COMP6044   Just another ECS Blogs weblog

Twitter states that it is a tool for social good, helping charities to promote their cause, helping businesses to work more effectively and giving the public fast, up to date access about whatever they find interesting [1]. While twitter has undoubtedly been used for good, for instance in education [2], and for fundraising activities [3], it has also been seriously abused [4], leading to implications for society on whether the site can be controlled effectively in the future, or whether things will only get worse.

The two disciplines I have chosen to look at are Philosophy and Politics.

Philosophy:

In this area I have been looking at the three main distinctions of philosophy; metaphysics, epistemology and moral/political philosophy. Whilst the first two areas are perhaps more abstract, containing huge fundamental questions beyond the scope of this project,  it is the third area that I am particularly interested in and that I believe ties in well with the question. For instance the area can be well applied to how people, including the general public and those with power, use twitter on a daily basis. Should companies be allowed to use celebrities to casually endorse their products? Why do hundreds of people take to ‘bullying’ one another on a daily basis? Does a lack of norms allow for this? Can we justify this behaviour? Is it the duty of the government to do something about this?

Politics:

This is an area which I have not yet looked into as fully, but from my first readings it appears that politics studies anything and everything to do with those who have been allocated a position of power, and what policies they decide to uphold. In the area of political philosophy, I am particularly interested in what makes governmental decisions legitimate and does the government have power over online space?

Resources:

[1] https://twitter.com/about

[2] http://www.fp.ucalgary.ca/maclachlan/EDER_679.06_Fall_2009/tweeting_the_night_away.pdf

[3] http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/217772

[4] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23485610

Philosophy

Craig, E. ‘Philosophy: A very short introduction’

Honderich, T. ‘The Oxford companion to Philosophy’

Nutall, J. ‘An introduction to Philosophy’

Warburton, N. ‘Philosophy the basics’

Sellers, R. ‘The principles, perspectives and problems of Philosophy’

Politics

Lanne, J. and Ersson, S. ‘Comparative Politics’

Kelly, P. ‘The Politics book’

Political Philosophy

Wolff, J. ‘An introduction to Political Philosophy’

Swift, A. ‘Political Philosophy’

I am very interested to investigate the potential effects of the physical and environmental factors on the perception of privacy on the web amongst teenagers.

Environmental factors (such as the room that we publish our information from) or physical factors (such as the medium or device that we use and it’s characteristics including its size or portability) can play a crucial role in our perception of privacy. Examples of this can be seen amongst teenagers.

I found myself very interested in this subject after reading an article by Elizabeth Kandel Englander on cyberbullying that was published on the Harvard Education Letter recently. As part of this article Englander talks about the effects of the physical environment (including the location or size of the screen) on the perception of privacy amongst teenagers. She writes:

“In a study I’m currently conducting, about half of the teens who said they had sent or posted something they regretted said they did so while in their bedrooms—and 83 percent said it happened from a room inside their home. About two-thirds said they were using a device with a small screen—which can also promote a false feeling of privacy, since the screen size means that others can’t easily read over your shoulder. ”

But what exactly triggers this ? How does our brain trick us into believing that what we are sharing online is not going to be seen by many people and how do we get persuaded ? What is the thought process from the moment that our sensors collect information about the environment until the moment that the perception happens ? What role does biology play in creating the illusion of privacy in our brains?

I would like to approach this subject from the perspectives of cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience.

cognitive  psychology:

I believe that approaching ideas about perceptions of privacy through perceptual psychology as a subset of cognitive psychology could shed light on how the teenage mind could interpret the stimuli from the physical environment in a way that it could create an illusion of privacy. Cognitive psychology could also help determine the cognitive processes that occur within the minds of the said teenagers which could direct the physical senses to lead into such conclusions.

cognitive  neuroscience:

Despite it being a very fast-growing field, neuroscience still has many questions unanswered. As it is a very diverse and wide discipline, I’m planning to focus on very basic details of the cognitive levels. This is perhaps an intersection between neuropsychology and biology and could potentially be where an expert cognitive-neuroscientist could come up with answers to complex questions about the way that the brain interacts with the environment. Without looking for answers, this could be a great opportunity to try to look at the issue from the perspective of a neuroscientist.

Some textbooks that I’m planning to use:

1. Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind , Michael Gazzaniga , Richard B. Ivry , George R. Mangun
2. The Student’s Guide to Cognitive Neuroscience, Jamie Ward
3. Cognitive Psychology and its Implications, John R. Anderson
4. Cognitive Psychology , Robert L. Solso, Otto H. MacLin, M. Kimberly MacLin

The Digital Divide has become a popular term, commonly understood as the gap between those that have access to the internet and those that do not. Initially it is assumed this gap is simply between the developed and developing countries, also known as the Global Divide. However, there are other distinct aspects of the divide; Social divide – the gap within each nation, and the Democratic Divide – those who use/do not use digital resources in their pubic life.

Although there are several efforts and schemes in place with the hope of bridging the gap, it is a great issue that is highly unlikely to be solved in the near future. In fact it is most probable that the gap will carry on growing, increasing the difficulty of bridging it.

This topic has always intrigued me. I believe this is a great opportunity to research the matter through the perspectives of Geography and Criminology.

> Geography

Geography, the study of “the world around us”, already draws upon a range of disciplines including sociology, anthropology, geology, politics, and oceanography.

It is divided into two parts; Human and Physical Geography. Although I will hope to cover both parts, I believe my research will heavily focus within the Human side of Geography, as it emphasises on the changes of the world effected by human interventions.

I anticipate to discover research amongst one of the main topics of Geography; Globalisation – a defined term used since the 1990s describing the characteristics of the world we live in.

> Criminology

With absolutely zero previous experience in the field of Criminology, I hope this will give a different insight to the Digital Divide in comparison to Geography, and with a closer focus on the topic, such as social inequality.

Light research has already demonstrated there is a vast interest in crime and criminals, and that crime varies throughout different societies. There are several explanations criminologists have composed from Biological explanations to Social and Psychological explanations. There are also several different theories created to explain reasons for crime including the Economic and Strain theory.

> Resources

To date, the following books appear to be of great use and help towards this research study:

Daniels, P., Bradshaw, M., Shaw, D., Sidaway., (2012)  An Introduction to Human Geography, 4th ed, Essex: Pearson

Moseley, W., Lanegran, D., Pandit, K., (2007) Introductory Reader in Human Geography Contemporary Debates and Classic Writings, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing

Hale, C., Hayward, K., Wahidin, A., Wincup, E., (2009) Criminology, 2nd ed, New York: Oxford University Press

Norris, P., (2001) Digital Divide, Civic Engagement, Information Poverty and the Internet Worldwide, New York: Cambridge University Press

It goes without saying that pornography is open for academic debate from a significant number of different stances. Psychology, Sociology, Gender Rights, Politics, Equality, Misogyny, Criminology. The list goes on, the standpoints go even further. The impact of its usage has been debated extensively, sometimes without a clear conclusion. It raises interesting notions: does access to hardcore adult material promote inappropriate expectations in relationships? Is it degrading? Should service providers, such as Netflix and Microsoft, be allowed to provide streaming access to such sites through their dashboard? What does the scope and span of different types and forms say about our society as a whole? How do we define sexual content on the web and what percentage of its totality does it occupy?

The last notion intrigued me sufficiently to look it up. The main direction of reference denotes Phillip Stark’s 2006 study at the University of Berkley into the matter as a cited point of consideration. The findings suggested that 1.1% of the entire web was made up of pornography, based on an analysis of index referencing by Google and Microsoft. Of course, the web was a very different place 7 years ago. If you were to believe Avenue Q, feel free to conduct your own enquiry into their songs on the matter through Youtube, its all the web is used for these days. A more recent study, outlined by Forbes when the .XXX domain launched in 2011, by Ogas and Gaddam two researchers on the topic, asserted that in 2010 4% of the most popular (those most trafficked) websites were sexually themed. Further to this, from July 2009 to July 2010, approximately 13% of web searches were for erotic content. [Ogas et.al, 2011, stated in Forbes: ‘How much of the Internet is actually for Porn?’, http://www.forbes.com/sites/julieruvolo/2011/09/07/how-much-of-the-internet-is-actually-for-porn/].

The article raised some interesting further notions that I might come back and consider, but most notably it raised a link to my focus topic: the current decision by the government to create what could be affectionally termed a ‘pornwall’, a united approach by the UK ISP industry to automatically filter out materials of an adult nature and content. The justification for this was a morally sound one- to prevent young people, in particular young children, from accessing pornographic material or adult content either through deliberate effort, or unintentional consequence. It is an easy scenario to envisage where a child, studying tourism as part of their Geography curriculum programme of study which is covered in both the Primary and Secondary programmes of study, investigates Amsterdam because they really like the paintings of Van Gogh and finds instead a range of adult material.

The concept has intrigued me since David Cameron spoke in July 2013 on Radio 2, answering questions from a variety of irate callers who objected to both loss of freedom and practicality of the proposal. Especially as it was to be applied to all new broadband subscribers, not those pre-existing. His outline at this point was almost entirely pornographically focused, as he had yet to assert the broader implications of filtering other topics, such as anorexia, terrorism and esoteric material. These three could be open to debate- there is a plausible argument that these topics shouldn’t be automatically filtered, especially if some are educative. After all, the Bible is esoteric. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/29/uk-internet-filter-block-more-than-porn_n_3670771.html]

It also prompted the first of my two discipline enquiries, albeit in a round about way- the technical Computer Science of the web. I was left thinking could such ‘debatable’ topics be automatically filtered or are they distinguishable? How in fact do such filters work? Actually what is a filter? In fact, come to mention it, how does searching for websites actually work? Would the entire web collapse if we start hacking out parts of it and preventing people from gaining access instantly? Would this be user-focused or ISP focused? A point strongly argued in defence of this ‘pornwall’ was that it helped to reduce illegal pornography. However, can such filters actually detect downloads through file sharing services or peer to peer networks? I don’t have any understanding beyond the basis that such services exist- but I’d wager probably not if you change the file name?

The difference on that last question, I feel, is quite important. I’ve known my fathers password to the computer since I was old enough to use a computer. Having about as much knowledge of computers as I do aerodynamics or quantum theory, it didn’t take a genius to click on the password hint button on the windows log in page, which promptly asked me ‘What is your mothers name?’. Fairly certain I knew that. If it were to be this simple today, what would be the point? It goes without saying that the average young person these days is probably a little bit quicker off the mark than I was on Windows 95. Especially, as noted by Ofcom, there still exists an existing situation where 60% of parents don’t have any of their own user-based filters in place. [Hawkes, 2013, citing Ofcom 2013 study, noted in http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/10354088/Nearly-60-per-cent-of-parents-have-no-filters-in-place-to-protect-their-kids-on-the-internet.html].

Having worked in an environment where I have seen, first hand, the severe impact it can have on young people my stance on it has always been split between professional attitude and personal freedoms. In fact, such reasoning led me to a point that wasn’t focused upon in the interview; it argued any step that protects young people, no matter how realistically applicable, is worthwhile. I agree, in principle, but first hand experience in dealing with such an issue made me associate this notion to a blindfold. To elaborate if 100% of filters were in place, consistently, with no breaks in the chain, a universal ‘pornwall’ would create a ‘digital blindfold’ that meant no young people would ever access adult material unintentionally. The problem with such a metaphor is that such a blindfold could slipped off relatively easily, just like in real life, especially if there was a notion of intention on the young persons part and shared just as easily without using a home computer. To an extent, this balance of debate linked to my second field of study, Philosophy and Ethics. This in itself raises a number of questions I hope to explore in relation to the topic, such as moral responsibility, ethics of decision making in politics as well as personal freedoms, entitlements and rights. Whilst Philosophy might have been better paired with a subject such as Psychology on this topic, I’m intrigued as to the ways in which the two can be inter-related. Can parallels be drawn?

A stance I’ve recently considered in this regard is whether it is right to make such a decision on behalf of the society, then as an individual have a consequential result of being monitored opting-out. Will this paint you more likely as a potential sexual deviant? Can it be monitored? Should it? Both disciplines could, feasibly, lend considerations to each other in this regard and possibly others.

As an undergraduate, I wrote my dissertation on the surrender of secrecy on social networking sites with a focus on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Through studying two age cohorts I discovered that young people, so called ‘digital natives’, often used their respective social networking profiles as a means to both establish and experiment with their emerging identities in different ways. On the other hand, older participants, aged between 45 and 50, took a very functional approach to social networking online.

Throughout my study all participants talked of uploading information like family photos, home movies and personal messages and achievements. However, not one participant talked about the future of their online profiles – no one seemed to realise, or be concerned by, the fact that they were moving their future heirlooms into more or less solely digital form through services like Facebook, YouTube and Gmail.

A rich chronicle of life is being created online and therefore I am interested in digital death and legacy. Do we have the right to be forgotten? Who now owns our memories? As, for the first time, users begin to pass away, who should have control over the data they leave behind, especially data that is so sentimental and personal?

So, I choose to look at this topic through the eyes of Law and Anthropology.

Law

Law, I believe, can provide insight into the rights of users and be progressive in determining new legislation for the future.

(Really I know nothing about Law so I hope to be more articulate with this soon…)

Anthropology

I’m anticipating an Anthropological approach to be entirely different to Law – I have briefly studied a little Anthropology in the past and believe that it’s field-based, subjective approach could provide some useful insight to how users might feel about the real and digital deaths of those they love. Similarly, they have their own digital death to consider… Should physical and digital death be synonymous?

To conclude, I hope to bright together a discipline I consider to be objective, Law (please correct me if I’m wrong!), with one that appears entirely subjective, Anthropology.

Back in Amsterdam, I wrote my bachelor thesis on the usage of social media during the so-called ‘new media revolutions’ during the Arab Spring. One of my main conclusions was that social media are not just of use for the oppressed populations to liberate themselves, but are also being used by (authoritarian) governments to track, and often arrest, opponents. While writing my thesis I herewith developed an interest for the ways in which governments all over the world detect, track and eliminate potential ‘enemies’ of the state through the Web.

Online surveillance is for me one of the most interesting subjects when studying the Web. On the one hand it could be used to protect the state by finding criminals, terrorists and other dissidents. At the same time, omnipresent surveillance can affect ‘regular’ citizens. When governments misuse their power in this field, they can become a ‘Big Brother’ that closely tracks everyone in a nation. This may change the way people browse the Web.

Because of this fact, I think that an interesting way of looking at the topic can be through the disciplines of Psychology and Computer Science.

Psychology

Users of the Web might alter their (online) behavior if they have the feeling that they are being constantly ‘watched’. Looking at online surveillance from a psychological perspective may give an explanation why users act differently. Psychology is the study of mind and behavior, and therefore will most likely offer many different theories to analyze web users that have the feeling (or are actually) being watched. I loaned the book Psychology by Peter Gray from the library to start learning about the epistemologies and ontologies in Psychology.

Computer Science

Besides a psychological perspective, it could also be interesting to look at online surveillance from a Computer Science perspective. Through this field it can be analyzed how governments can watch citizens, while at the same time it can look at how the citizens can avoid being watched. I loaned the book Computer Science. An Overview by J. Glenn Brookshear to get some insights in how computers work and how they have been used over the years.

By combining Psychology and Computer Science I hope to get a human perspective with a technological perspective and learn more about how to combine these disciplines.

Sources

Brookshear, J. Glenn. Computer Science. An Overview. Eleventh Edition. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2012.

Gray, Peter. Psychology. Fifth Edition. New York: Worth Publishers, 2007.

I am very interested in the issues of identity within the Semantic Web and Linked Data. Moving from a web of documents to a web of data with URIs (unique resource identifiers) for every referenced object/thing/person, aims to create new links between related content. However what happens when you want to refer to a person or thing which isn’t already referenced? This new object will be assigned a URI and others will then be able to link to it. However, who will manage this data and ensure it is correct? This issue is especially significant when referring to an individual. If someone has no intention of creating an online presence or doesn’t have access to the World Wide Web, what impact will this URI about them have on their life? They might not even be aware that a whole series of connected data about them is being collated on the web for everyone else to access. I am going to look at this area from the point of view of philosophy and either sociology or anthropology.

I have started my research by looking into the recognised strands of each of these disciplines.

Philosophy contains a number of interesting areas which could be applied to this problem. Philosophy of language could look at how the use of language could affect the formation of an online network and linked data, (http://www.philosophy-index.com/philosophy/language/). The political angle of philosophy would be interested in government, law and social justice, (http://www.philosophy-index.com/philosophy/political/). But possibly the most interesting angle would be to look at the philosophy of the mind, specifically the mind body problem (http://www.philosophy-index.com/philosophy/mind/mind-body.php). This train of thought would look at the idea of mind and body being separate and a philosopher could argue that each should have their own URI?

Secondly I want to look at the idea of URIs and identity in relation to cultures and at the societal impact that online identity could have. Sociology could include the social organisation or social change (http://savior.hubpages.com/hub/Areas-of-Sociology).

Similarly to Philosophy, Anthropology could include the study of language, and how this could impact the online community. Linguistic Anthropology looks at the cultural impact on nonverbal communication (http://anthro.palomar.edu/intro/fields.htm). Cultural Anthropology:

“All of the completely isolated societies of the past have long since been drawn into the global economy and heavily influenced by the dominant cultures of the large nations.  As a consequence, it is likely that 3/4 of the languages in the world today will become extinct as spoken languages by the end of the 21st century.  Many other cultural traditions will be lost as well.  Cultural and linguistic anthropologists have worked diligently to study and understand this diversity that is being lost.” (http://anthro.palomar.edu/intro/fields.htm).

This field might look more negatively upon the web, as a tool which is potentially destroying the traditions and cultural diversity, which makes the world so varied.

This is a very brief introduction to the problem and fields which I wish to investigate.

The question I hope to approach (unless I get that “Are you sure?” email from Les) is “How can we design a better user interface?”. In case you’re not sure of the terminology, I take “user interface” to mean any way in which people interact with a computer, from graphical user interfaces (GUIs) to physical hardware like mice and touchscreens, text-to-speech for visually impaired people, and even gesture based interfaces like Kinect and LeapMotion.

I like this as a topic because for 95% of computer scientists and programmers (like me) in the real world it’s not even a consideration; of course the website will be good, just look how well the server processes data. After all, what’s the point of building something great if only people with a computing degree can understand what the obscure symbols on the tiny buttons are supposed do?

The two subject areas I chose to analyse my question are Geography and Biology. They may seem obscure for this kind of problem, but they’re not totally off the wall, and here’s why:

Biology, the study of life

The systems we design are for people, so the study of people has a lot to offer this problem. It could be from a purely physical standpoint looking at the size and shape of people (Biological Anthropology), like whether they can actually reach the top of a touchscreen (thanks Galaxy Note, you don’t really work here). It could also be the application of biological principles like natural selection to interface designs; if I get 1000 people to trial several designs then we take the best ones forward to the second round of testing.

Geography, the study of the world around us

This one’s a bit more obscure and possibly harder to apply, however geography has some of the oldest methods of representing and simplifying data to make it more accessible to people. Cartography (Physical Geography) has been making it possible for people to get around for hundreds of years, and the census (Human Geography) takes information about the entire population and presents it in easy to read statistics.

Hopefully there’s a lot of potential for both of these and over the next few weeks I’ll be digging further to find out exactly what can be applied and how. If anyone has any thoughts then please add a comment or come over and find me.