LIB1201 Research and Documentation for the Information Age Fall 2016

Due Assignment #4B Reading Response

Classification is the action or process of classifying something according to shared qualities or characteristics and it is important because it allows scientists to identify, group, and properly name organisms in a standardized system. In the writing of Wright, Dye, and Badke one example that describes this is the use of technology when it comes to the community of people creating data through the internet with the use of hash tagging a photograph, video or status which creates a group or a classification on whichever social platform its being used on. Through hash tagging people groups of common people can use these keywords to find others that looking up similar topics or things which is a form of classification.

Due Assignment #8B Reading Response

In Meszaros reading ” who’s in charge here ” he uses his platform to questioning authority given to the likes of teachers, librarians, and students. In this writing Meszaros breaks down how authority I distributed in the school and shows how students regulate who they should listen to and who they consider authority figures within the school. In the article it shows how students respect teachers above librarians not due to the educational level difference between the two but due to the fact that the students want better grades they listen to the teachers and hold them to a different authority level than the librarians which makes sense to me.

Due Assignment #9B Reading Response

In the Ted talk Vaidhyanathan comes up with some good points on how people feel about technology but I don’t feel like his statements are true. Although people use google and the internet I don’t feel like people trust these platforms and when the general public uses Google or any other internet search engine we feel as if we have complete privacy. We understand google has no loyalty to us, that’s why many things don’t get searched for and personal information often doesn’t get put into the internet. The problem that we the people have is the fact that websites like google and other make it harder for you to access many things on the computer without putting in some type of personal information into there databases which I find completely wrong.

Due Assignment #10B

One great example from pop culture of an imagined future it the popular movie iRobot released in the early 2000’s which featured Will Smith. The movie described a world controlled by technology and robots and showed a world that untimely became a place where human interaction started to die out. Humans in this movie had robots which they used as servants and instead of living life as intended everything became a world controlled by technology and what technology and do to help humans, not what humans can do to help themselves. Information in this film was controlled by robots and computers and it also showed how flawed human programming of these robots were because later on in the film robots started to develop human- like feelings, which was never intended to happen.

In David Weinberger’s book titled “Too Big to Know,” he discusses the infrastructure of knowledge; or in other words, the process of reducing/filtering information into something more manageable to prevent information overload (having too much information). For example,  libraries usually throw away old  books in favor of those that are more new and informative to their users.

We generally reduce information by using resources such as online databases,  libraries, and Google. However, a deep understanding of these resources’ taxonomy  is required in order to become a great researcher. Knowing what category, keyword,  or year of what we want to locate will help reduce the amount of information given drastically. Otherwise, reading every result google displays would take months or years.

To conclude, finding the right data in the limitless pool of information would be impossible (information overload). Only an understanding of the infrastructure of knowledge, or the process of filtering information, would make it possible. Mastering this process ultimately makes us better researchers and learners.

The future is the place we will experience whatever is left of our lives, so we offer a substantial measure of the present to making preparations for it. Mental research has given bits of knowledge into such as future considering, which can take a few structures. Keeping up deferred goals to perform particular activities later on, foreseeing future occasions as an approach to get ready for believable consequences, and thinking the future to empower us to settle on better long time conclusions. The technology and imagination of the future is growing every single day. However, my example of an imagined future in pop culture would be Sylvester Stallone because his movie series are one of the most popular action stars in cinematic history, Oscar nominee Sylvester Stallone is best known for portraying boxer Rocky Balboa and Vietnam War veteran John Rambo.

Vaidhyanathan says “we trust google with our personal info and preferences and without access to knowledge because we trust technology that satisfies our prejudices” and I would say that I agree with his argument to a certain extent. Google has become synonymous with the internet as we, for the most part, will have it as our default search engine and if not, we change it so that it is, we even have an expression dedicated to Google, “Just Google it” which shows just much we have come to trust in Google. I know I am one who doesn’t like using other search engines because they aren’t as tailored to my preferences as I’ve grown accustomed to.

However, that is not to say that we should simply trust Google wholeheartedly. Even though, we know how Google will track and sell our information, save our data, create customized searches and advertisements of  their own and of other sites, this doesn’t mean they should get a free pass. If Google is compromised, then, millions of people’s data would be liable to be stolen. Plus, the fact they store and collect so much information could even be seen as an invasion of one’s privacy, especially, when you take into consideration how Google will “read” your emails.

While Google seems to be a mainstay when it comes to the internet, we need to remember at the end of the day, they are not always looking for our best interests.