Reading some of the articles last week has really frustrated me. It's unfortunate that so much Internet research focuses on shyness, social anxiety, loneliness, and depression - basically, it reminds me of a Cymbalta commercial.
Otherwise, we seem to associate the Internet and technology with geekiness. Whatever happened to innovation, intellect, and individuality? Everyone seems to forget about this - especially females!
Here's something interesting my professor in the CS department has on her site:
"As a female and a mother, I aim to show that Computer Science is for everyone. It is NOT geeky. CS is creative, and it allows me to contribute to the design of products that can be used by diverse populations."
So while social relationships and Internet usage may have initially revolved around more introverted personalities, I think this has drastically changed in the last five years, as technology continues to become more ubiquitous. Sadly, the established stigmas seem to prevail....
Creative technology on campus...
Virtual Environments for Use in the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders
Can Immersive Virtual Humans Teach Social Conversation Protocols?
Some other stuff..
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Just a rant
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7 comments:
Most information relayed by the media is from a negative and fear driven point of view. That's why I don't watch the news. Why mess up a slightly perfect day with stories of violence and the negative state of our local society? Most of our articles recently have focused on the socially disadvantage using the internet as means to meeting people. It's true that these people exist but we should also read articles that discuss the positive aspects of internet relationships.
I agree with Leslie that media likes the negative information and certainly promote it, esp with regard to the internet.
I also think there are two issues related to the "geekiness" focus. First, CS folks back in the 80's were a different breed--geeks before geeks were cool! :-) (And before Bill Gates was so bloody rich!)
Second, those were the folks who first started using the internet, so research on them did find more social awkwardness until the internet became so widely adopted like it is now.
ALthough some of this research is less than 10 years old, I question whether it still has external validity!!
Erin--
Would you be willing to talk about the future computing lab in class?
Of course. I don't work directly with the FCL, but I'd be happy to talk about some of their research.
And about the research - I know a lot of it really is recent, but it's almost as if since technology changes so rapidly that the external validity can't hold for long. Therefore, it's difficult to know how valid it was to begin with.
Erin--
I totally agree about questioning the validity of the research to begin with. And what is so frustrating is that because it was some of the initial research, it may have MUCH MORE impact on the field than it should have!!
I don't feel alone on this island, I completely agree with you Erin! I had mentioned something about we have only begun to touch the tip of the ice berg!
I also completely understand your frustration with everything we have talked about, but as Dr. B said the original users are where we got our first studies from.
Can't wait to hear what you have to say:)
I think that technology advances so fast it is hard to keep up with the pace in research. I'm sure in just 5 years the internet has changed rapidly. Now there are all sorts of different individuals that use the internet, unlike before. I think we have to take the research in as a starting point/stepping stone and wait for other research to be done.
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