternate platform for people to interact and conduct their business. It is the platform where most of the residents would be digital natives. Thus these platform provides for a good opportunity to marketers to target their product in much focussed way and making the experience much more enjoyable and informative than a regular communications. Many real companies have set up stores on second life, such as Dell.
Now we are seeing even governments getting interested in the virtual world. Last year a Beijing municipality announced that they will be creating a special zone called the China Virtual Economy District or Cyber Recreation District. This physical business park will be supplemented by a virtual business space called the Dotman World being jointly created by the Beijing Cyber Recreation Development Corp and MindArk ( the Swedish company which created Entropia Universe). It will be the biggest initiative by any government in the world to use Virtual Worlds as a serious business development and promotion multiplier. It will transform the business and social spaces and processes. (- news source, indusgeek post )
Here we have an interesting scenario for Digital natives:
what if governments embrace virtual worlds bigtime like in china, what would be the implications for people in long run?
Being a digital native would be incentivised. In any case, Broadband has people hooked more to net than TV. broadband penetration would be actively increased. Also with the setup of new virtual world sites such as 'small world' where one can access virtual world over web browser only instead of installing a dedicated client software, its becoming even more accessible. Small world also allows for one to share images, watch videos, listen music together with others in the virtual world. This i believe is quite interesting and a step in the continuous evolution of web 2.0.

Some services might be preferred to be handled over the virtual world rather than the real one. How about outsourcing all interaction with the ugly organisation we call government to virtual world. I guess virtual world apart from being a social ground could be a brilliant and efficient place to transact information among larger groups of people.
Think about the seriousness with which one handles affairs with government. and it being performed in an environment that had its root in the philosophy of anonymity and healthy disregard to formality. Well this is not the first time that formality found its champion in cyberpunk manifestation. There are many companies with their outlets on secondlife, and I would like to know if they have changed their way of interaction for the sake of medium or are they sticking to their old form for the sake of consistency. I wonder what would happen to the language of governance.

How would proliferation of alternative identities in terms of avatars affect the interactions of DNs in future?
What if you prefer the avatar version of your friend over his/her real self? Are you conveniently neglecting the part of someone's personality you don't like and choosing the ones u do? The person being broken down into his qualities and characteristics. On the one hand there may be health fallouts of a hardcore digital native lifestyle like obesity and on the other hand, the generation today is much less acquiescing of imperfection in others. In this intensely competitive and non pardoning environment, building healthy relationships is that much more difficult. And since a person can wear a digital mask of a avatar, the relationship building tends to be superfluous or goal oriented. We have examples of healthy relations being built on the cyberspace but either they are exceptions or the relationship was built over some real interactions aswell.
you might be the best of friends on the chat for years, but when you interact in real or even over a telephone call for the first time there is that sense of shock and uncertainty and hesitation.]

please do comment your views.. this is no small question, and demands a bit more consideration.

don't/ Do download this song

Arrgghh.. the ethical questions hound us? or do they? digital natives are devided over the ethical question regarding free downloads, piracy etc. and its reflected in popular media thus ...
Wierd Al Yankovic's 2006 song 'don't download this song' was one of his first outright political songs. See the kickass video of the song at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz-grdpKVqg.

The song was released exclusively on August 21, 2006 as a digital download. It is a style parody of "We Are the World" and other similar charity songs. The song "describes the perils of online music file-sharing" in a tongue-in-cheek manner." - wikipedia

Here we see Wierd Al's strong criticism of file sharing of paid content.



However at the same time we have MC Lars's response with his song 'download this song' where he says -

Hey Mr. Record Man
The joke’s on you
Running your label
Like it was 1992
Hey Mr. Record Man,
Your system can’t compete
It’s the New Artist Model
File transfer complete
Download this song!
Download this song!
Download this song!

Is MC Lars a digital native and wierd al a digital immigrant? MC Lars points out that "Music was a product now it is a service".

BTW, MC Lars the self-proclaimed originator of "post-punk laptop rap". His tracks come under the genre of 'nerdcore'. I had not known for such a genre to exist :P. Now that I know, i will explore it a bit more, for some more clues of DN culture.
check this out - internet relationship. its one of MC Lars songs. quite interesting. :D
and then Igeneration.

oh so visual II

People. stand up and give me some listen. There's some kickass mighty awesomish research going on the west coat of US. check this out --> collegehumor
The video is a demonstration about microsoft's new products - seadragon and photo synth. The reason I am so kicked about this technology is its potential to revolutionise the way we perceive and organize digital information. This has humongous sociological implications.
Seadragon essentially aims to change the way we use screens, from wall-sized displays to mobile devices, so that visual information can be smoothly browsed regardless of the amount of data involved or the bandwidth of the network. It promises :

1. Speed of navigation is independent of the size or number of objects.
2. Performance depends only on the ratio of bandwidth to pixels on the screen.
3. Transitions are smooth as butter.
4. Scaling is near perfect and rapid for screens of any resolution.

Combine this with Photosynth which takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space.

With Photosynth you can:

• Walk or fly through a scene to see photos from any angle.
• Seamlessly zoom in or out of a photo whether it's megapixels or gigapixels in size.
• See where pictures were taken in relation to one another.
• Find similar photos to the one you're currently viewing.
• Send a collection - or a particular view of one - to a friend.

and thirdly, check out microsoft Surface . It seems microsoft is set to change the way we perceive, organize and experience content and conversation. Though google and yahoo have a lead in terms of accessing and searching information.

Now pause for a minute there, and try and ponder how this will effect us. Digital natives would lap it up all once its accessible (by that i mean, price, ubiquity and cost to system in memory and processor speed). Switching from one content to another would be seamlessly, organically, easy. and hence there are even more possibilities of new kinds of mashups and whole new kind of content creation. the archiving and bookmarking of content would take on a life of its own, and there is finally a real possibility of co creation.

I am told not to go Marshall Mclluhanish for this blog, but I can't help it here.. :P
This tech when accessible will lead to fundamental changes to the way we think, since text would no longer be central to out 'literacy'. and hence the hegemony of the lettered man over the unlettered one would be a lil weaker. :D Here probably my socialist romanticism is taking me ahead of myself, but its a true possibility that the notion of literacy and ability to think would be freed of the shackles of linear logic of west, a manifestation of text. There could be real resurgence of eastern logic in mainstream. (Though in today's world, we are increasingly dependent and using visual cues and sanitizing the rest of the senses. Its as if we don't want to smell anything at all, everything everywhere is so sanitized. I guess, in the course of evolution Japanese would be the first ones to lose their nose :P. I don't know of taste- if we are tasting more or less tastes than earlier- but we are definitely sanitizing the sense of touch as well. Sexuality and physical touch being incriminated, and the nucleated relations maintained across concrete walls through digital airwaves.)
Ok, and what would be the immediate imperatives.
since one can pack in more information in the 'screen real estate', there will be a fundamental change in the way one navigates through information.
this will lead to even more of information hunger, cause there is a little uncertainty associated with this interface as to 'have i missed something'. since more and more information is packed it the screen. Though, this aggregation will help to make sense of even complex stuff, so comprehension of visual data would be much more enhanced. and in these uncertainties lies the commercial ad opportunity, if the ad is rich and valuable in info.

Social use for social media could be possible at public spaces, making digital ecosphere truly ubiquitous. (since according to these guys, Four-fifths of the world population will carry mobile Internet devices within five to 10 years and within five years everything that matters to you will be available on a device that fits on your belt or in your purse.) and the prophecy might turn true with social network and social media ubiquitous like air.

Mobile Communication

The media landscape has changed dramatically in recent decades, from one predominated by traditional mass communication formats to today’s more personalized network environment. Mobile communication plays a central role in this transition, with adoption rates that surpass even those of the Internet. The widespread diffusion and use of mobile telephony is iconic of a shift toward a new ‘personal communication society’, evidenced by several key areas of social change, including symbolic meaning of the technology, new forms of coordination and social networking, personalization of public spaces, and the mobile youth culture. The increasingly personal nature of communication technology in the desire for ‘perpetual contact’ would shape the device and its usage. The symbolic significance of mobile communication devices is part and parcel of the progression from a mass to a network toward a personal communication society.

Personal communication technologies are distinctive from other network technologies (e.g. the computer) in that they are often worn on body, highly individualized, and regarded as extensions of the self. It has been said that they make us individually addressable regardless of where we are. Young people are using the mobile phone to help configure important social developments in their lives. These changes can be seen in many key areas, including peer relations, domestic ties, and identity formation.

Beyond its unprecedented rate of diffusion and the mobility factor, personalisation plays out an important role in defining the new social dimensions. The technology might enable ‘cocooning’ to take place as individuals shut themselves off from co-present others while plugged into their mobile phone.

The biggest challenge facing mobile networks is going to be engaging, retaining, and squeezing money out of the younger generation. Though the current crop of 15-24 year-olds is incredibly tech-savvy, it appears that most aren't keen on paying for any services other than voice and SMS.

Thanks to the culture of getting nearly everything for free online, including social networking services, music, video, and other user-generated content, mobile operators could find it tough to turn these "digital native" young people into heavily paying customers.

#Mobile phone usage depicts new forms of coordination: instrumental- and expressive- coordination. Instrumental-coordination entails instrumental uses of the mobile phone, such as coordinating basic logistics, redirecting trips that are already under way, or making plans with others entirely ‘on the fly’. Expressive-coordination refers to the expressive and relational dimensions of mobile communication, such as chatting with family members or occasionally checking in with friends via text messaging.

Planning social activities is a priority for many DNs, and the ‘real-time’ nature of mobile communication plays a vital role in this process. Thus, if a social gathering changes, it is easy to get word out. If a party is boring, those who arrive first can send a message to others and alternative plans can be developed. Privacy is an important nuance to these novel forms of connection and coordination. Much of what young DNs have to say to one another can now more easily be said (or thumbed) ‘under the radar’ of their parental observation. Thus, the mobile phone not only lowers the threshold for interaction among young people, it does so in a way that offers increased privacy and autonomy from their parents.

Usage of DNs

They use text messaging exclusively with friends, while relegating parents to voice calling or voice mail, allows them to utilize characters that are unique to their social networks, hence, demonstrating network membership and sharpening the boundary separating insiders from outsiders It allows for a type of ‘connected presence’ where peers are continually updated as to one another’s situation. Previous to the adoption of the mobile phone, individuals would have more bounded interaction with friends. They would perhaps save bits of information in anticipation of their next meeting and then use that time to update each other. The mobile telephone means that there is no longer the need to deal with this backlog of information. The members of a social group are frequently updated as to the issues and events taking place among their peers. Finally, the mobile phone serves as a form of identity for young people. The brand and the model can say much about the owner. The identity of DNs is also played out in the number of names in the contact register, the number of SMS messages received recently, ring tones, wall papers, and special icons.

DNs rely on peer group interactions and social network ties to establish a sense of self, and mobile communication affords greater freedom for them to carry out their social relations as they see fit. It plays such an integral role in the lives of young people that it has actually become an important part of who they are, feeding into the symbolic meaning of the technology. As a result, the mobile phone is among the most personal of today’s communication tools, and, therefore, its iconic of the rise of personal communication society.

The fashion of a mobile phone is so integral to some users that it actually intersects with the function of the technology. The fashion of the technology is socially significant to the users who are forming and expressing their identity.

One additional social effect of widespread mobile technology availability is peer-to-peer journalism, in which regular citizens become eye witness journalists by capturing and broadcasting news events using their mobile devices.

# Social Implications of Mobile Telephony: The Rise of Personal Communication Society
Scott W. Campbell* and Yong Jin Park
University of Michigan