Attention Economy

I chose to look at  Melissa’s Task 10: Attention Economy

Melissa stated how the User Inyerface game got her to think about how our actions are so automatic when it comes to the things we do online. For example, how we’re offered the option to link your Facebook or Google accounts to avoid filling out personal information to create a new account. But whenever we do this we usually don’t read the terms and conditions of what actually happens with our information.

Melissa also mentioned that she looked at the data that Google gathered and inferenced about her based on her user history and how this is used to target their ads to her. This got me curious and I also looked at who Google thought I was. They got the age range correct and the fact that I’m bilingual in English and Korean, but they got my gender incorrect – stating I’m a Male instead of a female. They did get my marital status correct and the fact that I don’t have kids correct as well. I’m personally not too surprised about the data they have on me. I am surprised they got my gender incorrect, which tells me that my Internet activity doesn’t match the average female user. This also makes sense why I get so many ads aimed at men (i.e. shaving ads).

Melissa also mentioned how dangerous it is that children (and us adults) are on platforms such as Youtube which often autoplay the next videos to keep our attentions. It’s not something that is ONLY dangerous for children. I’ve noticed it with my parents as well. I bought them ipads and I saw that they just let the autoplays roll when they are watching Youtube. We can’t always be policing what is being played for children and even adults (who aren’t so digitally literate) but there should be change in how these types of things are done. We all know sitting in front of a screen for hours is bad for us but many of us do it anyway. Youtube doesn’t care about the health of it’s users – it doesn’t say “hey you’ve been watching videos for 5+hrs maybe you should take a break”. Would that kind of thing even help I wonder. I have noticed some video games (meant for younger kids) notify the user of how long they’ve played and that they should log off to take a break i.e. Maplestory. I found that whenever it notified me like that – that I would get pulled out of the gaming zone and actually get up to take a break. I wonder how that type of thing would work out for something like Youtube.

I decided to check both Ying’s Task 12 and Erin’s Task 12 on Speculative Futures.

Both Ying and Erin had speculative future scenarios that had to do with vision and what we would see around us.

Ying’s Speculative Futures scenario 1 sounded quite sci-fi to me but also I could see how our world – which is riddled with ads everywhere can be so intrusive that people end up paying to not get them anymore. I personally use ad-block quite often while using the Internet. Before installing it into my browser I used to see some disturbing and annoying flashing ads on the columns of web pages I was browsing. I remember when ads on most websites were highly distracting and often inappropriate. When I was a lot younger, ads did not distinguish between if the user is a minor or a female, resulting in having ads about “sexy single ladies in my area”.

However, now most ads are highly catered to the user and their interests. Tech companies have access to a lot of personal information and are able to use it to their advantage to customize some of the ads that would be aimed at specific demographics. As a result I’ve noticed that more and more people are using VPNs and ad block to have more autonomy over their digital information and what they want to see on their screens. Turning ad block off is a choice now for many to help other users earn money. For example, Youtubers earn money from ad revenue. Loyal viewers who want to help that Youtuber may turn off their ad block only when watching their content (At least I do this for Youtubers I know personally or those I really like).

Erin’s speculative futures scenario 2: Good Optics is about glasses that analyze the “wearer’s sightline to (a friend’s micro expression, the dynamics between a group of people, unassuming danger) to help the wearer make informed and ethical choices in their life based on real objective data rather than one’s own assumptions.” This looks like it’s a more positive take on what is being fed to the user in comparison to Ying’s scenario. However, this takes away the users autonomy and critical thinking skills if relied on too heavily. I can see this being helpful if used in moderation and for those who are socially awkward or have other challenges.

Both these ideas from Ying and Erin don’t seem too farfetched to me with smart glasses (i.e. Google Glass) being developed.

I decided to check out Ian’s Task 7: Mode-Bending

Ian’s Task 7 was a very interactive explorative take on the What’s in My Bag using just the sounds to identify each item. Similar to my task 7, Ian looked for audio files online to represent his different items. He made his an interactive game whereas I ended up making an audio example of a general day teaching during the pandemic. I found the epic music played before and after the audio clips to be quite amusing – giving the task a more light hearted feel to it.

Ian discussed how cultural context and experience of the listeners is important for his activity. He found that the sounds he curated to represent his items weren’t as easily identifiable to his wife even though they’ve known each other for a long time. I personally was able to identify 5 out of 8 of the sounds. The ones I weren’t able to identify was the calculator, assessments, and medicine. The calculator didn’t sound like my personal calculator, the assessments sounded like just writing, and the medicine sounded like beads in a container. Not all sounds are universal in that sense.

Ian mentioned how he’s curious to know how people from different countries would identify certain sounds. This immediately got me thinking about the medicine I received when I was sick in South Korea. Figure 1 is an example of how prescription medicine is often given to patients in South Korea. You  rip one baggy open per day or meal time. The sound I would have as a recognizing factor would be the sound of ripping open plastic.

Figure 1: Image of how medicine in South Korea is often given to patients.

Ian also mentioned how this particular task “crosses more lines of diversity, globality, and modes than our schools typically accommodate,” and I agree that giving students a choice in their mode allows them to be more engaged in their own learning and be more explorative. This was also visible in our own classmates interpretation of this task as well! It was interesting to see how certain classmates used different modes for the same task.

Narrative 1:

How Crypto Forests came to be: 

30 years ago there was an outcry about how CrytoArt (also known as NFTs – Non-Fungible Tokens) had an unreasonable ecological cost. Back in 2020, CryptoArt – which used blockchains to track sales and bids of (mostly digital) artworks was booming. Many people were unaware of how ridiculously energy consuming and ecologically destructive some blockchain based activities were. Back then these transactions were done through Ethereum (aka ETH, similar to Bitcoin) which were found to have an estimated average footprint of 35kWh from a single transaction – which at the time was equivalent to an average EU resident’s 4 days worth of electricity consumption. 

And this was just for a single ETH transaction. A single mouse click set off a chain reaction and signaled to mining farms around the world, which go on to have a footprint of 35 kWh (with emissions ~ 20 KgCO2) for that single mouse click, due to the underlying Proof of Work algorithm. For comparison: an average email was estimated to have a footprint of a few grams of CO2, and watching one hour of Netflix was estimated at around 36 grams CO2 emissions. An ETH transaction was thousands of times more costly than other internet activities that individuals typically engaged in. This caused a large uproar among many artists, NFT collectors, and environmentalists. 

Figure 1: Data from 2020 comparing the energy use and emissions of NFTs.

Now instead of using Ethereum which required so much electricity and was ecologically damaging, the energy created from Crypto Forests are being used to perform these transactions. Previously, there were empty spaces of just buildings filled with servers being powered by a ton of electricity. However, now there has been a shift into using Crypto Forests for minting, bidding, sales, and transferring of CrytoArt and other NFTs. Not only that but the CO2 that was previously produced from ETH use is being cycled through the Crypto Forests to filter the air. Artists, Crypto Art collectors and environmentalists alike are excited with this new development and how ecological this process has become. This will cause a big shift in how other cryptocurrencies will be handled. 

Narrative 2

EDIT: I got a demerit point for making this diary blog entry. I’ll be deleting it soon.

Year 2060

In class today, I learned that surveillance cameras with facial recognition weren’t always used! How would the Global Security Camera Network (GSCN) protect all of us if that type of thing wasn’t so common place? You wouldn’t even be permitted into the school building without it now. Teachers have those cameras attached to their glasses/contacts and they can track our student records easily just from looking at our faces. To think that this used to be so uncommon is so bizarre. I’ll have to ask mom about what it was like for her when I get back home.

…..

So I talked about what I learned in school with my mom. She said that there was a lot of backlash from the public about facial recognition cameras being used everywhere when she was younger. And it was because there were concerns about people’s privacy being breached. You would be tracked wherever you went and what you did there. However, it’s been proven to lower school shootings and any other types of violence that were prominent at the time. I don’t get why people would be so upset about that? Didn’t everyone have mobile telecommunication devices back then which also tracked where they went and listened to their conversations? I guess if it’s something new many people would be against it? I’m not sure what it would be like if the GSCN wasn’t a thing. 

According to my mom, there wasn’t a merit point system when she was in school. Now all schools have a merit point system where students are assigned points based on their grades, clubs, and other school activities. This is all tracked through the GSCN system. Universities also look at this when deciding which students they would like to admit into their programs. I’ve been working extra hard to make sure I don’t get any demerit points since I’ll be applying to universities next year. I can’t afford to make any mistakes. 

After my conversations with my mom about this, I was laying in bed and thinking about the GSCN and why it was mandated and how it’s being used today. I think it does keep us safe, but at what cost? Do we all limit our actions and our thinking knowing that we are constantly being monitored? Is it something I don’t need to worry about knowing that I haven’t done anything “wrong” in the eyes of the GSCN? Or am I just so used to a life being monitored since I lived my whole life with the GSCN? 

-WhiteRabbit1004 

Reflection:

According to Dunne and Raby (2013), we don’t want to try to predict the future, but use design to open up discussions and debates to see what the preferred future is for a group of people — which was what I thought of when doing my first narrative. For my second narrative I wanted to look at what could be possible with facial recognition becoming more widespread and how that can be used in educational institutions.

My first scenario idea came from hearing about NFTs/CryptoArt from my artist friends and how much it actually affects the environment. I think so many people don’t even realize that using the Internet does create emissions. However, with NFT transactions I didn’t realize just how big of an impact they were making in comparison (Figure 1). I personally did not know much about cryptocurrencies (I still don’t know much) but I still wanted to go down this route as it was new information I just learned about. I wanted to think about how this issue can be solved by incorporating plants to recycle the air and lessen the emissions. I felt like a Cryto Forest was possible because scientists have created “Hybrid trees” made of natural and artificial leaves which can act as “green” electrical generators converting wind into electricity (IIT, 2018). There are people currently trying to come up with solutions to this NFT emissions issue and I felt that using forests would be an interesting way to mix technology with nature.

For my second narrative I focused more on an exaggerated future based on what is currently happening. More facial recognition is being used to track people. How might that look like for students and education? I felt like my second narrative sounded a bit dystopian. It’s based off an article I read a while back about how there was a school using facial recognition to monitor who goes in and out of  the building (Heilweil, 2019). It was mainly for security reasons. I wanted to extend that to not only that but also how it can be linked to creating a digital profile of each individual person and follow them throughout their life and how normalized it can become. It’s not too far off with what’s happening now and how things are developing in some places.

Reference:

Dunne, A., & Raby, F. (2013). Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

Heilweil, R. (2019, December 20). Schools are using facial recognition to try to stop shootings. here’s why they should think twice. Retrieved April 03, 2021, from https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/12/20/21028124/schools-facial-recognition-mass-shootings#:~:text=Facial%20recognition%20technology%20compares%20images,admitting%20someone%20into%20an%20area.

Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia – IIT. (2018, December 12). How plants can generate electricity to power LED light bulbs. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 3, 2021 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/12/181212093308.htm

For this weeks task we had to play a game called User Inyerface. Inyerface was a VERY frustrating game to play. You need to pass 4 levels to get to the end. There were a couple of actions I took that were based off instincts – such as clicking the big colourful button which is usually meant for “NEXT” but it actually said “CANCEL”. I ended up spam clicking it a couple times before realizing that the next button was actually next to the big cancel button (Figure 1).

I can see how these “dark patterns” (Brignull, 2011) are definitely at play for all of us. We do things that we think are obvious or are so used to doing specific actions to get to the end result as fast as possible. There was a lot of trial and error to see what I needed to do to get to the next page/level of the game. I think knowing that this was a game and not something where I can accidentally download something malicious on my computer made me more bold with my clicks and use the trial and error method to get through this game.

Figure 1: Image of the password criteria in neon green at the bottom and the pop up of “How can we help?” in the bottom right corner. Box for “I do not accept the terms and conditions” was already prechecked. And the “next” button is less noticeable than the “cancel” button.

The part I found most annoying was where it asked you to make a password. The criteria for making a password had many common ones such as having at least one capital letter and a numerical character, but there was one where it asked for a “cyrillic character” (Figure 1). I had to google what it was and copy and paste a random letter to input into my fake password (I pasted in: Њ). I also had to uncheck the “I DO NOT accept the terms and conditions” and click “next” which was greyed out in order to get to the next page/level.

The “How can we help?” pop up on the bottom right of the screen (Figure 1) was easy to get rid of since I didn’t have a “dark pattern” for it and clicked the correct button for it. I realized after the fact that most people would have clicked the arrow on the top right of that pop up to try to get rid of it. I generally just ignore those types of things when I see them on my screen.

I ended up ignoring interacting with the red cookies banner at the top since it didn’t stop me from playing the game. Often sites won’t let you proceed to use their site unless you accept the cookies and when that happens I usually just exit out and don’t use the site. You can see in Figure 2 that the red banner is still there even when I beat the game.

Figure 2: I got to the end of the game! The red cookie banner is still there.

Reading about dark patterns (Brignull, 2011) made me realize just how much UI is designed and used by websites/companies to rely on these patterns and use it to deceive people (knowingly or unknowingly). I would say knowing and understanding that this is happening to everyone is important in order to develop better digital literacy and be more critical about what is being shown on your screens. I would love to discuss this with my high school students. They love hearing about some of the new things I learn in MET and I think this would be an interesting one to talk about with them.

Reference:

• Brignull, H. (2011). Dark Patterns: Deception vs. Honesty in UI Design. Interaction Design, Usability, 338.

For this task the Palladio data tool was used to show a matrix of data that was collected and compiled showing which songs each person chose for the Task 8: Golden Record assignment.

When I initially opened up Palladio, I was honestly a little overwhelmed. However, upon closer inspection, I was able to see which songs were less popular among our classmates. The songs that were placed on the outskirts of the matrix showed to have less edges connecting them to other nodes. The fewer edges a node had, the less people chose those songs for their Golden Record curation. Whereas the songs concentrated in the middle of the matrix are the ones that more people selected. This pattern was also noticeable among the classmates as well. Classmates with more edges connected to other nodes (classmates) tended to be closer to the middle. Whereas classmates who chose “less popular” songs were closer to the outskirts of the matrix.

The above image is of myself grouped with 3 other classmates. We share quite a lot of similar songs. I’m assuming they used a similar criteria as me when choosing their songs: to represent the different continents of the world. However, this assumption that I’m making is probably inaccurate. People can end up making the same choices for very different reasons. I wouldn’t know unless I went to their individual blogs and read up on their reasoning. Thus from purely looking at the nodes and edges in the matrix, it’s difficult to state WHY my classmates chose the songs they did or excluded certain songs.

One interesting thing I noticed for this grouping was that the three songs that I chose without using the continents criteria were the ones that no one else in this group had linked to. The Fairie Round, Johnny B. Goode, and the Magic Flute were all chosen because I liked the sound of it and nothing else. I also noticed that I had one more singularity in comparison to everyone else who had just two.

I found that the people I had the highest number of similar songs to were Allison, Ben, and Ian. However, only Allison was selected to be placed in a group with me. Why weren’t us 4 placed in a group together? Why was I grouped with Meipsy, Allison and Chris? Did we all have the same criteria for the songs we chose? Where there more connections between us four? Or was it purely random? There is no way to figure out the criteria for these groupings as well. Palladio probably had to do some data calculations to make these groupings based on a set of criteria set by our course instructor. Thus it’s important to note that it’s difficult to derive qualitative data from these types of matrixes. What is being left out and what is being portrayed here?

10 Songs I chose from the Golden Record:

1. Flowing Streams performed by Kuan P’ing-hu | China
2. Jaat Kahan Ho – sung by Surshri Kesar Bai Kerka | India
3. Johnny B Goode by Chuck Berry | USA
4. Morning Star and Devil Bird recorded by Sandra LeBrun Holmes | Australia
5. Tchenhoukoumen recorded by Charles Duvelle | Senegal, Africa
6. Panpipes and drum song collected by Casa de la Cultura, Lima | Peru
7. The Magic Flute, Queen of the Night aria, no. 14. by Mozart, Edda Moser, soprano. Bavarian State Opera, Munich, Wolfgang Sawallisch, conductor
8. Tchakrulo collected by Radio Moscow | Georgian S.S.R
9. The Fairie Round – performed by David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London
10. Kinds of Flowers recorded by Robert Brown | Java, Indonesia

I tried to pick songs that were spread out across the globe to make sure there was at least some diversity in my choices (similar to how the Golden Record was curated). For example, I chose Tchenhoukoumen because it was the only song that represented the continent of Africa. I did find that most of the songs that were curated for the Golden Record were skewed more Eurocentric. It gave the sense that the people in charge had a strong bias (3 songs composed by Bach were put in!). This made me curious to know how these songs were chosen. Some of the choices seemed a bit arbitrary but I can see that there was at least some effort to include more traditional or Indigenous sounds into the mix with the inclusion of Morning Star and Devil Bird and Navajo Night Chant in the list.

I then narrowed them down according to how different they sounded from each other – such as what primary instruments were used (voice/choir, string, percussion, pipes, etc.). Afterwards, to further narrow down my choices I  chose songs according to how the songs made me feel. For example, I avoided some songs such as Cranes in the Nest since it made me feel anxious listening to it; and I chose The Fairie Round since it was a bright and happy sounding song to me. I also chose songs based on if it reminded me of places I’ve visited (Kinds of Flowers) or my friends (Jaat Kahan Ho).

I think that creating and sending out the Golden Record is mainly seen as a romantic thing (based on the many comments I’ve read). I also view it as a very human product and act (because it’s pretty self-centered). To be honest, I don’t really see the point in it. Would Extraterrestrials actually do anything with it if they got a hold of it? Would they even care about us? According to Abbey Smith (2017), memories and the past are what creates context for how we feel about things. Thus we won’t know if Extraterrestrials would think and feel the same as us when they listen to the songs because meaning is created by the listeners. Maybe they would be more interested in the fact that it’s made of gold instead of the songs or maybe they don’t even communicate using sound waves!

The What’s in my Bag task was used as a way to get to know and understand people through the items in their bags. Task 7 is a reworking of that same task using a different mode.

Since my previous What’s in My Bag task, schools in Ontario officially opened back up and I am able to go out to teach with a work bag. I wanted to showcase my typical experience/day through the below audio file.

For Task 7, I used Audacity which is a free and open-source digital audio editor and recording application software. I looked up certain sound effects on Youtube (photocopy machine, keys, slurping) and converted them to audio files to add on to the voice recording. I created an audio file that used a female robotic voice to portray the disconnect I’ve felt this past year from other humans. Even though I’m back to work in the physical school, we all still need to wear masks and are asked to not stand too close to others.

I was initially going to use my own voice for this recording. However, I had a sore throat this weekend so I was unable to do that. I opted to use a Google text to speech chrome ad-on. I think it turned out great since it added an extra layer of eerie-ness. I typed out what I was planning to say and had the software do the talking. There is a voice talking about my thoughts and also audio of things I typically hear during my day at work. Accompanying this audio with an image of the main things I always have with me.

These are multi-literacies that are mentioned by The New London Group (1996). They are holistic ways to teach and create more dynamic and inclusive way for humans to communicate and help develop more agency. For this task, meaning is made through the multimodal uses of oral, audio, and visual (The New London Group, 1996). I did find it more interesting and meaningful to hear the audio interpretation of my work bag and work life compared to just looking at an image of things in my bag. It made me think about how the mood feels a bit negative with the use of the robotic voice – which was partially a stylistic choice. People who hear this may get the same melancholic feeling.

Reference:

The New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review 66(1), 60-92.

My final answer was:

The same pill can kill or save them

Based on Ying’s Drawing:

This was a little game of Telestrations that a six of us from the course ETEC 540 did virtually. Telestrations is mix of the games Pictionary and Broken Telephone, where players take turns drawing and guessing phrases, objects, or actions. It was a great way to engage with others in playing with text, images, and hyperlinks. It was based off the hyperlinks module from the course.

The hyperlinks below allows you to see everyone’s blogs and how the game turned out. Please visit the hyperlinks in the order they are in to see how the game went.

• Deirdre’s initial drawing based on the original phrase that prompted the start of the game.
• Sandra’s guess based on Deirdre’s drawing
• Kirsten’s drawing based on Sandra’s guess
• Nathan’s guess based on Kirsten’s drawing
• Ying’s drawing based on Nathan’s guess
• The final guess based off Ying’s drawing (this page)

I was the last one out of the six of us to make the final guess. My guess was based off Ying’s drawing. It was interesting to see how much the meaning of each drawing the word/phrase was interpreted by different people. It seemed that the theme of medicine/drugs was a theme that stuck throughout though. You can see how through this activity, all our blogs were linked through a web of pages to create a path for this game. However, there is no set path that needs to be taken. You can see that with the drawings, it’s solely up to the next players interpretations to give their text clue based on it to the next player. That was where most of the changes were made – as the drawings were a lot more abstract.

This was a fun activity organized by Deirdre! It was a fun way to connect with others and also see how things can be interpreted so differently by people.

I decided to check out  Gary’s Voice to text Task.(Feb 21, 2021)

• How has your colleague’s experience differed from yours? And how do you know?

Looking at Gary’s Voice to text exercise, I can definitely see one major difference, which is that his included punctuation whereas mine barely had any! There were commas and periods in the correct places in Gary’s story. Thus it was a lot easier to read through and follow the story that was being told. Gary used a  free trial for an office transcription program called Otter. Looking through other classmates voice to text tasks, I can see that his punctuated story is more of an anomaly.

Gary’s story was about his excursion in Alaska with his partner and having the chance to go dog sledding. It did not feel rehearsed and felt very casual as I was reading it. There was a certain flow to it where I was able to see how Gary told stories in person. There were a few repeated words, which was similar to my voice to text as well. Gary mentioned in his post that he used a lot of repetition/filler words which he said gave him time to decide on how to move forward, what to say and how to say his story. Even with this, I felt that his story was well organized compared to mine. My story has many filler words and I used less words trying to tell my story within the 5 minutes allotted to tell our stories (I compared word count – Gary said ~100 more words). And my story also had many run-on sentences.

Gary’s reflection mirrors some similarities to what I thought after doing this task as well. He mentioned how each oral re-telling of a story is an improvisation based on the mood of the audience, speaker, location, time of day, etc. Even though I have told my own story several times, it was a very different experience re-telling it without a live audience. Getting that audience interaction helps you as the speaker figure out how to say certain parts or if things should be left out. I found that having the pressure from the time limit made my own re-telling of my story to be very stale, since I was trying to cram in the most important parts of the story and tell it in chronological order.  In oral conversations emotions are portrayed from the tone, volume changes, dramatic pauses, etc. which would give more character to the story – but this is clearly lost in transcript. Also, with oral stories, you can repeat information or go back to a part of the story without there being a big break in the flow of the story. Listeners are much more forgiving in that respect. In written form, it would be much too confusing repeating something or looping back to a part of the story.

• How does their tool differ from yours in the ways in which it allows content-authouring and end-user interface?

I’m currently using the WordPress theme Pink Touch 2, and Gary is also using WordPress but with the Serene theme. Serene is a lot wider and makes the texts on the screen a lot larger compared to the theme I have chosen. Pink Touch 2 is a theme that concentrates everything to the center of the site. I will probably change my theme soon since I don’t think it’s the easiest theme to use for large blocks of text. Gary’s blog theme makes it a lot easier for people who have difficulty reading smaller lettering.

•  What theoretical underpinnings are evident in your/your colleague’s textual architecture and how does this affect one’s experience of the work?

Gary’s blog is in chronological order with the newest post at the top of his landing (home) page. There are no other tab buttons to choose from so his site is very simple and straight forward to travel to his entry. He only has 2 posts as of me writing this post. In contrast, my current site is organized in a way where you need to use the menu (tabs) to navigate to my tasks or linking assignments from my home page. Once you select a category, then users can see a list of links to each of my posts. Since the menu is available on every page, a users journey is self directed based on what they need. My home page is minimal and tells users to direct themselves to the page they are interested in.