Through our readings about writing in the digital medium consisting of plenty of hypertext and the fluidity of web 2.0, it is clear that the digital nature provides easy distribution and categorization. This seems like a positive, but might pose an issue due to the manner of usage. First off, it is important to realise that just because we can do something, does not mean that we should. Instead of looking at what is possible with the technology, I want to look at the potential impacts of said possibilities. Due to the ease of creation and dissemination, by the mid-2000’s, it was said that more data was created in the last two years than the entire history of the human race up to that point. By 2013, the prior two years accounted for 90% of the data created (SINTEF, 2013). On the surface this may seem like a good thing since it means more communication, more diverse thoughts, and more opportunities. But I would argue that there can be too much of a “good” thing.
For context let’s take a look at YouTube, which in many ways embodies the pinnacle of communication in the web 2.0 age, as YouTube makes it very easy to create something that can reach an enormous audience. According to the 2018 statistics released by YouTube, 300 hours of video is uploaded every minute to YouTube (we have contributed to that through this course, yay!). The sheer amount of data that is being uploaded every minute just to a single website is mindboggling. The volume is troubling because even though YouTube makes $4,000,000,000 off ad revenue, YouTube is actually still operating at a loss as it costs $6,350,000,000 to run and maintain (YouTube, 2018). Even putting aside the raw data amount, there is 300 hours of video per minute that is competing for views, unless something makes it stand out, most videos will not get viewed. Overtime, this leads to controversial videos being some of the most successful. This is evident when some of the largest YouTube stars are controversial figures such as Logan and Jake Paul. This is not unique to YouTube. This trend is visible through all parts of media made especially evident by the political circumstance in USA.
With the amount data we collectively generate, less than 1% of it is analysed (SINTEF, 2013). One manner of getting views and attention is through controversy, and divisive tactics. The other, is for the product to be brought up as relevant as often as possible. In the digital age, this often means getting priority with search engines. The ability to categorize things via keywords was a boon, but as people’s wellbeing became entangled with the web, keywords were abused to forcefully make the product appear relevant. As search engine algorithm evolved, so too did the methods to force relevance. SEO (search engine optimization) is now something anyone who wishes to have a prominent presence in the digital world has to be aware of. This can be as simple as knowing which hashtags to use, to hiring a SEO company to market the product (Henke, 2016). Though this is just personal experience, in recent years, I find it more difficult to find obscure things with Google, most results tend to be from larger organizations dealing with the mainstream. Smaller independent sites are now buried in the results. This is by no means a web breaking issue, but due to the overabundance of data, there is an incentive to abuse the categorization, and exploit the SEO. Unfortunately if this carries on unchecked, it neutralizes the organizational advantage of the digital format. Instead of being unable to find something because it did not exist in print, it is now possible to be unable to find something because it has been buried by a proverbial mountain of data.
Another potential issue that is becoming apparent is that there is now too much information available for people to digest. The ease of content creation is now rewarding first to market rather than quality work. Quantity over quality coupled with the audience lacking the time and attention to digest in-depth work is a large part of the reason journalism and journalistic integrity is in dire straits at the moment. But I am hardly qualified to wax on about journalism, so let’s talk about the other impact of having too much information, with everyone being able to give an opinion. Aside from the ease of production, the digital framework has the added benefit of hypertext to help communication on topics to be more fluid and connected than ever. The ability to link from one thing to another is great in theory, but in practice it often leads to the audience proceeding to consume materials that carry a similar vein of thoughts; an unbalanced information diet. This coupled with that fact that everyone can create and disseminate in the digital framework, lends itself to the distinct possibility of causing a minority opinion/viewpoint to seem far more prevalent, bolstering confidence in an unhealthy viewpoint or even ‘alternative facts’.
There are many advantages to the digital medium. The ease of creation and dissemination, along with hypertext and organizational flexibility are all amazing benefits. However, the pressures of economics and the very nature of human expediency lead to undesired results of lowering quality, and creating echo chambers. Our collective usage of the digital medium is neutralizing many of the theoretical benefits of the medium. The digital age has allowed us to move information at hyper speed, but perhaps it is time to slow it down again
Alexander, B., and Levine, A. (2008). Web2.0 story-telling: The emergence of a new genre. Educause Review.43(6), 40-56. Retrieved, August 10, 2009, from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0865.pdf
Bernstein, M. (1998). Patterns of hypertext. Reprinted from Proceedings of Hypertext 1998, F. Shipman, E. Mylonas, & K. Groenback, (Eds.), ACM, New York. Retrieved, August 2, 2009, from http://www.eastgate.com/patterns/Print.html
Bolter, J.D. (2001). Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print. Routledge.
Bush, V. (1945). As we may think. The Atlantic Monthly, 176(1), 101-108. Retrieved August 2, 2009, from http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/computer/bushf.htm (Links to an external site.)
YouTube for Press (2018). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/press/
Henke, N (October, 2016) Straight Talk About Big Data. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/straight-talk-about-big-data
SINTEF. Big Data, for better or worse: 90% of world’s data generated over last two years. ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 22 May 2013. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130522085217.htm
Stephanie Kwok
August 8, 2018 — 1:20 pm
Hi Benson,
An insightful and interesting read. I found the YouTube statistics you incorporated to be helpful in putting things into perspective. Throughout this class, I keep going back to the themes brought up in the ‘From Papyrus to Cyberspace’ radio broadcast we listened to at the beginning of the term. The concepts of ‘Gains and Losses’, ‘Doom and Utopia’, and of course, the ‘Dissemination of Trash’ always seem to be highly relevant. We are faced with such an excess of information and online content, that it is difficult to filter through quality material. Additionally, as you pointed out, it is also difficult to distinguish oneself online by way of interesting content. In the context of YouTube, while this may push video producers to raise the bar and strive for higher quality productions, this has also resulted in producers engaging in extreme, dangerous, or controversial activities in order to gain views and subscribers, which is an example of but one negative repercussion of this generation being overloaded by online information.
For my final multimedia project for this class, I did my project on the topic of Hypermedia, and discussed how it is one of the greatest factors of the Internet’s success due to its ability to navigate users of the web. However, I also came across many negatives also, including digital footprints resulting in issues with user privacy and safety. As a society, we are so focused on improving technology by making things faster, more efficient, and multimodal in function, but we don’t often take a step back to look at the bigger picture and the resulting issues and consequences. Ease and speed of content creation and distribution has been at the cost of content quality. I wonder at what point we will, as human beings, max out on our speed and processing capabilities, and how we will deal with resulting concerns such as the rise in cases of ADHD as observed within children. Certainly, as a teacher, I find I can only be so engaging and flexible with my lessons and modes of delivery. If technology continues to widen the gap between how we multitask and process information, I fear humans will lose their abilities to fully engage and connect with others in physical, social settings – which seems to be happening already. So perhaps you are right that it may be time to stop and slow down.
Engell, J. (Presenter) & O’Donnell, J. (Presenter). (1999). From Papyrus to Cyberspace [radio broadcast]. Retrieved from https://canvas.ubc.ca/courses/4290/files/609973/preview
adam sheard
August 10, 2018 — 9:59 pm
Benson! I’m curious if you read some of my other posts on this blog because you bring up a topic which I have spoken about passionately on a few occasions. In particular, you quoted one of my favourite quotes in our high-tech age which is “just because you CAN do something doesn’t mean you SHOULD do it.” I’m really happy that you brought up this topic again because it is, in my opinion, one of the largest issues facing our global society at the moment. Information overload is something that continues to become a large-scale problem, and having the basic SEO (search engine optimization) skills to get your content out there above all the rest can be just as harmful as it can be good. Your example of Logan Paul is well chosen, with posts of theirs getting out to a lot of people who might not have the critical skills to separate farce from reality, and furthermore acceptable social behavior and unacceptable social behavior.
It is kind of ironic that now we have the technology to connect with people all over the world, but no one can hear us because our voices are drowning each other out. As an academic I find both the constant mass-accumulation of information coupled with the increasingly efficient archival of old information mentioned by Engell and O’Donnell (1999) impossible to manage. Most of my professors grew up in a time where, even if their field was more than 100 years old, they would only have to access a handful of previous literature that they could build their research upon. Fast forward to today and now we have handfuls of papers to sift through to get the information on the research topic that we are focusing on. What’s worse is with the increasing population and subsequent people participating in academics there are handfuls of new journals and articles being published by either unqualified or little peer reviews. During my time in Korea one of my professors just decided to make a journal for her field and had a couple part-timer undergrad students act as “editors.” Upon talking with the undergrad students it was clear that they had had no training and were arbitrarily accepting papers (usually not even reading them) into the journal.
As a result, as academics, it is becoming harder and harder to be knowledgeable professionals in our fields. In addition to this, as technology makes writing papers easier due to the increased speed which we can research topics on the internet, universities are upping a lot of publishing status quos for academics who want to get tenure. This is adversely affecting the entire student body as well who are already being tormented by the intense speed at which they have to do readings and complete their degrees as Wesch (2008) observed because now the professors don’t have time to slow down and explain concepts or even hold proper office hours as Sieber and Berg (2016) note in their book “Slow Professor.”
As you mentioned, Benson, the digital medium clearly has some great benefits for the dissemination of information, but it is definitely a double-edged sword!
References:
Berg, M., & Seeber, B. K. (2017). Slow professor: Challenging the culture of speed in the academy. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press.
Engell, J. (Presenter) & O’Donnell, J. (Presenter). (1999). From Papyrus to Cyberspace [radio broadcast]. Retrieved from https://canvas.ubc.ca/courses/4290/files/609973/preview
Michael Wesch (2008). A Vision of Students Today. Retrieved July 25, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o