Technology and Behavior

This week in class, we talked about regulation and the social construction of technology. The three E's in regulation are Education, Enforcement, and Engineering. The market, laws, architecture, and norms are all factors that majorly impact the way we regulate things in our everyday life, as well as online. We also learned about technological drama, and how less and less human power is needed to control and regulate what we do. Back in the day, there used to be doormen that would stand outside of a hotel or other building's door and open it for incoming patrons. Nowadays, we use technology and have these automatic doors that have sense when people are near it and then open by themselves, eliminating a need for human interaction with this specific action that happens so very often in our lives. One more example is an elevator operator, who you would find within the elevator that would control the floors you go to. Nowadays, elevators are completely controlled by technology, and you push a button for the floor you would like to go to. With the social construction of technology, many people view objects or symbols differently than they once would years ago. With the # function that is so commonly used on Twitter, the original meaning of that symbol has quickly faded away. Before Twitter, the # symbol was referred to as a "number sign"or a "pound sign" when using it on the telephone. Nowadays, whenever someone sees the # symbol, more often than not they will refer to it as the "hashtag," which is Twitter's name for it.

There are many examples like the one above that prove how much technology impacts the way we behave or think about something. One way I think that technology impacts behavior is the fact that it makes us significantly less social in the real world. Now that there are so many different forms of communicating with technology, either by phone calls, text messages, or social networking, there is less human interaction in the real world. "Why communicate face to face when we can communicate instantly from behind our computer screens, without even having to go anywhere?" is probably a sad truth thought of by many individuals. Even when you do spend time with your friends, think about how much time everyone spends looking at their phones throughout the time spent together. The more technology grows, the less social we become in reality. The only way around that is to simply put down the technology and spend time with the people you know and love. Here is a great video about cell phones and social behavior:

Another way technology impacts behavior is the way we view things. Just like the # - Hashtag debacle, there are many other symbols which we interpret in a different way than we once did thanks to technology. Again, because of Twitter (and now Facebook, YouTube, and a few other sites), the @ symbol's meaning has drastically changed. Sure, we still use it for email purposes. An email address wouldn't be an email address without the "@" symbol before the domain website the email was sending from. But now many people view it as a way to "tag" people in an online post. It's pretty crazy how much our behavior can be impacted by technology, and it certainly makes me curious as to how much it will change our lives in the future as technology grows.

Recommender Systems

I was really interested in this week's readings on recommender systems and how they can affect users' opinions on specific products that a service has to offer. When using applications such as Netflix or Pandora, they will recommend movies, TV shows, or music that you may like based on your previous selections. These suggestions don't force you to choose them, they are simply suggestions, but they can help open a user's eyes to new content they have never heard of before. These recommender systems are formulated by specific algorithms in order to determine what each specific user may like. If I like watching comedy movies on Netflix, then the "suggested" section of my Netflix account will mostly be filled with other Comedy movies that I haven't yet watched on Netflix. Pandora's entire experience is based on recommendations and suggestions. When you choose an artist, or a band, or a specific song that you like, it creates a whole personalized radio station around that one choice and gives you a playlist of other songs related to that one.

These recommender systems aren't perfect. Maybe you don't like some of the suggestions that they give you. This is where Pandora's "skip" button comes in handy. Maybe you share a Netflix account (because almost everybody does) and the suggested movies and television shows are programs you would never even consider watching. There are a few flaws in these algorithms, but the majority of the time these recommender systems really help, and they've definitely been the reason behind some of my favorite features to watch on Netflix.

Some questions do arise from this week's information, however. As I just previously mentioned, there are some flaws with these recommender systems. What can companies like Netflix do to improve their "recommended for you" section of their application when dealing with shared accounts? Can Pandora recognize the songs you skip and go even further to make sure songs by that particular artist don't show up again on your playlist? How influential are the "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" buttons on Pandora? Do many users take advantage of the recommender systems offered by these companies, or are they something people simply ignore? Do ratings by other users really affect how many others interact with that specific product? These are just some of the questions that I thought of while reading through the recommender systems article for this week.

-Frank Hines