What an interesting take on how we transform the web, and indeed how the web is transforming us.
Although the main point of the video was how human interaction with the web morphs it into an ever more interconnected "space," I really think that the most interesting aspect of it was sort of the "big picture" - how human interaction is becoming ever more web-related.
As i said on our discussion board, I am not a huge fan of this (in my opinion,) invasive inter-connectedness. It is evident even today (especially for youngsters,) how central our "web presence" is to our ideas of self. How many blogs do you have? How many social networking sites do you belong to? How many "friends" do you have? It would seem as though how deeply you are inter-connected with other web users is directly related to how much worth you have as a person.
Another thing that I found to be very interesting is how the video said that the more we link webpages to each other, the more pictures we tag, the more that we are teaching the machine. This reminded me of theories of learning presented in one of my cognitive science classes, the theory of learning as the strengthening of neurological pathways through repeated use. I have this notion of links as "synapses" between the "neurons" of webpages.
What I want to know is, while we are so busy "teaching the machine," how much is it learning?
When will it surpass us in cognitive abilities?
Anne,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy reading your posts because you pose fascinating questions. I don't think we will know the answers to many of them until more research is done on "social/educational media", but you are asking all the right questions!
Dr. Burgos