Visualizations

ATTEMPT 1:

After being taught what exactly make photographs eye catching and great at depicting a message (such as the rule of thirds and lighting), I decided to give it another try. The first two pictures I took that were supposed to resemble "diversity among tech users" seemed unnatural and unclear at what I was aiming at. The following photographs are my first attempt:

This young lady had no idea I took this picture. She was so absorbed in what was happening with her playlist that she didn't notice me with a huge camera snapping away. I really thought this was a good depiction of what tech users are like on a daily basis. Technological gadgets range from use and purpose and this picture shows it. An iPod, used to pass the time while she waits for the bus and of course a very distracting tool .

Unlike the previous picture, this young lady was not using technology for entertainment. She was doing homework and checking information on Elms from what I spotted. Her screen is not completely visible. But the way she seemed to be concentrated and not distracted caught my eye, and again I snapped away with my camera. However, she did notice a girl with some camera aimed at her and asked what I was doing; this surprised me. Although she was working on one task, she was able to stay aware of her surroundings; multi-tasking. An outcome of what many believe is caused by the early introduction of technology at a young age. However, from what I encountered, not everyone can multi-task (effectively).

This photo above seemed to project the ability to multi-task as well. The young lady was using her laptop and cell phone simultaneously although she focused on one more than the other.

The diversity spotted amongst these photos is not that different. In fact, they seem to present more similarities. They are both female, college students probably around the same age. I tried to get males involved but it seemed that most of them weren't using technology on such a nice day. They were playing sports and involved in physical activities with other males.

ATTEMPT 2:

During the weekend I had planned to get some more shots by going to a local library or park, but due to midterms and projects that had to get done, I didn't have much time and instead used my family. Below is a picture I took of my younger brother playing his sony PSP or possibly using the Wifi. I took this shot because it gives a different view on diversity. First of all, he is male, and younger than the pictures of the females I took before. He is also using a different gadget. Instead of a laptop or phone, he is using a gaming system that also incorporates Wifi.

The two pictures that follow are of my grandmother. She is in her late 60s and manages to use a small-buttoned cell phone to call her daughter. I caught this moment on saturday evening and found it to be useful in depicting diversity among tech users because of the difference in age between her and the other subjects.

Online Visualizations

Diversity is defined in several different manners depending on the topic at hand. However, when you get down to it, it is basically the range and variety of whatever is being observed/examined/studied etc. In my topic, diversity among tech users covers an array of individuals. The most noticeable diversity classification is considered to be age. At least that is how many see it. Take the picture above for example, one of the words describing digital diversity is "youth." Age, seems to bring about an interesting topic. Many people assume only the youth and young are able to tame the technological world and disregard the skills of those who are older. Age becomes very visible as in the picture above as well; the young people are depicted as the wireless mouse and the older individuals are depicted as the bottom left mouse. All of those ranging in between and also depending on your skill are represented as the other mouses. However, the following photographs depict the diversity that can be found amongst all techies, no matter what age they are.

Of course, most of these photographs are used for commercials or marketing and do not provide a great deal of (useful) information. But, they do take into consideration the classifications. For instance, the last photograph of the senior citizens using the computer on the left was used in a TV commercial for an internet company. The company tried advertising that their internet is useful for all and for everything, even e-mailing photographs of grandkids to their tech-savvy grandparents. However, I think most of these pictures are generic; used as attention grabbers to those who fall under their classification. Therefore, I think that in order for them to provide educational or useful information at all about diversity, the photo must be accompanied by a caption or an article.

Adults Adapting to Technology

Adults have done a fairly well job in trying to keep up with the changing times of the 21st century. Most have gotten round to using email; some better late than never, have learned how to use text messaging. I know for a fact that my own mother texts me more than she calls me while I am away at college and it makes life easier sometimes. However, there is that older American generation who has tried to avoid the technology boom. Beth Azar from the American Psychological Association says that these adults “still do their banking with live tellers, write letters in long hand and hang up the phone on anything but a live voice” (2). The people in this world must come to the conclusion that technology has infiltrated almost every aspect of life. And it has come to the time where certain individuals need to take the responsibility of learning new technologies which will make their lives easier after they get comfortable with it. The only two disadvantages that Beth Azar tells us about is that (1) Older adults “tend to have little experience with technology, and (2) even the healthiest among them show declines in cognitive and motor function that can interfere with their ability to use technologies” (3). With time, older adults may or may not learn to use new technologies. But in the end, it comes down to whether they truly are competent enough to use the technology.

Contradictory to Beth Azar’s article from the American Psychological Association, the University of Delaware has conducted a study in which they presume that older adults’ motor skills may not interfere with their ability to use technology. Video games have always been blamed for weight gain, and the lack of fitness in little children and teens. However, the new game console Nintendo Wii has everyone up and about. There are games that allow people of all ages to play outdoor sports indoors. Wii tennis, Wii bowling, Wii baseball, and Wii Fit have everyone up and exercising. “Orsega-Smith from the Department of Behavioral Health and Nutrition at the University of Delaware, is conducting research on the use of “exergames” –games that require physical exertion as an input to gain feedback from the system—with older adults” (1). With a group of undergraduates, Orsega-Smith and her team “compared the caloric expenditure of playing various Wii sports games –bowling, tennis, and baseball—or 30 minutes….The calories burned ranged from a low of 18-89 for team bowling to a high of 22-114 for baseball. If we assume an average of about 50 calories for half an hour three times a week,” Orsega-Smith says, “that's 7,800 calories a year” (3). Even though older adults will be participating in these activities and studies, these activities are nowhere near helping them avoid chronic heart disease, high cholesterol, muscle fatigue, tendonitis, etc… But it is helping “slow down the ‘middle-age spread’ that occurs gradually with age” (4). It is better than doing nothing.

In light of the information we uncovered, we decided to create a survey that could either demonstrate that adults of previous generations are neglecting modernizing with technology or if they are adapting. The survey was composed of twelve questions that also asked for age, occupation, and gender. The questions are as follow:

1) To what extent, do you operate a mobile phone on a daily basis?
1 –Not at all 2 3-Moderate 4 5 –Frequently
2) To what extent, do you use the internet on a daily basis?
1 –Not at all 2 3-Moderate 4 5 –Frequently
3) On average, how many internet user accounts do you uphold on a daily basis? (ex: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc…)
1 2 3 4 5
4) To what extent, do you know how to operate Microsoft Office?
1 –Not at all 2 3-Moderate 4 5 –Proficiently
5) To what extent, do you know how to operate Photoshop?
1 –Not at all 2 3-Moderate 4 5 –Proficiently
6) To what extent, do you know how to operate iTunes?
1 –Not at all 2 3-Moderate 4 5 –Proficiently
7) On a daily basis, how often do you operate text messaging?
1 –Not at all 2 3-Moderate 4 5 –Proficiently
8) Do you own any gaming consoles?
0 1 2 3 4 5
9) Do you own a Smartphone?
Yes No
10) What is your occupation?
11) What is your age?
12) What is your gender?

We had originally planned to ask ten adults and in order to have a unit of comparison, we decided to ask ten college students/young adults the exact same questions. The method of surveying was slightly difficult. We did not want to create an account on surverymonkey.com or online in general because we thought it would skew our data from the start. If we decided to put the survey online, those who are not adapted to the internet will automatically be denied access. However, due to the short time, we sent out an e-mail containing the questions to the survey. We did not attach a file in order to make it simpler.

Unfortunately, out of the ten young adults/students we emailed, only eight replied. Yet, it is not as bad as the response we saw from the older adults. Out of eleven emails that were sent out, only two responded. We didn’t think two responses would be sufficient enough to support our study. Our prediction was that the surveys would demonstrate that our generation and those that follow have a greater interaction with technology. However, the adults will also show a greater interaction than that implied by Beth Azar’s article, but of course not at the same level as the college students sampled. In order to gather as much data as possible in the time we had, we re-emailed the surveys to students, and took a different approach for the adults. We did re-email them as well but we also did some physical interaction. Instead of using the internet, we printed the surveys and physically interacted with adults. We were able to get a University of Maryland professor from the College of Arts and Humanities to participate. Although, we wanted to get more professors involved, it was not possible because of the midterm assignments that were taking place this week. Nonetheless we were able to get a total six surveys done by adults and ten by young adults. The data was compiled into the following tables:




According to the data we collected, all the young adults use the internet, cell phones, and interact with technology as we had expected; although, there are a few exceptions. Students D and E do not own gaming consoles, Student D does not know how to operate iTunes at all, and more than half of the young adults’ surveyed do not own a smart phone.

With the data collected for older adults, there seems to be variation. Some of the adults use their mobile phones more than others, and half of those surveyed use the internet more than they use their mobile phones. There is a similarity in the ownership of smart phones in this group as was seen in the young adult group. Five out of the six do not own smart phones.

After analyzing the data, we came upon an alternate conclusion. Our predictions were supported by our findings. The adults that we were able to survey do interact with technology and incorporate it to some degree in their daily lives. The level of incorporation is seen to be higher among young adults as we had predicted as well. However, we did learn something new; that certain factors contribute to the older adults’ adaptation to technology. Looking at the data, it was clear that the occupation of the older adults had a level of correlation with how often or proficiently they function with technology. It is seen that the CEO has the highest level of technology incorporation on a daily basis. Compared to the educators that make up half of those surveyed, the lowest level of technology incorporation was seen among the carpenter and retired. We could infer that age might also have an influence, and it might, but in this case it is not such a great factor because the carpenter and CEO are nearly the same age. After taking this discovery into account, we concluded that there are many other factors such as age and ethnicity that can influence how much an older adult will adapt with technology. Yet, in this scenario our original predictions were supported.

18 & Under: Privacy & Control

If we look back a couple decades, many parents might wonder what parental control would have been like then. Today, parental control seems to take on a different definition. Tech users are no longer just adults with access to company computers and networks or college students and their first network experience. Tech users are as young as 5 years old (sometimes even less) and their gadgets come in quite a variety.

In the 1950s the most popular children toys were Mr. Potato Head and silly putty. The 1960s were taken over by G.I Joe, Lego’s, Candy Land, and Monopoly. Fast forward a couple decades and the popular toys for the 1990s were Power Rangers, Furby, and Tickle Me Elmo. The 2000s arrive and we have seen a change in the type of toys children are playing with. They’ve gone from toys to gadgets. The most popular ones include iPods, gaming systems, kid computers, and animatronic figures developed by Disney.

However, 2010 marks a different decade. We still have the top gadget toys as in the 2000s, but these gadgets are more advance, expensive, yet very accessible. The top gaming consoles in this decade according to consumersearch.com include the Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DSi, and Sony PSP. These gadgets are more advanced compared to those of the 2000s because of the incorporation of the internet, built in Wi-Fi, built in cameras, and much more. Thus with such new gadgets, parents’ concern for privacy, control, and security have never been so important before.

The concern for parental control has been on the rise recently because with so much accessibility, children and teenagers are vulnerable to receiving information that might not have been so accessible to children and teens of the 1950s. There used to be a time, when finding the definition of something meant going to a dictionary if not a library to read up on what it meant. Nowadays, one can simply search for it on the web if not use the thesaurus built in to our computers. Thus, companies have invented software and phone applications that can child-proof certain gadgets and parents can exercise some kind of security control. For instance, some companies like Website Rating and Advising Counsel Inc (WRAAC) offer a parental control internet bar where parents can block and filter certain websites that they don’t want exposed to their kids. This is very important nowadays because about 50% of children admit that they are not being watched when using a computer and the average age of first Internet exposure to pornography is 11 years of age.

Software for computers is not the only thing that can help with parental control; phone companies are also including services such as usage control, family locator, content filter, and service blocks to help protect their children from “sexting” and such. Privacy is not so private for the children and teens using the gadgets if they are being monitored by concerned parents. But there still are a great amount of children who are not being monitored at all. According to a study done by webwisekids.org in 2007, 25% of teenagers state that their parents know "little" or "nothing" about what they are actually doing online and 41% of parents of online teens do not know where their children are going online. In addition, 47% of homes with teens ages 15 to 17 are using some kind of filtering software whereas parents with children younger than15 use filtering software more often. This raises the issue of security. If parents are not monitoring or setting rules about the usage of the internet or gadgets that use the internet, many children are not aware of the dangers involved. The same webwisekkids.org study stated that8% of teens posted their cell phone numbers online and that 47% of teens are blasé about the information posted online and the negative affects it can have on their future or what others might do with their information.

This is very concerning, not only are kids posting information about themselves that is personal, but can also affect their parents. Privacy becomes a privilege for those who openly accept the internet and its wonders. But, if the user is underage, then parental control and security is vital.



http://www.parental-control-software-top5.com/internet-statistics.html
http://www.slideshare.net/believekids/most-popular-childrens-toys-by-decade
http://www.webwisekids.org/index.asp?page=statistics
http://wraac.org/about.html