Net Smart Ch. 3-4

     The term “playbor” refers to a combination of play and labor. Playbor often involves turning a laborious task into an entertaining game. Internet-goers who play these games essentially become sources of free labor for the companies who create the games. One example of playbor is Google Image Labeler (also known as the ESP Game) which was online between 2006 and 2011. Two randomly matched players with no way of communicating with one another would be shown an image for which they would submit descriptive tags. Players received points when they both submitted identical tags. While some may view this as exploitation for free labor, I believe playbor is a win-win scenario as both parties benefit from the game. In this specific example, Google benefits as the accuracy of their image search is improved at no cost to them. The players benefit as they receive a free form of entertainment. Instead of receiving monetary compensation for their work, players are compensated by being entertained. Google is in no way forcing these players to contribute free labor. Rather, the players are doing it because they find it entertaining. If someone were to not find the game entertaining, they could simply stop playing. Only in a situation where one party received nothing in return for their participation would I consider playbor to be exploitative. Otherwise, since both parties receive some form of compensation, playbor is not an exploitative practice.

 

     Collective action involves a group of people coming together to work toward the achievement of a common goal. Many institutions exist, both physically and digitally, that practice collective action. Institutions of collective actions are very relevant to digital writing, as digital writing has allowed for significant magnitudes of collective action that may not have been possible otherwise. One great example of this from chapter 4 of Net Smart is the search for a man named Jim Gray who disappeared at sea. Satellite photographs of the area in which he went missing were provided by Google and NASA. These photographs were then divided into five hundred thousand pieces by Amazon which were examined by twelve thousand online volunteers. Although he was not found, this seemingly impossible task of examining forty thousand square miles of ocean was made possible thanks to digital writing. An original example of collective action that I experienced personally came from the institution of GoFundMe.com. In May of 2015, a friend of mine from high school was killed in a hit and run. Shortly after this happened, a GoFundMe page was created to raise money for her family. In a short time, over four thousand dollars was raised by seventy five donors. Digital writing environments like GoFundMe.com provide the capability to foster collective action quickly and efficiently. They make it easy to share a cause and take action with minimal effort. I am confident that the amount of money raised in that short time span would not have been possible without the existence of institutions of collective action in a digital environment.

Net Smart Ch. 1-2

      In chapter 1, Sherry Turkle argues that “controlling relationships becomes a major theme in digital communication.” Turkle is referring to the increased level of control that one experiences in digital communication versus face-to-face interactions. When communicating face-to-face, responses are essentially reflexive and instantaneous. When communicating digitally, one is able to take as much time as they desire to draft responses. With this level of control, one is able to take the time to make sure that they are saying exactly what they want to say in exactly the way they want to say it. This increased control can be negative as it makes interactions somewhat less fluid and natural. When communicating digitally, people are able to express themselves in the ways that they want to be received. The digital medium provides them with the time to craft the ways in which they express themselves. With the spontaneity of face-to-face communication, people get a more true sense of who a person is by the way they express themselves in that moment. Another aspect of control that is acquired through digital communication is the ability to interact with multiple people simultaneously. However, the increased quantity of interactions may come at the expense of the quality of those interactions. If you have ever tried to hold a face-to-face conversation with someone who is also involved in one or more digital conversations, you know exactly how frustrating that can be. The quality of that interaction will almost certainly be negatively affected as they are dividing their attentional resources amongst multiple conversations, rather than fully investing their attention in the face-to-face conversation. Digital communication can be a great tool, but people who use it should not allow it to come at the expense of the quality of face-to-face interactions.

 

     In chapter 2, Rheingold discusses “triangulating.” This is a form of crap detection that involves finding three different, credible sources to validate information that is found online. For example, in November 2015 Donald Trump tweeted an infographic stating that 97% of the murders of black people are by black people and 81% of the murders of white people are by black people. The image cites the source of this information as being the “Crime Statistics Bureau in San Francisco.” A quick internet search which reveals that this bureau does not even exist provides the first point of the triangle. A search for available data on this topic brings us to FBI.gov. Here, we find data for 2014 that shows the killings by white people are actually 5 times higher than Trump’s infographic stated and killings by black people are actually 5 times lower than Trump’s infographic stated. This serves as the second point of the triangle. For the third and final point of the triangle, we should try to find where this infographic originated. Placing the image into a Google image search reveals the earliest tweet in which the infographic appeared. It was originally tweeted by an account with a swastika as the profile picture and a bio that reads, “We should have listened to the Austrian chap with the little mustache.” With these three points, we can conclude that the image was clearly created by a racist group with the intention of spreading disinformation.