Unconscious division

Online social networks are broadly researched the last few years because of their gained popularity worldwide. These social networks are services that are online on the web that allow people to create a personal profile they display publicly or semi-public to the people they give access by adding them to their ‘friendslist’. People then can upload content on their wall and others can view, react, like and repost the content. Most of the people use multiple online social networks next to each other and they all fulfill the need of people to belong to a certain community and stay in contact with people. A good example of two online social networks are Instagram and Pintrest, they look the same but are used very differently. Instagram is based on placing homemade pictures that can be edited before putting online and Pintrest is more a pinboard-wall that people can use to collect and organize their found pictures on the internet and share with others

We see two online social networks that are based on sharing photo’s to an online community where the user is the creative designer of his or her personal wall and by that their online identity. The sharing, reacting, hash tagging and liking of content is also integrated in both of the networks. In both cases people upload content that is viewed by others, these others tend to fulfill the roll of peers and provide feedback by liking and reacting for the one who uploaded his or her content.

What is quite striking actually is the fact that both networks are used in a very different way. Instagram is based on the connection people already have in the offline world and Pintrest is more based on the connection people create in the online world which means that they don’t actually have to know each other in the offline world. People seem to structure this unconsciously by dividing their content, in this case photos, to two different social networks. They unconsciously know that certain content belongs more to Instagram than Pintrest. This indicates that people have different communication networks which they use in their daily life. This is also what Borgatti, Mehra, Brass and Labianca show in their research to offline networks between people (2009). Researchers discovered that in social groups different kinds of networks exist which are responsible for the kind of contact that people have with each other and the way that they communicate. We can assume that this also is the case for the online world of networks.

I personally also use different kinds of online social networks like Facebook and Instagram and I don’t use hem in the same way. Some content I place on Facebook while other content I only place on Instagram. Quite funny when I think of it, because I really didn’t realized that. I am very curious if you use your multiple online social networks in the same way or that you also unconsciously divide content between different types of online social networks.

Literature:

Boyd, D.M., and Ellison, N.B. (2007), Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13(1) 210–230.

Borgatti, S.P., Mehra, A., Brass, D.J., and Labianca, G. (2009), Network analysis in the social sciences. Science 323(5916) 892-895.

Kauffman, R.J., Li, T., and Heck, E. (2010), Business network-based value creation in electronic commerce. International Journal of Electronic Commerce 15(1) 111-142

While privacy is a n often discussed subject of the internet revolution I would like to talk about another exciting development that comes from the internet: education. The last two blogs I talked about awareness, awareness of the online image you can build and also personal body information that we are likely to give away. But this time I want to look to the opportunity that lies ahead of us. An opportunity to make the world more equal and to share information with more people at the same time.

Internet is not something new it already exists for a long period of time but with the latest changes in the technology more and more people were able to benefit from the internet. The use of internet started to grow exponentially from the ‘90’s. Now a days most of the people have the ability to benefit from all the open sources of information worldwide. At the moment 38,8% (2749 million people) of the world is connected with the internet but this is not divided equally, but they expect this to change and become 90% of connected people in the year 2020.

Imagine the possibilities if 90% of the world would be connected with the internet. This could cause a big change in the life’s of millions of people. We could provide more people with education than ever before just from our own home to people thousand miles away. Mark Zuckerberg believes that the internet becomes just a basic need like access to water from now on so he wants to make the internet affordable to the entire world and I agree with him.

So imagine that you can educate and help a young woman in for instance Africa from your own home by this internet connection, wouldn’t this be great? That would mean that we can support each other with knowledge more than ever before and that more people get more access to basic information.
I love the idea that giving help becomes more effective, that we can reach way more people and that it’s not just for some. Just like Peter Norvig that created already a classroom for 100000 students just by the internet, an amazing experiment that we can bring to the next level if 90% of the world population is connected. I see a lot of new opportunities and creative innovations that are possible by this amazing change!

What kind of amazing options do you see for 2020 with the growth of internet to help the world?
And do you believe that the world is becoming more equal if everyone had access to the internet?

Sources:

Internet 2013

The newest trend in media devices is probably the fact that everything is becoming ´smart´, for example smartphones, smart TVs and also smart houses. Smart products in this case can be seen in the way that Uckelmann described, “That humans dispense some of their control activities to technological products and services” (Uckelmann, 2008, p. 274). This means that these products are multifunctional and react on their environment and learn from the environment by saving data. This makes our live much easier and our devices help us reminding things and control things more efficiently.

One of the latest products is the smartwatch, a watch that connects with your smartphone and register the environment while you wearing it. A watch designed to not only show you the time but also has loads of other functions. This means that you can check the latest data on your watch that connects with your smartphone, your watch sends you all the notifications from your phone and even more. The smartwacht is able to measure most of your body functions, your movements and by that can give you data and instructions about your health. This makes the watch multifunctional, wearable during work, social meetings, business meetings and also during sports. They call it your own personal assistant around your wrist.

This all sounds amazing and super simple because the most of the people possess a smartphone, so a smart watch is just an extend of that. A perfect way of making devices multifunctional and a perfect way for people to increase control. 
Personal data and the storage of it is on this moment a hot item ant this is also the case for me with the smartwatch. All the gained data is collected and stored on the servers from the smartwatch but do we actually want to give them our personal body data like temperature, movement, oxygen level and frequency of our heartbeat?

First when I thought of this I didn’t really saw this as a problem or crucial thing, but now when I give it a second thought I get a little bit hesitant. For example, a few years ago the healthbrance came with something new namely an national dataset that included everyones personal health and hospitaldata who gave permission for it. Most of the people didn’t gave their permission because of their privacy norms. But now people do give this kind of information at the moment that they start wearing a smartwatch.

So what do they actually do with the data that is stored by the servers? Stored data, like I already said, is not new and it is a hot item on the moment because personal data is getting sold tot third (commercial) companies. If we also give them our personal body data, will they sell this to health insurance companies? 
I think that this can create problems for people and their privacy after all. Will these insurances use the data to help you to improve your health? What if health insurance companies will use this data to determine your claim, or to change their policy?

The thing is that we grow up with these new technologies and it all makes common sense to us. We give them incredible amounts of information by using all of these ‘innovative technical devices’ and that is something to be aware of. Sometimes it is your own choice to provide organizations with personal information, sometimes not and sometimes you do it without even knowing probably. 
I personally think that all this personal data is not necessarily a bad thing; we can do wonderful things with the information! We might create new insights in society, the human body of our behavior, this would be a perfect scenario. But this information in the wrong hands can be a problem. I just think that we need to be aware of this but I am very curious to your opinions and experiences with this!

Literature:
Uckelmann, D., (2008), A Definition Approach to Smart Logistics, Berlin: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/partner-zone-brand-union/smartwatches-game-changing-technology
http://tweakers.net/nieuws/97989/kwaadwillenden-kunnen-op-afstand-data-van-pebble-smartwatch-verwijderen.html

Blog: verzekeraars belonen inzet van eHealth in de GGZ

Picture perfect!

Thanks to the newest social media and social networks we can construct a total digital image from ourselves and our lives. Something we all do by sharing content like photo´s, locations, meanings and thoughts on the internet. A perfect way of sharing your life with our friends, family and others.

Not very long ago a news article in the Netherlands showed up with exactly this phenomena of constructing your own digital identity, something that I just couldn´t let pass without mentioning. This was all about a normal girl named Zilla van den Born (25) who lives in Amsterdam as a student graphic designer. As study project she wanted to create a book, named ´Sjezus zeg, Zilla´, that shows us how easy it is to manipulate the truth just in front of your own eyes.

We all love to share pictures of how nice, good perfect or beautiful our live is or pictures that are just a bit more beautiful than it really was. So she did the same for her project but than a bit more extensively….. She went on a ´holiday´ to a tropical resort in Thailand. She said everyone goodbye on Schiphol and kept everyone up to date by sharing pictures online and skyping with her family…. What they didn´t know is that she returned from Schiphol with the first train to her apartment in Amsterdam after saying goodbye to her family. All the pictures that she shared were just pictures that she simply edited. At the end of the project she told it to everyone to show you/us how easy it is to create your own personal digital imago.

A simple project but a lot to think about in the end, we are all users of the social media world that can be so manipulative. We might also do it ourselves without even knowing that we also manipulate our digital story a bit to make it a bit more attractive and exciting. It is so easy and simple that I just was a bit shocked myself to discover indeed the simplicity of creating the, so called, unrealistic perfect digital imago. The question is how far are we willing to go and why do we actually do this? And even better is the social media world with our friends realistic and trustworthy?
Although I think that this can’t be changed and is just a part of this new online world, I really feel that this is something to keep in mind.

Sources:

http://www.ad.nl/ad/nl/5595/Digitaal/article/detail/3658459/2014/05/21/Amsterdamse-misleidt-vrienden-met-tropische-schijnreis.dhtml

http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/959/Bizar/article/detail/1893655/2014/05/21/Studente-misleidt-vrienden-met-tropische-schijnreis.dhtml

http://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/opmerkelijk/studente-zet-ouders-op-verkeerde-been-met-schijnreis