Your attention please

Is digital communication ruining our ability to pay attention or think great thoughts? Colbert and his guest, Nicholas Carr, have some thoughts on this issue.

Now, pardon me while I get back to my Pinterest boards.

Update: if you’re worried about your brain’s ability to deal with distractions, this link to a Fast Company article on that topic just came across my Twitter stream. Heh.

Facebook and privacy

The New York Times has a thought-provoking article on how Facebook uses our collective data, including not just “Weblining,” but also how Facebook data could be used to make decisions that affect you, even if you aren’t a user!

Do you agree with Lori Andrews’ conclusion that “We need a do-not-track law, similar to the do-not-call one”?

Faux pas or ethics challenged?

The Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media occasionally highlights a “Friday Faux Pas,” in which someone has done something spectacularly stupid on a social media platform.

The stories on the site range from a “rogue tweet” by a Red Cross employee who apparently didn’t know how to use Hootsuite, and a nurse who posted pictures of patients… in the operating room.

Idiots!

But are these really just “faux pas,” or do they represent a larger ethical issue? Namely, the separation/lack of separation between personal and professional in the age of social media. Is it possible to keep your personal and professional lives separate? Is it possible to separate them in real life, much less online? Should we even try?

Using Ushahidi

Here’s another example of how Ushahidi can be used, this time in monitoring the Egyptian governmental transition.

Amateurs vs. Professionals

This week our class is thinking about the pros and cons of amateur vs. professional digital content. I found this goofy video on YouTube where about 50% of the dialogue is from Craigslist ads (according to the creator), highlighting some differences in amateur vs. professional thinking about photography. Do you think amateurs in any field are likely to put so much emphasis on equipment? And why does the professional think experience counts for so much?

JRMC 8160, Spring 2012

This is a group blog for students enrolled in JRMC 8160, Social Media, during spring semester 2012. We are grad students in the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.

There are 9 students participating in the group blog. Please see the Links section on the sidebar for links to individual blogs for other students in the class.