Luddite. December 2023. Page Version ID: 1189255462. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Luddite&oldid=1189255462 (visited on 2023-12-10).
This article talks about the Luddites were 19th-century English textile workers who destroyed machinery to protest being replaced by cheaper, unskilled labor. The movement was violently suppressed by the British government, and today "Luddite" is used to describe anyone resistant to new technology.
As a potential worker in the tech industry, you might someday find yourself in a position where you have influence over how social media platforms are designed, programmed, or operated (e.g., you could be a programmer, designer, or content moderator).
In my opinion, tech workers often underestimate the influence they have. The decisions they make in design and programming aren't just technical they have real effects on people's lives, so that responsibility shouldn't be taken lightly.
Merriam-Webster. Definition of CAPITALISM. December 2023. URL: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/capitalism (visited on 2023-12-10).
This article states that capitalism is an economic system where individuals and businesses own resources and make decisions about production and sales. Prices and profits are mainly determined by competition in the marketplace.
In what ways do you see capitalism, socialism, and other funding models show up in the country you are from or are living in?
In the United States, you can see capitalism in everyday life through private businesses, jobs, and competition between companies. At the same time, the government provides services like public education and healthcare programs for some groups, which reflects ideas often associated with socialism.
Trauma and Shame. URL: https://www.oohctoolbox.org.au/trauma-and-shame (visited on 2023-12-10).
This article talks about how shame is a normal part of child development, but in trauma it becomes overwhelming and unprocessed, eventually forming the core of a child's identity ("I'm bad…Shame is a normal part of child development, but in trauma it becomes overwhelming and unprocessed, eventually forming the core of a child's identity ("I'm bad, I'm worthless"). This leads to defensive behaviors like lying, rage, and blame shifting, and the only way to help these kids change is by addressing the shame directly with empathy.
What do you consider to be the most important factors in making an instance of public shaming bad?
I think an important factor in making an instance of public shaming bad is if people do it for entertainment. Public shaming can be done for different reasons but when done to criticize for entertainment purposes is bad.
Doxing. December 2023. Page Version ID: 1189390304. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Doxing&oldid=1189390304
This article mentions how doxing means publicly sharing someone's personal info without consent and has grown from a niche hacker tactic in the 90s into a widespread form of online harassment. It covers real examples like Gamergate, the Boston Marathon bombing misidentifications, and journalists revealing anonymous public figures. It also touches on how laws around doxing are pretty limited, especially in the US.
Have you experienced or witnessed harassment on social media (that you are willing to share about)?
I have witnessed harassment on social media, my friend was being harassed by a kid at our school and everytime she would block them, they would make a new account. It got to the point where we had to tell the staff at our school.
16.2.1. Crowdsourcing Platforms# Some online platforms are specifically created for crowdsourcing. For example: Wikipedia [p12]: Is an online encyclopedia whose content is crowdsourced. Anyone can contribute, just go to an unlocked Wikipedia page and press the edit button. Institutions don’t get special permissions (e.g., it was a scandal when US congressional staff edited Wikipedia pages [p13]), and the expectation that editors do not have outside institutional support is intended to encourage more people to contribute.
I think that Wikipedia is one of the biggest platforms for crowd sourcing because of it's versatility, topics can range from history to political. Also since anybody can edit an article on wikipedia.
Crowdsourcing. December 2023. Page Version ID: 1188348631. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Crowdsourcing&oldid=1188348631#Historical_examples (visited on 2023-12-08).
This wikipedia article explains that crowd sourcing is big groups of people coming together to solve issues or think of new ideas. It has become bigger today because of websites such a Wikipedia, Reddit, OpenStreetMap, and Amazon Mechanical Turk.
Anya Kamenetz. Facebook's own data is not as conclusive as you think about teens and mental health. NPR, October 2021. URL: https://www.npr.org/2021/10/06/1043138622/facebook-instagram-teens-mental-health (visited on 2023-12-08).
In this article they explain that the research on teen's mental health on facebook and instagram are not as accurate since they are self reported and teen's already have an impression that social media can be harmful. They also explain the mixed feelings of social media because studies show that social media is harmful but there are also studies that show that social media is beneficial.
In what ways have you found social media bad for your mental health and good for your mental health? What responsibility do you think social media platforms have for the mental health of their users? Are there ways social media sites can be designed to be better for the mental health of its users? What are the ways social media companies monitoring of mental health could be beneficial or harmful?
I think that social media has been bad for my mental health when I compare myself to others online, but good for my mental health find I find content that is motivating. I think that although social media platforms can play a part in the mental health of their users, I also think that the content users view/post can play a critical role as well.
[1] It isn’t clear what should be considered as “natural” selection in a social media environment (human nature? cultural biases, like racism? the nature of the design of the social media platform? are bots unnatural?), so we’ll just instead talk about selection.
I think that what should be considered as "natural" selection in social media isn't clear because of the different content of social media. Since different content is interesting and catered to many different types of people.
Evolution of cetaceans. November 2023. Page Version ID: 1186568602. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Evolution_of_cetaceans&oldid=1186568602 (visited on 2023-12-08).
This article talks about the evolution of cetaceans. They were originally land animals and eventually became water animals, during their evolution they could be compared to a hippopotamus. Eventually they grew sea animal limbs for sea life such as flippers, tail flukes, blowholes, etc. They then split into 2-3 groups.
Zack Whittaker. Facebook won't let you opt out of its phone number 'look up' setting. TechCrunch, March 2019. URL: https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/03/facebook-phone-number-look-up/ (visited on 2023-12-07).
This article explains that Facebook is not allowing users to create accounts without phone numbers, they tell users its for the two factor authentication but users are now able to search people up with their phone numbers. This is raising security concerns for the users.
What people near you have been liking, interacting with, or hovering over (they can find your approximate location, like your city, from your internet IP address, and they may know even more precisely) This perhaps explains why sometimes when you talk about something out loud it gets recommended to you (because someone around you then searched for it). Or maybe they are actually recording what you are saying and recommending based on that.
I think this is really invasive, knowing that they can track your location and recommend you things based off of the people surrounding you is extreme. I also think that if it can track you saying it out loud that is really extreme
Social model of disability. November 2023. Page Version ID: 1184222120. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Social_model_of_disability&oldid=1184222120#Social_construction_of_disability (visited on 2023-12-07).
This article explains that disabilities may not only be applied to people with Physical or Mental disabilities but by our society. Disabilities are looked down upon by society through inaccessible buildings or negative attitudes contradicting the medical model.
There are many ways to think about disability, such as legal (what legally counts as a disability?), medical (what is a problem to be cured?), identity (who views themselves as “disabled”), etc. We are focused here more on disability as it relates to design and who things in our world are designed for.
I think that legally anything that can impair a person's ability to do a task without physical, mental, or internal "issues" can be counted as a disability. I think that people who are limited in their ability to perform everyday activities can view themselves as disabled.
Private message. November 2023. Page Version ID: 1185376021. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Private_message&oldid=1185376021 (visited on 2023-12-05).
This article talks about the different ways people can message each other online, whether thats private or direct messaging, through a variety of apps. However privacy concerns arise from these apps, and many users are saying that apps such as Facebook are using their private messages to gain profit for the purpose of data mining or user profiting.
From a security perspective there are many risks that a company faces, such as: Employees at the company misusing their access, like Facebook employees using their database permissions to stalk women [i10] Hackers finding a vulnerability and inserting, modifying, or downloading information. For example: hackers stealing the names, Social Security numbers, and birthdates of 143 million Americans from Equifax [i11] hackers posting publicly the phone numbers, names, locations, and some email addresses of 530 million Facebook users [i12], or about 7% of all people on Earth
I think it is really scary how we trust people with such personal information, and how easily people can take this information and do things with it. Even in our current world you would think that there is a safer way this information is stored.
Web tracking. October 2023. Page Version ID: 1181294364. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Web_tracking&oldid=1181294364 (visited on 2023-12-05).
This article talks about the many ways that companies can track users such as ip address, web cookies, First- and third-party cookies, Etags. They then use that information to track and tailor ads to user preferences.
What was accurate, inaccurate, or surprising about your ad profile? How comfortable are you with Google knowing (whether correctly or not) those things about you?
The accurate part was what google saw I liked topic wise, and brand wise. Other than that I did not see anything about my personal information so I do not feel uncomfortable that they have the information they currently do.
Social media platforms then use “data mining” to search through all this data to try to learn more about their users, find patterns of behavior, and in the end, make more money.
I know that data mining is way for to make money and learn more about user habits for the company but it can also be dangerous for the user since their data and privacy is being tracked. I think that it raises privacy concerns for users since their information can get leaked.
Is It Funny or Offensive? Comedian Impersonates FBI on Twitter, Makes MLK Assassination Joke. January 2020. URL: https://isitfunnyoroffensive.com/comedian-impersonates-fbi-on-twitter-makes-mlk-assassination-joke/ (visited on 2023-12-05).
This article from is it funny or offensive a Twitter account impersonated the FBI and made a joke about MLK's death. It shows how easy it is to troll on the internet and impersonate others, but can be dangerous because they are impersonating something so serious.
One of the traditional pieces of advice for dealing with trolls is “Don’t feed the trolls,” which means that if you don’t respond to trolls, they will get bored and stop trolling. We can see this advice as well in the trolling community’s own “Rules of the Internet” [g31]: Do not argue with trolls - it means that they win
I think that this part is true because the point of trolling is to get a reaction out of people, so if people were to ignore it than the troller wouldn't be getting the reaction that they want. I also think that if people just stopped responding to trolls maybe there would be less of them.
lonelygirl15. November 2023. Page Version ID: 1186146298. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lonelygirl15&oldid=1186146298 (visited on 2023-11-24).
This source is about a girl who created a youtube channel, lonelygirl15, where she made story times and attracted a lot of views for her interesting life, but eventually got exposed for her scripted videos.
Do you think it matters which human typed the Tweet? Does the emotional expression (e.g., anger) of the Tweet change your view of authenticity?
I think that it matters who types the tweet because if it was Trump himself you would feel that it was authentic whereas if it was a bot tweeting it you would have no interest in it as it is not authentic.
Bulletin board system. November 2023. Page Version ID: 1184559343. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bulletin_board_system&oldid=1184559343 (visited on 2023-11-24).
This source talked about the how Bulletin Board Systems came to be, how there were games, messaging etc. But as other internet services and browsers were introduced they eventually went bankrupt. A bunch of BBS's disappeared and now very little to no people use BBS"s
5.2.1. Email# One of the early ways of social communication across the internet was with Email [e5], which originated in the 1960s and 1970s. These allowed people to send messages to each other, and look up if any new messages had been sent to them. 5.2.2. Bulletin board system (BBS)# In the 1980s and 1990s, Bulletin board system (BBS) [e6] provided more communal ways of communicating and sharing messages. In these systems, someone would start a “thread” by posting an initial message. Others could reply to the previous set of messages in the thread.
I find in interesting how the social media that we have today is similar to the early social media websites, email reminds me of texting or direct messaging and bulletin board systems remind me of posts or reposts.
Twitter. November 2023. Page Version ID: 1187856185. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter (visited on 2023-12-01).
This links is to a Wikipedia article talking about the app X. It talks about what users can do on the app, where the app originated, and about the history of the app and how it was formerly known and Twitter, and the original name of X was actually Twttr.
Can you think of an example of pernicious ignorance in social media interaction? What’s something that we might often prefer to overlook when deciding what is important?
I think that when influencers post brand deals/ promotions about a product when they don't actually like it can be an example of pernicious ignorance as they are spreading misinformation online for people to believe.
Steven Tweedie. This disturbing image of a Chinese worker with close to 100 iPhones reveals how App Store rankings can be manipulated. February 2015. URL: https://www.businessinsider.com/photo-shows-how-fake-app-store-rankings-are-made-2015-2 (visited on 2024-03-07).
The article explains that this women was faking app store ratings and downloads. This reminds me of how bots manipulate ratings, but in this case it’s being done manually in real life. I find it surprising that she would go so far and buy 100+ iphones just to do this.
Some bots are intended to be helpful, using automation to make tasks easier for others or to provide information, such as: Auto caption: https://twitter.com/headlinerclip [c3] Vaccine progress: https://twitter.com/vax_progress [c4] Blocking groups of people: https://twitter.com/blockpartyapp_ [c5] Social Media managing programs that help people schedule and coordinate posts Delete old tweets: https://tweetdelete.net/ [c6] See a new photo of a red panda every hour: https://twitter.com/RedPandaEveryHr [c7] Bots might have significant limits on how helpful they are, such as tech support bots you might have had frustrating experiences with on various websites.
I think that bots are more versatile than I originally thought, I thought social media bots were just fake followers/ fake people on social media but bots are more than that and they can do a lot more than I thought
How often do you hear phrases like “social media isn’t real life”?
I hear phrases like this a lot because on social media people appear to have a “perfect” or put-together life, and it can cause many people to compare themselves unfairly. Most users only share highlights, such as vacations, achievements, or carefully edited moments, while leaving out struggles or everyday challenges. This creates a distorted version of reality that is not fully authentic. Because of this, phrases like “social media isn’t real life” serve as a reminder that what is seen online is often curated, not a complete picture of someone’s life.
There are absolute moral rules and duties to follow (regardless of the consequences). They can be deduced by reasoning about the objective reality.
I find the moral rules ethics framework interesting because the creators of social media do not always prioritize moral ethics, especially when profit, engagement, and growth are their main goals. While deontology emphasizes following universal rules of right and wrong, platforms often design algorithms that reward attention rather than ethical behavior. This creates a gap between what should be done (promoting truthful, respectful content) and what is actually done (amplifying sensational or harmful posts for engagement).
User control and freedom is the principle that people will take many paths through an interface (not always the intended ones), and so wherever they end up, they should be able to return to where they came from or change their mind. The notions of “Cancel” and “Undo” are the best examples of user control and freedom: they allow users to change their mind if they ended up in a state they didn’t want to be in. The dialog below is a major violation of this principle; it gives all of the power to the computer:
I agree. The lack of options like Cancel or Undo removes the user’s ability to backtrack or correct mistakes, which can lead to frustration and a feeling of helplessness. Interfaces should empower users, not trap them into unintended actions.
The same applies if a participant asks you questions: you can’t answer them, because you wouldn’t normally be there to help. The design should do the teaching.
I agree with not answering questions on a low fidelity design, I think this is a really important task to follow because like the chapter says, you won't be there to help the user.
The Google search page actually accepts many other implicit inputs too. There are a variety of personalization settings, such as search history, search preferences, and even sensor input (such as your location) that it also accepts as input. The user interface doesn’t provide explicit controls for providing this input, but it is user input nonetheless. These implicit inputs contain issues of justice. For example, what harms may come by Google tracking your location when you search? For many, no harm, but what about people do not secure their accounts, and might be stalked by a violent ex, or someone in witness protection?
I agree those hidden inputs, like location tracking, can be a big deal. Sure, they make things more convenient, but for people in dangerous situations, they can actually be harmful. Everyone should have a clear say in how their info is used and be able to easily manage those settings.
The fastest and easiest form of prototype is a sketch, which is a low-fidelity prototype that’s created by hand. See the drawing at the top of this page? That’s a sketch. Get good at using your hands to draw things that you want to create so that you can see them, communicate them, and evaluate them. With enough skill, people can sketch anything, and they almost always do it faster than in any other media. On the other hand, because they have the least detail of any prototype (making them low-fidelity), they’re most useful at the beginning of a design process.
I agree, sketches are definitely the quickest and easiest way to get ideas out. They're super helpful in the early stages because you can draw something up fast and see if it makes sense. Even though they’re not super detailed, they’re great for sharing ideas and getting feedback quickly. I also think that as a visual learner they are super useful to visualize the design.
User experiences can be evaluated with qualitative and/or quantitative measures. Your decision of qualitative and/or quantitative presentation of your findings may depend on the type of data captured, who will be viewing your research, and whether qualitative or quantitative data will be easier to understand.
I agree, when studying user experiences, you can use numbers to spot patterns or personal stories to understand how people really feel. The best approach depends on what kind of data you gather and who you're sharing it with. Whether it's charts or quotes, the goal is to make your findings easy to understand and meaningful to your audience.
An example of a contrast effect can be seen in a Pew Research Center poll conducted in October 2003, a dozen years before same-sex marriage was legalized in the U.S. That poll found that people were more likely to favor allowing gays and lesbians to enter into legal agreements that give them the same rights as married couples when this question was asked after one about whether they favored or opposed allowing gays and lesbians to marry (45% favored legal agreements when asked after the marriage question, but 37% favored legal agreements without the immediate preceding context of a question about same-sex marriage). Responses to the question about same-sex marriage, meanwhile, were not significantly affected by its placement before or after the legal agreements question.
I agree this example shows how much the way a question is asked can shape how people respond. When people hear a more intense option first, such as same sex marriage, they may see legal agreements as a more acceptable or reasonable choice. It’s interesting how opinions can shift just based on the order of the questions, even if we do not notice it.
There are several things to notice about the exchange above. It’s respectful, with each person listening and accepting what the other person is saying. It’s collaborative, with each person contributing knowledge to the conversation. It’s grounded in design rationale and design judgement, focusing on why choices are made and why different choices were made, and how that might effect the success of the solution.
I agree with this form of critique. I notice that when someone has prior knowledge about a certain design, they give more useful feedback back, and the sandwich method is something I learned as well and I think it's a great way to promote constructive criticism without being too harsh.
However, most societies do not value creative thinking and so our skills in generating ideas rapidly atrophies, as we do not practice it, and instead actively learn to suppress it1
I agree, I think that there was a point in society that has taught us to have a straight cut way of learning things and that has suppressed our creative side, but I also disagree because in our current society we are promoted to have creative hobbies, or ideas such as creative marketing ideas.
Some design scholars are skeptical about human-centered design because they don’t believe modeling and verifying people’s needs through a few focused encounters is sufficient to actually address people’s problems, or systems of activities1212 Norman, D. A. (2005). Human-centered design considered harmful. ACM interactions. . These and other critiques lead to a notion of participatory design 1010 Muller, M. J., & Kuhn, S. (1993). Participatory design. Communications of the ACM. , in which designers not only try to understand the problems of stakeholders, but recruiting stakeholders onto the design team as full participants of a design process. This way, the people you’re designing for are always represented throughout the design process. The key challenge of participatory design is finding stakeholders that can adequately represent a community’s needs, while also participating meaningfully in a design process.
I agree that just talking to people a few times isn’t enough to truly understand what they’re going through. I think bringing them into the design process as full partners is a better way to make sure their voices are heard the whole time. I agree it can be tough to find the right people, but it’s worth it if it means designing something that really helps.
Capturing these models of problems is essential in design contexts where designers are separate from stakeholders; the models can act as a form of boundary object22 Barrett, M., and Oborn, E. (2010). Boundary object use in cross-cultural software development teams. Human Relations. , helping designers work with other people, like developers, product managers, project managers, marketers, and others to understand who is being helped and why. But from a design justice perspective, one might wonder what the value of articulating a persona, scenario, or problem statement in words is. Wouldn’t everyone in the community you’re servicing understand these problems intuitively, from their lived experience? Even in a community, everyone is different: coming to agreement on who is being served, why they are being served, and what one believes is causing the problem, and how it impacts a particular group, is key to focusing design efforts.
I think this shows how important it is to recognize that even within a community, people have different experiences. I agree that putting problems into words helps everyone designers, developers, and the community get on the same page. It’s about respect and making sure the design truly fits the people it’s meant for.
hat means that problems are inherently tied to specific groups of people that wish their situation was different. Therefore, you can’t define a problem without being very explicit about whose problem you’re addressing. And this requires more than just choosing a particular category of people (“Children! Students! The elderly!”), which is fraught with harmful stereotypes. It requires taking quite seriously the question of who are you trying to help and why, and what kind of help do they really need? And if you haven’t talked to the people you’re trying to help, then how could you possibly know what their problems are, or how to help them with design?
I think that this is in important factor when it comes to design, I agree choosing more than just a particular category of people is important to truly get to know the type of people/problems your design affects in order to have the best design possible.
Given all of these skills, and the immense challenges of enacting them in ways that are just, inclusive, anti-sexist, anti-racist, and anti-ableist, how can one ever hope to learn to be a great designer? Ultimately, design requires practice. And specifically, deliberate practice33 Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., & Tesch-Rmer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review. . You must design a lot with many stakeholders, in many contexts, and get a lot of feedback throughout.
I think being a great designer isn’t about being perfect it’s about showing up, learning through practice, listening deeply, and growing with others through every mistake and success.