Tag: Twitter

02/2/11

Technological Advantages

Observing past cultures based on what has been left behind by civilizations of past generations has been the bread and butter of modern day historians. By examining hieroglyphics, clothing, jewelry, and many more artifacts that have been uncovered, historians are able to learn more about these extinct societies and show how their traditions and culture has influenced ours.

The article “Archiving Tweets” By Lauren explained how the tweets of millions of people are being recorded and archived in the library of congress. This article raise’s the provocative questions of whether the idea of storing people’s tweets a good idea or not and what would be the purpose of it. In the article Luke defended the idea of recording tweets in order for our future historians to learn about our present day culture through our daily posts. I agree with Luke’s stand point that tweets should be recorded because even though the information recorded now about a man’s “failed attempt to make a toasted tomato sandwich” does not seem like much to us, that post connected with many other post may help historians a century down the line learn more about society in the early 21’st century.

02/2/11

How do you know me? Haha I follow you on Twitter

Technology is the dominating and yet damning factor in our time. It is responsible for our advancement as a civilization, the laid back lifestyle many lead and the primary source of information, whether that be for social or corporate matters. With this new technology comes new ways of gathering information on individuals. On twitter.com you may “follow” people of interest and stay up to date on their every typed out thought, regardless of the value of the information. The Library of Congress now records this information, and I think future historians may find both useful and useless information while studying these archives. For example any type of information, no matter how seemingly random, has a great deal of value under the right circumstances. Let’s say that 35 years from now a political science historian wants to search information on the issues of current times, they can view the recorded feed of a white house official and gather information. Let’s say a psychologist 35 years from now is studying relationships in the past, now that break up with your girlfriend is a primary source for their book. Information is always valuable if not now, then at some future point, even if at the time it seems to be a waste. If you think about it, Twitter is actually a time/date chronicled database of our thoughts, feelings, opinions and beliefs for the world to see. It is the digital file cabinet with “last name/ first name” that defines us.

In the case of WikiLeaks, information that was classified found its way out to the public, thus raising questions as to what we can actually believe that our government is feeding us. Examples given in the article reference the situation regarding, “the Gulf Arab states want forceful action against Iran”. While it has been a widely know thought, we have been told that the situation was more of an escalated dispute, with WikiLeaks, it’s confirmed that this situation is more of a harbinger of war type scenario. Future historians can review the way we, in the present time, react to learning about this information. They can then connect our thoughts, such as those posted on twitter, to how we may have actually reacted. Historians may also view the release of these documents as groundbreaking, and see the political aspect of how the government kept themselves together during these times.

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Technology is the dominating and yet damning factor in our time. It is responsible for our advancement as a civilization, the laid back lifestyle many lead and the primary source of information, whether that be for social or corporate matters. With this new technology comes new ways of gathering information on individuals. On twitter.com you may “follow” people of interest and stay up to date on their every typed out thought, regardless of the value of the information. The Library of Congress now records this information, and I think future historians may find both useful and useless information while studying these archives. For example any type of information, no matter how seemingly random, has a great deal of value under the right circumstances. Let’s say that 35 years from now a political science historian wants to search information on the issues of current times, they can view the recorded feed of a white house official and gather information. Let’s say a psychologist 35 years from now is studying relationships in the past, now that break up with your girlfriend is a primary source for their book. Information is always valuable if not now, then at some future point, even if at the time it seems to be a waste. If you think about it, Twitter is actually a time/date chronicled database of our thoughts, feelings, opinions and beliefs for the world to see. It is the digital file cabinet with “last name/ first name” that defines us.

In the case of Wikileaks, information that was classified found its way out to the public, thus raising questions as to what we can actually believe that our government is feeding us. Examples given in the article reference the situation regarding, “the Gulf Arab states want forceful action against Iran”. While it has been a widely know thought, we have been told that the situation was more of an escalted dispute, with wikileaks, it’s confirmed that this situation is more of a harbinger of war type scenario. Future historians can review the way we, in the present time, react to learning about this information. They can then connect our thoughts, such as those posted on twitter, to how we may have actually reacted. Historians may also view the release of these documents as groundbreaking, and see the political aspect of how the government kept themselves together during these times.

02/2/11

Where’s The Line?

I do not see the point of archiving the billions of tweets on twitter in the library of congress.  If the intention is for historical purposes I would contend  that billions of tweets are too much to sift through to be historically relevant. Historians already have enough trouble sifting through the surplus of information out there.  It would be much more productive not logging the tweets themselves but rather the trending topics.  With the trending topics you can keep track of what the hot button issues of the times are. Seeing what the most searched topics are on search engines would also be a suitable tool for historians. Blog posts and things of that nature are much more formidable tools for historians and are all meant to be publicized.

My biggest problem with this though is the privacy issue.  Not so much so about the tweets but about where it made lead.  This could be the start of a troubling trend.  It seems like the government time and time again moves the line governing privacy closer and closer into our personal space.  This is the first step in a process that’s sure to get worse. We should learn from the Allie’s mistake in world war 2 and stop Hitler at Munich. We need to draw a line.

Line in the Sand

02/2/11

Breaking Tweets: The New Media

We all have been historians in one way or another, researching data for a paper we need to write for history class, or any class for that matter. It was only just a decade ago when I had to go to a public library to look for old newpaper clippings. I remember vividly how I had to go to this one specific library that comprises Periodicals. Looking back at it now, I am very envious of future generations that could now gather much more information with just a few simple clicks.

There are no other time in the past where finding information would be as easy as today. Information travels as fast as a few seconds for your post to be updated on the web. The social media Twitter is the living proof to this testimony. In 2009, when Tiger Woods’ car crashed, the information was already being tweeted on Twitter for over 45 minutes before it even appeared on CNN or ESPN, which are consider the worldwide leaders in news in their respective fields. Twitter changes the way we live and how we access information. Twitter is only a valuable tool demonstrated by how the users chooses to ulitilize it.

Although there are a lot of debates on the issue about how the Library of Congress is archiving every public tweets, how the future historians choose to use these information determines the relevance and significance of this decision. I agreed that there are alot of irrelevant posts on twitter, but the value of this information as a whole is the challege that future historians face.

02/2/11

There is no “everyone” in PRIVACY, or is there?

We’ve come a long way from the strenuous and tedious handwritten recordings on paper. Entering the 21st century, the Internet era has completely taken over. The technology of computers and other electronics has not only become tools to enhance productivity but has become the way we live. People are constantly on the Internet looking for data, whether it is  information to help them on their project to even information on social networking sites to see what their friends new status is. Whatever it is you’re looking for, the Internet probably offers it. This is a huge step forward in information gathering. It helps not only everyday people but as well as historians whom are always sifting through loads of information. With that comes consequences as well. The access to information has become so easily attained that people have become reliant on technology and the Internet. People become mind boggled when something unexpected happens: like their phone running out of batteries. Also people do not appreciate the information attained when generations before people would die (exaggerated) for these information.

In addition, another issue rises. With sites like Twitter and Wikileaks being archived, people may feel that our privacy is taken away from us. Ultimately, that is the case. There really are no secrets on the Internet. Once it is posted on the Internet, there is no way of taking it back. With that, people need to start screening what they post if they don’t want their secrets being found. Nonetheless, the Internet still is a great aspect to our future.

02/2/11

tools for future

Since people invented computer, the speed of gathering information have go beyond people’s conceivability. It becomes easier for historians to gather information of historical evidence from internet and database than before. The article, Archiving Tweets by Lauren says that the library of congress digitally archive every public tweets. I think it is a good ways to historian search online. People may concern that is huge among of data need to process every day. However, it is not a problem because each piece of tweets can be valuable historical evidences for future. Therefore, Twitter leaves a valuable property for our future generation.
The other article is talking about Wiki Leak. Wiki Leaks dumps a lot of documents which have hidden by political interest. I personally believe that it is not right to hide things that happen around us. History is belong to human, so everyone should have right to know it. Wiki Leaks not only exposes historical documents to us, but also illuminate there are incalculable documents that we need to explore. As a result, Wiki Leaks can be alarm to prevent government hiding history.

02/1/11

Tweet into history

In the past couple of decades, the standar

ds of privacy has been on much of a decline for the most part. Few people in the 1980’s had cell phones, now people are “tweeting” and “facebooking” about their where-abouts, recent vacations, and even feelings. People are not realizing that everything published digitally is (or can be) easily archived. Besides for the fact that complete strangers are able to observe your every post, posting pictures and thoughts can always come back to be held against you in the future.

Wikileaks also for example. Although I am not entirely familiar with the site, thanks to recent new head linings, I am not surprised this website was shut down for posting confidential information. Everything can be traced back to its author and nothing can be hidden on the internet. As safe as we may think we are, we are not. We must think before posting anything as nothing goes unnoticed…

02/1/11

You are being recorded!

Technology has advanced immensely in the past few decades, and as a result society has become more and more reliant on it. Along with the advances in technology came changes in other various aspects of society such as communication and government. Not a day goes by that people do not use the Internet or technology somehow, whether it is to send an e-mail, update their status on Facebook or Twitter, post something on their blog, or even check the news. People use technology to spread information and post their opinions on controversial topics. It is only natural that because of this change, the way that historical evidence is gathered, as well as the medium of historical evidence, changes also.

Websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Wikipedia are all used by normal, everyday people to transmit personal and general information. It is no secret to the government and the rest of society how influential these websites can be to the public. Therefore the government takes full advantage by apparently archiving the “tweets” posted by every user on the newly popular Twitter, a website where people can “tweet” random thoughts as long as they remain under 140 characters. Many would ask what the purpose of this is? Does the government really care about our random everyday ramblings? The question of whether or not this violates privacy laws is raised in this situation, however the fact that we post these things online make it automatically public. Not only does the government take advantage of the world wide web, but so does society and its people. Recently, WikiLeaks, a site that is not run by the government, released government documents regarding foreign policy. In many cases this shows how normal everyday people take advantage of technology by publicly posting government documents. Both the government and its citizens make use of the advanced technology presented to us today which is why the different aspects of historical evidence has changed.

02/1/11

Welcome to the Future of No Privacy!

In the past decade, people have grown to be more and more dependent on technology. Technology offers us many advantages. It allows us to connect with people around the world. In addition, technology has the answers to our questions, even the silliest ones. Most people cannot go a day withour their phones, checking their email, or logging onto Facebook. It is through our reliance on technology that future historians are able to have some insight as to who the people in the 2000 era are like. Tweets, Facebook statuses, and Tumblr posts document our lifestyles. Archiving tweets is a useful method in gathering information. The WikiLeaks dump can also provide valuable data for historians since it will give clues to the political affairs of America and foreign nations. Historians no longer have to dig or go through caves to find information because they can easily find it now.

However, there is a privacy issue. Should the government draw a line as to the type of information it is collecting? I personally do not think it is necessary to archive all the Tweets because some of it contain personal information. This practice of providing information for future historians does make me wonder if there is privacy anymore. I think is great that we found a way to let future historians know more about us but people should be able to have some privacy of their own that nobody can google.

02/1/11

Your information is exposed!

In today’s society technologies are more advanced than it was back then. We are able to put information electronically instead of storing them as books or documents. When Historians need to do research on information that they need, they no longer have to go through books. Instead they can simply go on any archive that is stored electronically and get the information.

For example, the link about Twitter has me thinking that if I were to use a Twitter account and tweeted almost every minute of what I did in a day,  in the future if a Historian wanted to check back on me because of some odd reason, he would just need to look through the Twitter archives. There is no need to ask the people around me about what type of person I am, the things I did and how I lived my life. A Twitter archive can have many benefits for future Historians but it also has a drawback. Having a Twitter archive remove privacy from people, things that people might not want others to see will be seen by all.

With all these new technologies in today’s society, there is no need to worry about losing information because it is safely stored and backed up in case of any problems. This also gives us the fact that we have no privacy since we do not think of all the people that may see our post or blog. There is always an access to most of the things that we use.

In the website Wiki Leaks, we can get so many information about our histories. Wiki Leaks is a type of media that publish original sources along with their stories so readers and Historians can see evidence of the truth. I think that Wiki Leaks is a great site for future historians to look through and gather information for their research. Future Historians would most likely be able to have a more convenient way of accessing information.

02/1/11

Post At Your Own Risk!

Today almost everything we do is noticed. What we say, what we do, where we go, are all being watched somehow. This provides historians with much fodder to analyze. Historians of the future will be able to look back on the past and have access to piles of information about every citizen. The scientists will be able to gather all this information through Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, MySpace, blogs, and any other web based social network. The scariest part about this is that we give all the information away, without even realizing it. In the past such extensive records were only kept on a few famous people, if even that. Today, almost everybody engages in social networking, allowing any stranger to access more information then they should be permitted to.

The fact that Twitter is being archived is not a surprise to me. Whether Congress announced it or not, everything that is done on the web can be traced back to its user. If one doesn’t want the world to know about something, then do not post it on Twitter. When you post a tweet you are putting your information into cyberspace, and once something is created you can never completely destroy it. It is easier now to spread information then it has ever been. If one wants to invite everybody to a party they can quickly send out an email, post a status, or put up a picture, and soon their entire group of friends would know about that party. The information travels so quickly that we get aggravated if our Internet page takes more than 2 seconds to load. This is what we are dealing with! Due to the ease of spreading electronic data, I was also not shocked when “confidential” data was leaked on WikiLeaks. There is always one person in every office that is willing to give up information for a small price. We see this in many industries. Today we download music CDs weeks before they even comes out, and that is only possible because somebody leaked it out. Leaking private information is nothing new, but due to today’s technology it spreads much quicker.