For my second blog post for this section, I wanted to explore Big Data a little further. From initial readings, I came to an understanding that Big Data is powerful, though much of the control aspects are frustrating to users who seem to have little control over what happens to information and data after they put it out in the world.   I found this really great talk (included below) by Professor and Computer Scientist Jennifer Golbeck who discusses some intricacies of what our data says about us, and what can be done to put power back into the hands of the user.

Golbeck uses a couple of examples to show how data can affect us. The first of which is the example of the company Target finding out about a teenage pregnancy before the teenager’s parents. Golbeck reveals that Target is able to track purchase histories for thousands of their customers and use that data to direct specific marketing towards that customer. This particular example of a pregnant teenager might have made purchases of prenatal vitamins, or a purse that was able to contain more baby items. Golbeck notes that Target’s system gives customers a rank that can predict what the woman’s due date is! Golbeck’s aim in telling us about this is that even though there are small bits of information (or purchases) we make that we don’t think reveal very much, in fact reveal a lot.

Golbeck notes that in her lab, she can accurately predict many things, among which are political preferences, religion, age, intelligence and social networks; all of this coming from small bits of information users might not think is too revealing or obvious. Golbeck is obviously concerned with the power that this type of data has, and how this can affect users. She also notes that even though users know how much it affects them, there’s seemingly little they can do about it.

Enter computer scientists. How does Golbeck propose to solve this power struggle? She proposes that though changing corporate policies in user privacy would be affective and modifying laws protecting privacy would also be valuable, the rate of change in our society is quite slow and perhaps might not be the most productive immediate route.  Golbeck advocates for greater research (not from a corporate perspective), but purely for users’ benefit. Research to improve users’ experience online (taking one route of data encryption options that allow for information and data to be shared with only those who they are meant to be shared with).

So how does this affect can this be seen from a library perspective? Golbeck encourages user-controlled data. This is an incredibly important aspect to furthering services, making the product less manipulative and more transparent.   Should libraries be able to use big data to increase user services, they should be made aware of what information is being collection, the repercussions of giving that information, and what it will be eventually used for. Library services on online privacy protection or quick online tutorials I think would also be valuable in library services. Education in privacy seems essential, and as Golbeck (2013) stresses, having an empowered user base is the ideal way to move forward.

References

Golbeck, J. (2013). The curly fry conundrum: why social media “likes” say more than you might think. TED. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/jennifer_golbeck_the_curly_fry_conundrum_why_social_media_likes_say_more_than_you_might_think/transcript?language=en

After reading Schroeder’s (2014) article on Facebook’s “Emotional Contagion Study” I found myself seeking more information on the topic. The most thought provoking aspects of the study, and from summaries of other’s readings are the ethical considerations of Big Data and Social Media research. Understandably the study garnered more negative than positive publicity. After doing a little bit of research into reactions to the study online, I discovered a post from Tal Yarkoni, Research Associate at the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas who wrote “In Defence of Facebook.” I found Yarkoni’s defence unusual.

Yarkoni (2014) argues that many of the concerns regarding the study are misplaced. One of the concerns many concentrate on is the idea that the study “manipulated users emotions.” Yarkoni finds this misplaced and argues that Facebook only removed content rather than adding content. I take issue with this as I find it holds the same moral weight as ‘withholding the truth’ versus lying. If you knowing withhold information from someone that you know could effect decisions they make, it could be argued it’s as good as lying—and regardless manipulative.

Yarkoni points out that corporate companies are always conducting some type of research on user behaviour in order to sway audiences in one way or another. He also states that “it’s worth keeping in mind that there’s nothing intrinsically evil about the idea that large corporations might be trying to manipulate your experience and behavior.” And though I think this is true and unavoidable that corporations are doing user studies (and have been for quite some time), what seemed to be the biggest issue for many was that Facebook did this research without informed consent.

Yarkoni concludes that our concerns are counterproductive to the greater good of research, and that with such backlash companies will be more reluctant to release such information for analysis. As Schroder highlights in his article, there are clear ethical issues that this study presented, and the backlash was due to the disregard for these ethical boundaries. So I would disagree with Yarkoni that such backlash was not counterproductive, but what can be taken from it is that clearer ethical guidelines and reviews in such studies should be carefully considered.

If people were made aware, would it have made a difference? I came to think about advertising in the US when it came to informed consent and advertising. I noticed on the happy meal type boxes at fast food establishments started printing “this is advertising” on the sides of the children’s food boxes (often riddled with marketing of popular cartoons such as Strawberry Shortcake and the Transformers). I thought this act of transparency (although probably somehow legally necessary) was so commendable. Very young children are often unable to distinguish advertising from reality/facts. And not that we are all young children being unable to distinguish between fact and fiction, to an extent, we can be. Being transparent seems essential to minimizing manipulation in all cases.

In thinking more about the importance of big data research, I would advocate for the same transparency. I have no doubt that big data research could lead to greater user experiences, though I do think users should be able to maintain freewill in their online actions throughout such research.

References

Schroeder, R. (2014). Big Data and the brave new world of social media research. Big Data & Society, 1(2), 2053951714563194.

Yarkoni, T. (2014 June, 28). In defence of Facebook. Retrieved from http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2014/06/28/in-defense-of-facebook/

In thinking contemplating further about Sally Ellis’ article on collaboration, one of the points that really struck me was her note on the Make History Project of the 9/11 Memorial Museum. I really love the idea of collaborating on the documentation of history and began to think about historical events that could have benefited from being documented to a greater degree, and how collaborative histories could function in public libraries, archives or museums. In doing a little more research, I came upon Jake Barton’s TED talk about The Museum of You. The video is about 15 minutes, but if you have an extra 15 minutes in the day to spare, I think it’s really worthwhile.

It really illustrates how valuable collaborative efforts can be, especially in building community, aiding in reconciling tragic events, and documenting an oral history that would otherwise be lost. The documentation of daily life in history, as Barton points out, has long been recognized as valuable. Today, advancements in technologies, the rise of the Internet and open source platforms allow us to document and share our oral histories to a greater degree. I think a great project that exemplifies this is Story Corps (discussed by Barton), which invites ordinary people to enter a booth, fitted with microphones, to have a conversation. These conversations are then preserved in the Library of Congress. It’s a pretty amazing project, and listening to the conversations (or stories) on the site can be pretty emotionally overwhelming! But it’s incredible to be able to capture people just as they are in present day. One conversation in particular really tugged at my heartstrings (played in the Barton talk as well), I’ll link it here.

Projects such as Story Corps and the 9/11 Make History Project really got me thinking about how emotional connections can aid in public interaction, and how oral history can also be an interactive process (that is that it involves both listening but also talking/responding). It’s interesting to see how this could work within communities and public libraries. Story Corps was stationed in New York, but had it been in a smaller rural town or library, I really think that oral histories could weave each community closer and have each person feel part of the collaborative process.

On a final, brief and semi-related note, I’ll just direct your attention to another project I think is really neat. It’s called Humans of New York by photographer Brandon Stanton. The website (which also has manifestations on Instagram/Facebook/Tumblr) contains a catalogue of portraits of individuals living in New York along with a short story about each individual. It’s a pretty ambitious project, but in thinking about this catalogue of people, I keep thinking how would this play out in a smaller town or library? I’ll contemplate that for a little while longer.

References

Barton, J. (2013). The Museum of You. TED Talk. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/jake_barton_the_museum_of_you#t-920162

Ellis,S. (2014, March). A History of Collaboration, a Future in Crowdsourcing: Positive Impacts of Cooperation on British Librarianship. Libri 64: 1-10. Retrieved from http://www.crowdconsortium.org/wp-content/uploads/A-History-of-Collaboration-a-Future-in-Crowdsourcing-Positive-Impacts-of-Cooperation-on-British-Librarianship.pdf

Stanton, B. (2015). Humans of New York. Retrieved from http://www.humansofnewyork.com

Story Corps. (2015). [website] Retrieved from http://storycorps.org

In thinking about Sally Ellis’ (2014) reading on A History of Collaboration, a Future in Crowdsourcing: Positive Impacts of Cooperation on British Librarianship, I began to think about other positive ways in which crowdsourced could have a powerful and positive impact.

I have come to have a special fondness for ‘crowdsourcing’ and crowd-sourced information.  I have only recently discovered how  powerful and extremely valuable it can be, and online tools today make it easier to aggregate data crowdsourced materials (though I don’t think that the online world and crowdsourcing are inextricably linked). What resonated with me in Ellis’ paper was her encouragement to utilize new technologies and crowdsourcing to achieve our goals as information professionals.

One topic of recent growing interest to me is how information professionals are playing an increasing role during disasters or crisis.  It really makes all too much sense as  information professionals are equip with skills in understanding information seeking behaviours immediately (and could possibly apply this to traumatic events).

In looking at the ways social media was used in recent disasters, we can understand how valuable crowdsourced information can be.  What continues to strike me in these discussions is the use of Twitter during the Japan 2010 Earthquake and Tsunami.  During and immediately after the earthquake, Twitter was a prominent platform for victims of the disasters to both report the event, and to request aid and supplies. By using crowd-sourced materials through a social media platform such as Twitter, news of the event could be broadcast globally (and almost instantaneously) from a local perspective. Similar to Ellis’ note on the Make History Project having the ability to hold many views of the same event (in her example she uses the example of 9/11), this very local and varied perspective of the same event would be otherwise impossible to document on such short notice (especially in such extreme conditions) through solely traditional media methods.  As another benefit by using Twitter individuals seeking shelter and supplies could connect with organizations through common tagging systems. In a similar manner (using tagging systems) aid and government organizations could aggregate data to find what supplies were most needed, and which areas needed those supplies most. Of course, as mentioned by Ellis, there is always a slight issue with user-generated data and the consistency of tagging systems (as aggregating data was surely chaotic with different tags and in a different language).  However, having said that, I do consider Twitter to be a valuable tool in collaboration, especially with emphasis on the tagging system as an information aggregator, and on the re-bloging (or re-tweeting) function.

I think that by using crowd-sourced materials we, as information professionals, can gain a greater understanding of information seeking behaviours in different contexts.

On a final note in thinking about the ways we can utilized crowdsourcing and crowdsourced information, I really enjoyed Clay Shirky’s (2014) poignant note on collaborative efforts and successes out of previously failed attempts.  As future information professionals, I think that by using social media, we have the opportunity to recognize programs or services that aren’t working and use crowdsourced information to improve in those areas.

References :

Ellis, S. (2014). A history of collaboration, a future in crowdsourcing: Positive impacts of cooperation on british librarianship. Libri, 64(1), 1-10. doi:10.1515/libri-2014-0001

McKinsey & Company. (2014 March, 4). The disruptive power of collaboration: An interview with Clay Shirky (video). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxJ-g7y1uSw

Hello!

My name is Victoria Lam, and I am currently an MLIS student at UBC.

Hopefully what follows isn’t too much of a rambling confession.

I, like many others, have a love/hate relationship with social media.  I was “late” to join Facebook when it first became popular for the reasons you might guess.  I didn’t understand the point of it, I wanted to resist creating an online persona.  That resistance only lasted so long before the pressures of being connected all the time got the better of me.  I used Facebook for six good years to connect with “friends.”  As privacy issues became more apparent, I started becoming more distant with the platform, removing functions such as “the wall” until I was just using it to exchange messages and to “creep” on people I hadn’t spoken to in ages.

It was a fateful day in 2011 when I quit Facebook.  I was living in Micronesia with my husband and there was a rather large earthquake.  We sat in our living room like idiots trying to remember the procedures of what to do during an earthquake–or rather, trying to figure out the physics of how we could both get under our tiny coffee table with our dog, but thankfully the earthquake stopped.  Immediately after I wanted to find a source online to see if there was more information.  My husband excitedly suggested we check Facebook!

At the time I thought ‘What?! Why is Facebook the first place you want to check?! Shouldn’t we be checking some government sites to see if there are any anticipated aftershocks?! Why Facebook?!’  Sure enough Facebook was booming with comments on the quake.

Our inability to detach from Facebook even in extreme situations, and the increasing privacy issues were ultimately the reasons we left.

Looking back at that event now, I judged too harshly and acted too brashly in leaving Facebook.  Though I am still not on Facebook, I can now recognize its potential in disseminating information, especially during disasters.  Facebook was the first to report the quake, government sites had nothing noted on the event until later.  Following the quake there was a sort of community formed discussing the event–which was quite valuable.

My current use of social media is quite limited.  For a course last year I started using Twitter, I found it incredibly overwhelming.  I’ve been warming up to it and like that I can curate the types of information I receive.  I use it more as a news gathering site rather than a ‘social’ site with friends.  I also use Instagram, being selective of the accounts I follow and that follow me.  I also have a Linked-In account that I’d like to be using more effectively, but currently it’s not very active.  Finally, I had a Tumblr site to document my life in Micronesia, but since we moved, it has been inactive.

I’m looking forward to this class, and exploring different ways Social Media can be used!