Generation Like

I’m well familiar with the “like” and “share” options of different social media tools. However, my understanding of “likes” have always been limited to some amateur stuffs that people do when they roam around on the web. I actually never thought of the fact that likes could worth so much to someone. If we try to identify the winners of the like game, both the like generating people and the companies win. People who are successfully making followers are getting benefited by receiving fame, products, and cash. On the other hand, the companies are building their customer population analyzing the likes that each popular figure generates.

To recognize anyone who’s being exploited I’d say it’s the followers. Many of them are just following the crowd without realizing how their personal information is being monitored, collected, and used.  They of course, only get to follow, which is not any actual benefit that could be utilized for anything. Some people however, are aware of what’s going on. They would still “like” things to feel good or the connection to a specific group.

Generation Like

Oh man.  Wow.  That is one helluva video, to put it lightly.  And while I understand that these cases are of the extreme nature, to me it’s pretty crazy to see this attention-depraved way of thinking put on official display in this Douglas Rushkoff study.  It’s an unfortunate thing, as well, in my opinion.  Because teens shouldn’t have their overall happiness predicated on other people’s view of them, especially when it’s basically just off of aesthetics.  I do believe, though, that this is a natural byproduct of a teenager need-for-acceptance mentality when the most optimal platform in history (modern day smartphones) to utilize in putting oneself ‘out there’ is now owned by almost everyone.  One would hope though that possibly in the future, more exposure to how empty these feelings actually are (caring enough about ‘likes’ to put a paragraph of spam hasthtags under your Instagram picture to ultimately feel bettwr about yourself, for example) would eventually gravitate kids’ values more towards building meaningful relationships and bonding with family members than caring what other people think.  Because there’s a lot of better things to worry about even as a youngster.  Time will tell!

Generation Like

Generation Like described the use of the social network world in marketing. As a user of social networks, I am able to view how social networking platforms such as Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter help individuals market themselves. Generation Like portrays social media “likes” into currency. In this phase of social media, likes have the power to determine the significant you hold within the cyber social world.

In my opinion the “winners” would be the people who successfully market their business through the showcase of their lives on social networks. The losers would be the people and ideas that go unnoticed due to the popularity of other users. Likes are what consume the interface of the internet. But where do we draw the line of this significance, or do we ever draw the line?

I believe that teens are fully aware of the “like currency”. Through this video there are various “internet famous” people who know exactly the business that they are in. There are teens all over the internet that try to gain popularity on the internet. There are teens who study the patterns of the internet and plan their videos according to what they think will gain likes. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how outrageous the content of the video is. The social platforms that we used to use for communication, have turned into a complex money making business.

Generation Like

I believe that people who use social media are better able to develop their life than people who don’t use it. Social media is the new way to collaborate, share, and communicate with people from all over the world which helps to strengthen relationships. On the other hand, someone who commits cybercrime or gets a mental illness from using social media is a loss in this situation because they are using it in the wrong way and experience the downfall of using.

Teenagers are able to exploit social media. They do this by posting videos as a way to express themselves and show the world who they are. After that, companies will try to reach out to teenagers who generated videos and posts that have a lot of followers to make money. It turns social media into another toy for teenagers.

Most teenagers don’t know how to utilize the social media. In this video, we can see teenagers who become really successful through social media but these teens are only a small fraction of the vast amount of people who use social media. Many teenagers utilize social media to play around instead of reaching out for help. This is because teenagers won’t know how to judge what is right and wrong without any advice from someone such as teachers and parents.

Facebook post saves girl’s vision

Recently a Mississippi mother posted a photo of her 3 year old daughter on Facebook after she had just gotten a new haircut; like any other mother would. What happened after that was nothing short of a miracle. A few friends realized that there was a ‘glow’ in one of the girls eyes. Concerned friends commented on the post and explained how it might not be anything serious but to check her eye out with a doctor to see if there are any medical reason as to why her eye was glowing. Soon enough through various tests a retina specialist diagnosed her with Coats disease, a rare condition that can lead to blindness. The doctor explained how if this had not been detected as soon it had been she, “probably would have ended up having a total retinal detachment, with total vision loss.” This is another way how unintentional daily interactions through social media can have beneficial consequences. For if this mother never posted a photo on Facebook for all her friends to see, her daughter might not have been as lucky as she is today.

http://http://www.today.com/health/facebook-post-saves-girls-vision-glow-eye-raises-alarm-2D79484677

Top social media site and how we can get benefit from them

We know that social media tools are the best way to interact with each other users on the internet. According to the USA today, Thirty-five percent of adults on the internet now have a profile on at least one social networking site, and 51 percent have more than one. Three-quarters of users between the ages of 18 and 24 have and online profile. It means that we need to know what the benefit of social media tools is in order to improve our lives. Here is the website that show us top social media site and how we can get benefit from them.

Frontline

In this situation, the marketers, advertisers, and corporations in general are winning, while the consumers (in this case: teenagers) are the ones losing. Interestingly enough, the marketers have cleverly devised a way to make the consumer feel as if the behavior of “liking” is a self-induced activity, when in actuality, the advertisers are purposely setting everything up for the consumer to behave in this way. The mere connectedness companies have with each other allow for corporations to reach from a convenient inter-web of consumer information. Therefore, consumers become predictable..while companies COULD spend time manufacturing the next big thing, (this is what companies USED to do) companies no longer need to think about what product to make because the consumer is able to pitch their own ideas in. For instance: the new Lays campaign focuses on the idea that anyone can make their own nationally popular flavor. The key thing here is that people vote on each flavor–the one that has the most “like’s” will win a tidy sum of money. Here is my point though, consumers are essentially doing the creators and marketers job….because after someone posts their potato chip flavor, they’ll probably share it to get people to vote on it, and voting on it will bring more people to Lays. So good one lays.

Generation Like

I think Generation Like is an accurate depiction of how most kids and young adults utilize social media outlets. It’s a bit trivial for someone to rely and depend on how many likes or views their posts or videos generate just to validate themselves. It’s understandable that companies would want to reach out to individuals who have generated a high amount of followers, likes, and subscribers, but this eventually transforms the individual’s social media platforms into tools to build the individual’s personal brand as well as the company’s brand. Instead of using it as a source to express themselves or post things they want to show people and not to profit by showing off the goods that the company sponsored them with, it’s more like a marketing/advertising tool for companies. It’s as if the company took over the user’s social media accounts for their own benefit.

Generation Like has shown that it’s pretty much a win-win situation for both the individual and the company that’s sponsoring that individual. In return for showcasing the company’s goods to their social media accounts, they receive free gear, cash or other forms of payment. There’s really no loser unless the individual’s followers decide to unfollow or not like the user’s posts/videos because their product reviews are deceiving. For example, the individual can just be saying nice things about a product to keep getting sponsored, when in actuality that product isn’t great quality. The individual would be losing the audience that they probably took a while to generate. Teens/young adults are being exploited and so are their personal social media platforms. I think they’re aware of their exploitation, but so long as they benefit in some way, they’re probably fine with it.

generation like

I’ll be honest—I didn’t really like Generation Like, though I’m still having a little trouble digesting all of the ideas presented. Unlike Digital Nation, which frustrated me to no end, Generation Like hit a little bit closer to home. I am newly 19, so I guess I still qualify as a teen? I can’t figure out if I’m supposed to be one of the troubled kids that Doug Rushkoff and the other experts constantly refer back to.

Personally, I do not consider likes to be a currency. The favorites I get on my tweets do not validate my existence. I do not take social media seriously enough for it to make that much of an impact on my self-worth. That being said, I definitely know people who value and internalize likes. I don’t think social media encourage one type of behavior or another; they just amplify a user’s pre-existing desires. It’s a matter of perception.

Rushkoff talks about teens like he knows what’s best for them, but they deserve a lot more credit than what he’s giving them. I hope he doesn’t think that all teen friend groups sit around the table and help each other develop their social media brands. (That was a little weird, it has to be some sort of social anomaly.) There’s a difference between what those teens were doing—cultivating their personal brands for the sake of likes—and what Tyler Oakley does.

I’m not a fan of Oakley’s work. I’m glad that he’s doing well for himself, but I feel like the Web is over-saturated with his presence and I’m sick of it. Apparently, he knows how  to play the game though. In fact, he’s self-aware enough that he can give corporate presentations. However, when “Ceili Everdeen” spends four to five hours daily promoting The Hunger Games via all her social media platforms, it’s the game that’s playing her. I don’t think it’s about “fame by association,” rather feeling engaged.

Oakley makes actual money because he endorses these brands in his videos in a way that’s transparent but still productive. Ceili earns sparks because she makes GIFS on Tumblr or shares a Facebook post on a friend’s wall. I’m moderately sure that Ceili knows the difference between sparks and money; fangirling is not an occupation. There’s a lot of layers to the issue that Rushkoff presents, but I don’t think he does it justice. Though the economy of likes is thoroughly stratified, he seems to want to treat Oakley, Ceili, and the kids from Jersey gathered around the table meticulously planning out their profiles all the same.

The economic underbelly of the Web has always confused me, and Generation Like only added to that confusion. To balance that with a little more positivity, I do like Rushkoff’s style as a documentarian. He’s very good at smooth transitions and developing an ideological arc.

Generation Like

Before watching the Generation Like video I did not think that Likes had a really big effect. I though of likes of simply a easier way to say I like something rather than commenting. It is a faster way to say I agree with the content I guess? compared to constantly commenting on everyone’s post. I also did not think that what I liked really mattered because I did not think that people actually looked at it. It was interesting that likes matter outside of the individual because i thought the amount of likes only mattered to the individual.

I think that what the company’s are doing is actually really smart, in the video it said that they are using us to advertise for them. It is smart because this lowers their transaction cost, they don’t have to really pay us and we are willing to do it for them. Having people normal people who have a lot of followers and likes is what the companies are aiming for. Normal people are able to reach other normal people we feel a closer connection to them than to celebrities. Having someone that we follow or subscribe to tell us a product makes us think oh they a average Joe like me, maybe I would like that product also. Also many people that do reviews start out by doing it on their own so their review is more genuine compared to actual advertisement. Tyler Oakley also said that although he is being sponsored he wants to keep the reviews real because he knows that people want a genuine review. And if he were to just advertise, people will be less interested and maybe unfollow/unlike him.

I also loved the comparison to the Hunger Games because it does seem like the Hunger Games. You have to present yourselves to the public usually in an entertaining form like singing or funny videos. And in order to stay in the game we need to get likes the only difference is that we are not forced we voluntarily put ourselves on the internet. You can find out a lot about a person by going on their Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram and Twitter. Our followers and likes is like the qualification for the companies to find us and put us in the “games”.  Another thing I think that likes and followers do is it widens the filter bubble that has been created for us. Like in the video when someone that you follows does a video with another person you start to notice the other person and explore more. In turn we are widening our filter bubble in our own ways.

Generation Like-Do you have “Like” Currency?

Generation Like a documentary, explores the concept of “Like” currency. Groups and many individuals that have embraced this new concept in our social media age were highlighted and have exposed the idea behind this phenomenon. As described in the documentary, the concept of “like” is no longer the same. Instead it has become a representation and a currency for what the world thinks of you and what you represent.

I find the idea of likes as currency is quite interesting in the sense that you can do so much more with how much people like you and having it visible to others. It was always apparent to me what likes could do, but what this documentary pointed out about the extent that it can reach surprises me. How something so simple as a like on a photo or a page can trigger a series of events that have a large impact is just surreal. As explained by Rushkoff everything is intertwined. How many likes you have, what you like, who see’s it all and who actually controls this currency are all linked in one way or another. Digital marketing plays a huge part in this. Tyler Oakley is a great example. Tyler has millions of fans on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook etc… What he likes, how many people like him and the brand marketers are all interacting with one another. As explained by the founder of The Audience, when Tyler likes the same thing that another person likes, who also likes him it becomes a double endorsement for the brand. This then is linked to how the brand may reach out and reward in a way, for this interaction. A interaction all based on likes.

I believe that like currency is the key for business like Taco Bell as mentioned in the documentary. This key can clearly separate the winners and losers from all of this- those who have more like than others and receive endorsements by brands are the winners. At the same time, those who reigning in this like currency are being exploited in a way that they not be aware of. Like the girl who started a YouTube page for singing. Even her mother hated to admit that certain moves will generate more like whether you like it or not, it’s not under your control.

Teens nowadays, those who grew up in this culture are fully aware of the implications that a “like” has. They want to be liked, it’s become the social norm. They know what gets people to like them and what doesn’t work. However, I don’t think that they pay much attention to the negative implications. Which can cause outcomes to go either way depending on what they are.

Generation Like

Admittedly, I didn’t realize there was a power behind “likes”, both in the economic and social environment. Upon watching the documentary Generation Like (hosted by Douglas Rushkoff), I gained insight into the power that “likes” have. Simply clicking the like button on Facebook, on YouTube or virtually any site, generates a wide variety of information about yourself that is accessible to people or groups with the right means. The groups who would care about such information would be companies, companies want to know what you like so that they are able to create a profile that they think best describes you for the purposes of advertising the right things to you and making you want to purchase.

Though I believe that there are winners and that they are companies that sell and buy such information, I do not believe that there are losers in this situation – however, I don’t think that it won’t be that way for long. At the moment, we click “like” on websites because we want others to know that we like something so how can we be losers when we consciously know that we are giving up information to be seen by the public? However, we can become losers if companies giving away our “likes” information for profit start to move beyond that and give up more or more private information without us consciously being aware of it.

Above, I spoke about the economic power but the social power of “likes” is nothing to be scoffed at. “Likes” have become something like a scale that measures peoples’ popularity or social standing. Everyone strives to get more “likes” in an attempt to be more popular, to be more liked or to seem superior to others who can’t get as much likes as them. I think that teens are somewhat aware of the power of “likes” but perhaps they don’t see what it does to their views of people. A teenager that has a lot of “likes” is instantly a hit and becomes someone that others look up to. However, a teenager with little or no “likes” would be looked down on. I think that here is definitely a power behind “likes” and that it is still growing and can become something dangerous for the average person in terms of privacy and information.

 

Spring Break

I’ll be around during spring break (although I make take a day or two off). If you’d like to email me or stop by my office, I’ll be here. The library will be open its regular 7 am to 12 midnight hours every day.

Enjoy your time off!

Author of 1000 Books?

I read this article that talks about a man named Philip Parker who developed an algorithm that writes books. It is actually really interesting because the algorithm is able to think like a human being. It can write X amount of books for a certain genre by using words from the dictionary and analyzing how other books of the same genre are written. Think about how creativity, literature and publishing has become. At first we are able to publish  what we want at an amateur level but now we are  taking the amateurization to a new level where it is getting closer to  a “professional” level with an algorithm. And I’m not sure is the created works are considered professional because it was written with an algorithm, there was no thought put into it. Being able to think is what differentiates humans and computers but it seems that the algorithm is able to think for us.

Frontline : Generation Like

Frontline’s documentary Generation Like hosted by Douglas Rushkoff is the first documentary I have seen related to current trends on Facebook, YouTube and other forms of social media. They take into account the psychological, social, and economical factors that effect social media; in ways we may not even be aware of. As an avid social media user, many of the examples that were brought up in the movie resonate well with my own contributions to sites such as Facebook and Youtube.

Rushkoff goes on to explain how “likes” on Facebook and Social media sites have become a sort of currency, especially for the younger generations. The idea of “likes”  through social media is pretty simple, one person see what their friend likes, so that person likes it, then another friend sees that person’s likes, and likes that. Through this a cycle has started where friends are vouching for a certain piece of media or company or idea or whatever it might be and sharing it with their whole social group without even knowing it.

This is big business for companies such as Coca-Cola and McDonalds. It is essentially the new form of advertisement. This is the reason why many companies are working to build their brand through likes. It has become a multi-billion dollar company where us (the user) is their bilboard.

Watts & Strogatz: Small World Network

Watts and Strogatz cited 27 references in their study which were spread across such subjects as math, natural science including ecology  and psychology. They themselves were cited a total of 8,749 times and those citations were mostly concentrated in the fields of physics followed by math and computer. The top 3 authors citing Watts and Strogatz’s work were Cheng GR (1.116 %), Wang BH (1.043 %) and Zhou T (0.999 %).

The areas utilizing the most citations for this work is the field of physics (46.872 %) which is almost half of the total results. The next two largest fields are computer science (14.244 %) followed by math (10.382 %). Over the years and up until 2013 the pattern of citations has shown a continuous upward trend which shows that this study is still highly relevant and useful even today.

Generation Like – Zhen’s Reflection

Have you ever wondered what happens when you click the Like button on Facebook? Or retweet something you like on Twitter? Or subscribe to your favorite YouTube channel? A couple instances of this mindless act may not have any significant effects. However, with all of instances of you performing these actions; imagine how much information about you is being shared over the internet. Douglas Rushkof in Generation Like explains how this data may be used against us. However, I think this scenario is more harmful than what’s shown on the surface.

Social media users, including myself, benefit from these social platforms. We use it to keep in touch with old friends and family and to meet new friends. However, I believe this benefit is short lived. Some social media platforms claimed that user information, upon request, will remain private. How many people do you know actually knows how to turn on the privacy settings on Facebook, Twitter, or other social medias? Even if the information is hidden from public view, what is stopping from these websites/firms from selling off your information to a third party? The more established firms, like Facebook, may not do this publicly because their reputation is on the line. However, what is stopping a website/company that is on the edge of bankruptcy from doing this?

I believe it is time to revert back to the traditional way of keeping in touch with people; in person. Why not treat your friend to lunch instead of a Facebook message? Or mail your girlfriend a birthday card instead of texting her with emoji smileys? Perhaps bring your coworker a wedding invitation instead of a simple invite over email? With the lowered transaction cost, some actions performed over the internet won’t transcript the same sincerity (or insincerity) as you have hoped for in an in person interaction. Generation Like mentioned that some people require therapy to ease their technology addiction. Despite what the therapy methodologies may be, I believe the most effective solution is human interactions.

Watts and Strogatz, Web of science

Watts and Strogatz in their article “Collective Dynamics of ‘Small-World Networks” has cited 27 other sources. The subjects of the 27 articles cited by them can be characterized as math and sciences. Watts and Strogatz’s article has been cited by 8709 other articles. It is popular amongst the Physics multidisciplinary sciences with a record count of 1622 citations. Along with the physics multidisciplinary sciences would be the computer sciences with 135-303 citations. The articles that cites this article the least are in the environmental and biological sciences category with less than 150 citations. The top three authors that cited the paper were Chen, Gr, Wang, BH and Zhou, T.  The statistics of the pattern of citations predicts that the numbers will only go up as time passes as it already looks that way.

  • -# of sources that cited them : 8709
  • -top 3 authors that cited the paper :CHEN GR,WANG BH,ZHOU T
  • -cites the most : physics and science
  • -cites the moderate amt: computer science
  • -cites the least: environmental and biological sciences

Blogging Activity Due April 10

We  won’t be meeting for class on April 10 (next Thursday). By the end of the day (April 10), I’d like you to have posted your thoughts about the Generation Like video that we watched part of in class today. For this assignment, you will need to watch the rest of the video on your own time.

I’d like to get from each of you a blog post of 2-3 paragraphs with your reactions to the trends and ideas expressed in the video. Here are some questions to consider as you compose your response:

  •  who are the winners in all of this? who are the losers?
  • is anyone being exploited?
  • how aware do you think the teens are of what’s going on?

Please note that you don’t need to answer these specific questions. There are provided here to get you to think a bit more deeply about the video and engage your imagination.

If you’re interested, a complete transcript of the video can be found on the website for Generation Like.