We are just a bunch of digital goldfish in a search engine ocean.

We are just a bunch of digital goldfish in a search engine ocean.

While reading Professor Havalais’ article Search Engine Society Draft Draft Draft I kept thinking about how I use search engines on the Internet everyday and their affect on me. Like Professor Havalais stated in his article Search Engine Society Draft Draft Draft, “The search engine has become much a part of our culture that there is a common assumption that we have found a cure for stupid question.” Today it is common to hear the phrase “Google it” whether it be from a friend, boss or teacher, this simple phrase has been accepted in our society as a way to instruct someone to search for something. In fact there is a website you can send your friends a link to if they do not use Google before asking a stupid question (http://www.fuckinggoogleit.com). Search engines’ technology continues to advance and change the way we search for information on the Internet. In order to search the Internet efficiently we need to know the trends of today and be able to predict what the trends of the future might be so that we may be able to manipulate the users and lead them to surf onto our sites and information.

Recommended Searches

Sociable search is a current trend that has the capability to increase and become a main function of search engines but also “vertical searches” are becoming increasingly popular and proved to be extremely effective. What I would like to see more frequently utilized is the “long tail” search approach or increased use of the “daily me” web search. This is probably already a reality but I want a search engine that tracks my searches so that it can narrow down my future searches to specific results so that I get the information that is most helpful for my needs. I know however by doing this I am giving the search engine a large influence over what my search results are and as Jen discusses in her blog, money’s impact is increasingly growing and large company’s can now pay to have a top hit on the results pages. (Which is kind of disheartening when you think of the Internet and what it has been founded on, Net Neutrality!) I would also like a mini information bar that recommends searches that may interest me based on the data received from past searches. (But they probably have something for that too.)

Digital Goldfish

I have a very short attention span, much shorter then the average adult; search engines help facilitate my short attention span by allowing me to follow many long tails on the Internet until I finally realize how off-track I have gone. This is great for when I am bored or just trying to waste time but for the rest of the time this is an ADHD kids nightmare. I am productive but it takes me twice as long to accomplish a goal (like writing this blog). Even while writing this blog I have been tangled up in the search engine web at least five times. As more and more adults are being diagnosis with ADD I wonder if it is just a product of our search engine society or if it is just doctors just wanting to prescribe us controlled substances and feed into the wealth of the pharmaceutical companies? Is the Internet enabling our short attention spans and actually creating disorders in people? I read a great article while I was traveling my long tail from the BBC. Turning Into Digital Goldfish talks about these very issues and what it means in our society today. My personal opinion is that it just a new element of our society and we must adjust to it medication is not going to help either (trust me I know!). James Watkins wrote a great follow up article How to Hook Today’s Online User, he discuses different tactics you can use to hook the online user and how you can take this digital goldfish effect and use it to your advantage. It does in fact have some positive qualities I did find these great articles and other fun distractions.

Information Overload
Besides getting caught on a website thinking “how did I end up here?” These search engines allow a large quantity of information at your fingertips. If you are not a “smart searcher” some of the information that you are lead to can be inaccurate or completely useless. If you enter a search on one of the main search engines you’re guaranteed about ten pages of results. This can be overwhelming how do you know what is accurate and best for your needs? Another way these search engines overwhelm their users is by providing so much information on not just the main topic being searched but by subtopics and other interesting facts. This can lead to a long tail that leaves you wondering, “What exactly was I looking for?” When searching for a resolution to a problem or just a question the search engines provides you with so much information that it sometimes raises new questions and concerns and you suddenly find yourself emerged in the internet with the first question not resolved and seven other questions waiting to be answered.

Being able to recognize how a search is used and operated is important and an extremely useful tool in our society. As a graduate student in an Interactive Media program it is important that I know how these search engines work so that I may know how I can manipulate their trends and their users so that I may be able to reach a specific demographic with my own thoughts and influence them.

Archive/Restore or Delete/Restore — ttyl

I was rereading the article Digital Memories in an Era of Ubiquitous Computing and Abundant Storage by Mary Czerwinski and friends and it really annoyed me. I am not really sure why it bothered me so much but I think it had something to do with the fact that I had recently (less then 24 hours ago) erased my entire hard drive and lost everything that I have created and saved in the past 3 months (including pictures of my trip to Notre Dame this weekend). Abundant Storage ha, I wish; I have added 2GB of memory to my laptop computer and it still run a little sluggish when I am using multiple programs. I guess I could buy a new computer or an external hard drive but I don’t really have $2,000 to be upgrading something that isn’t necessarily broken. I have an external hard drive I got it after my computer crashed the first time! I was going to be on top of my data, I was going to backup my files every night and never delete another file ever again, or until two years later. The external is now extremely cumbersome and not something I want to bring around with me. So now that my computer is so fresh and so clean, I decided this time I will backup my files all the time (well I’ll make an effort for once a week) I went back and bought a new sleeker external hard drive this was a start of something new, something this article talked about, the start of “Abundant Storage.” Well I got home today and plugged in my new external hard drive and guess what? It didn’t work, after 30 minutes trying to navigate Western Digital’s website to find a contact number I finally called the service line and was connected to some support staff. All he had to say was, Oh you need an additional part for the hard drive to work we will send it today, it should be there in five to ten business days. So here I am working on a computer that has nothing on it but the operating system with a hard drive that doesn’t work. All my digital memories are gone and so is my music! The authors don’t say anything about this in their article. I know there has been many times through out college that I have met someone who has lost all their data because of their computer crashing or something like that. So when you put so much emphasis on electronics and computers for storing your information what is saving you from loosing it all? The only think that I can recover from the past three months are some of the songs I bought from iTunes, the response papers I have written for this class (because they are online) and anything else pictures wise that I poster on the Internet. I am happy that I salvaged that work but I question if I really want to put all that information out on the Internet. We talk a lot in class about Google having records and files of everything you have searched, wrote, posted, viewed and bought on the Internet. That thought has kind of bugged me a lot lately, knowing that somewhere there is a file about me and my life on the internet makes me feel uneasy and very skeptical about what I want to sign up for and sites that I want to visit.

I can attribute these feelings also to that fact that I have been reading the book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer and other articles on Eco-Activism from Rolling Stone. It is interesting to read both of these articles together and just see the two sides of the spectrum, a more simplistic, less materialistic world and a world where your entire life is recorded and measured. In the end those who go out into the wilderness do not survive as long as those who bring a camera around but who do you think live a life of less stress and more freedom? Is freedom and happiness knowing if you have a temperature and the trends that occur in your life? Or is it just being one with nature and living among God’s creations in the wilderness?

Text messages

 

I think the United States missed the boat on text messaging. I think it was in class that Prof. Alex said that it was because the phone plans charged so much for text messaging that it really had not caught on like it has in other countries. We are getting better now though. You see those silly commercials from AT&T add unlimited text messaging to your plan! I am glad I have unlimited text messaging, I text about twenty times a day or more. I agree with the article Shibuya Epiphany, I usually text the same five to six people a day. Rarely do I text everyone in my phone list or even people outside those select few people. However, those I do text I text a lot and I love getting responses back. Text messaging is very much like Instant Messaging, which I grew up with in jr. high and in high school so it is familiar to me. I find it less of a hassle to text someone something that call them and tell them. Especially when it comes to directions, phone numbers, or just quick answers. I hate talking on the phone and this is the perfect way to talk to multiple people without getting to personal or to involve with the conversation. It is also easier to text someone than it is to have a conversation. I feel like there are things you have the courage to say that you would not if you were conversing another way. You can text someone and they can receive the message and respond with little to no interruption in their life. This is great but at the same time it also has strained our relationship skills and our ability to deal with face-to-face interactions. I used to think that we were regressing as humans but after taking this class I wonder if we are just in a transitional stage where a new way of communicating and connecting to people is evolving and changing. I don’t know where the trends of communicating are leading to but I think that we may be able to see them by looking at Japan’s fast forward approach to new technology and trends. Just look at this article it was written in 2001 and it is discussing things that only now are going on in our country. Is text messaging the new future? I went to buy an i-Phone the other day and when I looked at the service plan I wanted unlimited data and text and I could care less about the talk minutes. Another reason I know that text messaging in not a trend but a way of communicating in the future? My parents are sending me pictures via text messaging and texts instead of their usual calls.