Session 5What is Social Informatics and

Why Does It Matter? II

“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Where is the person who has so much to be out of danger?”

T. Huxley, 1877

Session Objectives

• To understand concept of socio-technical systems

• To identify implications of social informatics for computer professionals

• To explore the idea of Internet Addiction

• To explore utopian and dystopian views of information technology

“The broad public discourse on changes to both organizational and societal life due to the increased presence and use of ICTs is being shaped in part by personal experiences, journalists’ reporting, pundits’ predictions, technologically utopian and dystopian accounts”. This is an inadequate and problematic position for computer professionals

Review of learning

SOCIAL INFORMATICS• Identifies a body of research that examines

the social aspects of computerization. • “The interdisciplinary study of the design,

uses and consequences of information technologies that takes into account their interaction with institutional and cultural contexts” (Kling)

Goal of Social Informatics• To understand how people’s behavior,

interactions, relationships, values and attitudes interact with IT.

• To develop empirically-grounded concepts that help us to predict (or at least understand) variations in the ways that people and groups use information technologies.

Social Context• Not to treat all or most social behavior as

separable from the technologies.

• The concept of “computerized information systems as social technical systems”

Socio-Technical Systems

Complex interdependent systems comprised of:

· people in various roles and relationships with each other and with other system elements;

· hardware (computer mainframes, workstations, peripherals, telecommunications equipment);

· software (operating systems, utilities and application programs);

Socio-Technical Systems· techniques (e.g. management approaches,

voting schemes); · support resources (training/support/help);· information structures (content and content

providers, rules/norms/regulations, such as those that authorize people to use systems and information in specific ways, access controls

The Control Revolution• http://www.theatlantic.com/

unbound/digicult/dc990722.htm

• Is the Internet giving ordinary people more control over their lives?

• Shapiro argues that "the real change set in motion by the Internet may, in fact, be a control revolution, a vast transformation in who governs information, experience, and resources. Increasingly, it seems that we will."

The Control Revolution

• Shapiro counsels balance, which for him involves "recognizing the importance of community and collective action as counterweights to both institutional power and individual control."

• "technorealism," a term he and fellow cyberpundit David Shenk coined in 1998 to mean "a critical perspective on technology that is meant to go beyond the simple dualism of cyber-utopianism and neo-Luddism."

What does this mean for professional practice?

• Working in a “design studio” far away from the people who will use a specific system VS understanding which features / tradeoffs most appeal to the people who are most likely to use the system;

• Focus groups, user participation in design teams;• Understanding the contextual richness of work

environment and culture of workplace, and how technology might empower this

Social design of ICT• “Shadowing” managers and workers to determine likely uses

of the planned system;• Participating in system design efforts to ensure the system

fits the organizational structure and culture;• Facilitating user participation in the design activity;• Assessing current work practices / creating new ones;• Planning implementation, including education and training; • Observing system in use and making appropriate changes. • Training programs

Why Social Informatics Matters

• Develop reliable knowledge about IT and social change based on systematic empirical research

• Inform public policy debates, design, use, configuration, education and training

• Intelligently address misplaced hopes about IT• Understand social relations eg. trust, power,

transformation, etc• Adds value – performance / outcomes of work place

The Dot-Complex

.

"the Internet is breaking down

barriers of class and formal

education, for those who have the will to use it"

Kay’s slide

“The Expansion of the Learning Community”

The Virtual Workplace

Globalization at our fingertips

“Bridges the gap of time and space between people”

New Relationships? Cyber Relationships?

Internet Addiction – the fun side

You know you are addicted to the Internet when:• You kiss your girlfriend/boyfriend's home page. • Your bookmark takes 15 minutes to scroll through. • Your eyeglasses have a web site burned in on them.• You refuse to go to a vacation spot with no electricity and no

phone lines. • You spend half of the plane trip with your laptop on your

lap...and your child in the overhead compartment.• You name your children Eudora, Hotmail and Dotcom.• You find yourself typing "com" after every period when using a

word processor.com

Internet Addiction-the fun side• Your night dreams are in HTML. • You turn off your modem and get this awful empty feeling,

like you just pulled the plug on a loved one.• You start introducing yourself as "Jim at I-I-Net dot Com." • Your heart races faster and beats irregularly each time you

see a new WWW site address in print or on TV, even though you've never had heart problems before.

• You step out of your room and realize that your parents have moved and you don't have a clue when it happened.

• Your dog has its own home page.• http://www.hpc.ntua.gr/~ktroulos/Neat/computer.html

WHAT CONSTITUTES PATHOLOGICAL INTERNET USE?(apply this to cellphones too)

Do you: • feel preoccupied with the Internet (i.e., thinking about the

Internet when offline)? • feel a need to use the Internet with increasing amounts of

time in order to achieve satisfaction? • have an inability to control your Internet use? • feel restless or irritable when attempting to cut down to

stop Internet use? • use the Internet as a way of escaping from problems or of

relieving a poor mood?

• jeopardize or risk the loss of significant relationship, job, educational or career opportunity because of the Internet?

• after spending an excessive amount of money on online fees, often return another day?

• go through withdrawal when offline (e.g., increased depression, anxiety, etc.)? • stay online longer than originally intended? • lie to family members or friends to conceal the extent of involvement with the

Internet? • Individuals who met four or more of these criteria during a 12-month period

were classified as dependent.

Study by Dr Kimberly Young, University of Pittsburgh

Internet Addiction Test:“You are an average on-line user. You may surf the Web a bit too long at times, but you have control over your usage”“Virtual Clinic provides immediate, confidential, and high quality healthcare through email, chat room, and telephone counseling”.

Once Upon a Time ….

Storytelling: Using Utopian & Dystopian Technology Tales

UtopiaA utopia is an imaginary golden age, haven, come-hither island paradise, isolated valley, planet, retreat, or perfect world. These getaways from earthly discomfort and distress may be designed by a scientist, philosopher, pastoral poet, religious mystic, economic visionary or futurist, didactic essayist, traveler, or novelist.

Utopia in Literature• “Walden Pond” by Henry David Thoreau• “Utopia” by Sir Thomas More• “Looking Backward” by Edward Bellamy• “Childhood’s End” by Arthur Clarke• “Peter Pan” by James M. Barrie• “Orlando” by Virginia Woolf• “Watership Down” by Richard Adams

Utopian Technology• Utopia is the committed desire to attain

seemingly impossible goals. • Most utopian narratives will take an

instrumental view of technology, meaning: Technology is a product of humans in the

service of humans – It may be used for good or ill – It is able to be mastered

Characteristics/Features of a Utopian Technology

• Need and survival• The vision of the future• Religion and the myth of eternity• Scientific strategy• Profit• Intellectual amusement• Craziness

Utopian Technology• Technology can better our lives by making them more

ordered.• Progress is an essentially good thing and requires order.• Secrecy is power, and enhances freedom and privacy. • Order is good. • Technology can solve programs, even problems that

technology creates. • As a result problems are solved by increasing complexity

and increasing order.

Dystopia• A literary and/or philosophical “bad place”,

anti-utopia, or hell on Earth, dystopia is the negative side of the perfect world, a haven corrupted by the misapplication of principles or theories or from deliberate tyranny, power-mongering, sadism, or subversion of human rights.

Dystopia in Literature• “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley• “Lost Horizon” by James Hilton• “Anthem” by Ayn Rand• “Animal Farm” by George Orwell• “Woman on the Edge of Time” by Marge Piercy• “Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess• “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood

Example: Clockwork Orange• Recall Ludovico’s

Technique: an experimental form of brainwashing and behavior alteration, this fictional technique is accomplished by injections and administered to hardened felons

• Is Alex a success? Why? Why not? By whose judgment?

Dystopian Technology• Technological

Innovation is always resisted – Fear of technology

in the workplace – Fear of replacement – Ned Ludd and the

Luddite movement

Luddite• Any of a group of British workman, who

between 1811 and 1816, rioted and destroyed textile machinery in the belief that mechanization would diminish employment.

• One who aggressively opposes technical or technological progress.

• Check out: “Is it OK to be a Luddite?http://www.dds.nl/~n5m/texts/pynchon.htm

Dystopian Technology• Technology changes behavior and patterns of

behavior • Technology is connected to or evolves into the

state, creating a state of "authoritarian information technology"

• Basic Assumptions – individual obedience to governmental authority – government creation of a rational social order – control is maintained by a technocracy

Dystopian Technology• Technology is panoptical .What is panoptical?• (A great read is “Surveillance Systems - Towards an electronic

panoptical society?” • Information Overload and Confusion• Quality vs. Quantity• As instrumental technology is unable to be mastered people

become more "objects" to be "ordered" • Humans, as essentially "unordered" or "unpredictable“,

threaten order

Dystopian Technology• Technology becomes about surveillance • Technology stifles freedom and privacy • Secrecy is institutionalized • Privacy is outlawed

For your Consideration• Do your own beliefs about technology lean

towards utopian or dystopian constructs?• What films and other media present either

utopian or dystopian technological images?• What might be the utopian or dystopian

implications in several current television shows? – Eg. Dark Angel, X-Files

Readings for next class

• Brave.Net.World: The Internet as a Disinformation Superhighway? by Luciano Floridi