This week’s presentation gave fundamental and impactful insights to Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. I personally have never heard either term before this class, but I was able to connect to the contents of both and brought it to the context of today. The examples from the presentation brought back memories, such as; the dial up internet, the browsers that were used then (internet explorer), to its transition into the social web (google) that I am interacting with today. The documentary on Netflix entitled The Social Dilemma was recommendation to us, which involves several technological engineers that were once employed to major social media companies, sharing their insights and concerns about the impact these social tools have on humanity at large.
Tristan Harris, the former Design Ethicist at Google and now the a co-founder of Center For Humane Technology is an advocate of aiding tech industry in ethically shaping their humane and spiritually potential. One can appreciate Web 2.0 vs Web 1.0 for its interactivity and collaboration such as Wikipedia and social network sites. It also enhances communication, facilitates knowledge sharing and learning and enables marketing and business opportunities.
The irony however is, these benefits of Web 2.0, when misused as we are experiencing now, breeds all the limitations and catastrophic impacts it is having on society and education presently.
Tristant asked the question, if all of what we are engaging in online is free to us, but these giant tech companies are generating billions, whats the product? The answer blew my mind. The product is our attention. These tools are designed to persuade us by gradually changing what we do, how we think and in general who we are. In my home country, us as educators felt so hopeless as we observed how rapidly the students interest in academics declined and the trend was to become an influencer. There were actual influencers flaunting money and imprinting the idea of school being a waste of time. The life of luxury is being sold to our children that usually involves unethical, sometimes illegal practices, along with the trend of designer bodies. Morals are slowly becoming a thing of the past, while our young ladies mental health issues sky rocket due to the illusion of the bodies they see on social media that they compare themselves to. These are the Gen z who will be leading us 15 years from now and its a scary thought.
Hi Latoya,
This question actually got my attention: ” Is what we are engaging in online free?’ I bet it that we directly or indirectly pay for everything we get online. Yes, these giant companies want our attention but they are also getting our money. I can imagine social media and other streaming platforms offering free services, but how do I access these services if I don’t have internet facilities? I really appreciate the use of Web 2.0 tools but listening to this week’s presentation, I kind of think we were more safe using Web 1.0 as compared to 2.0 and now with the emergence of 3.0, there is more harm at stake here.
Hi Latoya, it is true that the generation growing up will soon be our leaders and I agree with you that the effect social media has had on this generation is scary. In The Social Dilemma, it was discussed how we are at the last generation of people who knew what life was like before social media. It is worrisome that our world may soon not know anything different and if we don’t know different, it’s hard to know which is better.