Social Media Values Clarification

There's little doubt that the Internet and social media in particular has changed our culture. And while there are some up sides I am pretty sure that it has helped to replace reasoned discussion for ranting and demagoguery. It did not do it single-handedly of course - it has had a big assist from our politicians and conventional media. We talk at each other rather than with each other. Media tries to tell us what to think rather than provide us information and a variety of viewpoints.

My wife has recounted times in her career where a patient requested to enter the "quiet room" when they felt they were edging out of control. Following the 2016 election I felt compelled to take a break from Facebook because of the rancor and just crazy talk that folks whom I had otherwise judged as rational people were engaging in. I needed some time apart lest I start to respond in kind and then later feel embarrassed by my words. It gave me time to reflect on social media in general and how to keep it as a more positive than negative force in my life.

So before logging back on, some notes to myself:

Time box it. This stuff gets addicting - seriously. You mindlessly scroll and refresh to see the latest affirmation of your life, of you as a person. And it's not like there aren't better things to do with your time. Read a book, balance the checkbook, write an email to a friend, figure out a new recipe to try, maybe write a blog entry. To help achieve this I'll continue to avoid any "alerts" to my phone and keep my aggregate daily time on social media to under 30 minutes.

Understand the value proposition. To me the value of social media is facilitating catching up on what is happening with my friends and family. Seeing pictures of my adorable grandson, catching Phil's early morning shot of the crescent moon and Venus, knowing I need to add a friend struggling with an issue to my prayer list - that is where it excels.

Drop the rope. No social media promotes debate, only ranting. People do not wish to read more than 140 characters (if that). Most folks do not want an exchange of ideas, they want you to validate their opinions. Recognize trolls and pass on by. Recognize ideologues and pass on by. If on occasion you wish to add to a thread do it politely, honestly, and singularly (no running posts trying to have the last word).

Owners are not without agendas. FB and others are certainly willing to manipulate us, from filtering what hits the news feed to promoting the idea that to mute or unfriend someone makes you a shallow person. And let's certainly not forget that the breadcrumbs of our likes and dislikes here are vacuumed up for big data's consumption. Be skeptical of the medium and its desire to influence you.

So I guess it's time to emerge from my self imposed exile to see if things have calmed down (although I doubt it). And I guess if it is still triggering even with trying to adhere to my observations I can decide to give it up for 40 more days over Lent.

A Crisis of Scientific Confidence

Recently National Geographic's cover story focused on the "War on Science", i.e. the failure of a growing segment of the population to take scientific findings at face value. The article was a bit disappointing in that rather than providing an analysis it appeared to have more of an agenda to it (namely promoting climate warming).

The author cites quite a variety of scientific theories that are not universally embraced. On one side of the spectrum are the cases where people reject findings that are backed up by a lot of impartial evidence such as that we have landed on the Moon or that fluoridated water cuts tooth decay. On the other side of the spectrum we have Achenbach's assertion that doubting climate change induced by man's increase of CO₂ emissions is equally misguided. Undoubtedly the author hopes that by placing skeptics of homo sapien induced climate warming into the same category as deniers of the Moon landing or parents withholding vaccinations out of fear of autism that they will change their mind or at the very least silence them out of embarrassment.

The conspiracy fringe will always be with us. Whether it be the Kennedy assassination or the communist plot of fluoridated water, there are people who just love a good controversy even when none exists. You might as well be shocked that some people love to gossip. But the real story here that did not get the attention it needed is that science is experiencing a doubting population because it is appears bought and sold. There is no more potent ally for that new tax or regulation if only it will agree with your point of view. The CEOs and politicos won't let science be science and follow the scientific method. Science now seems to be increasingly pulled by the purse strings that can come with the correct findings. One camp will not share data with the other for fear they may find a flaw. Objective scientific analysis is replaced by turf wars. Perhaps as the author suggests this mistrust of science is only people "subconsciously clinging to our intuitions—what researchers call our naive beliefs".

The prime directive of science - to test your hypothesis through well designed experiments - is subjugated to cries of we need to shut off any debate or discussion because "the matter is settled". How many times, especially with an issue with so many complex variables as climate prediction, has science been sure of one thing only to discover it was wrong. To quote Agent K from MIB, "1,500 years ago, everybody knew that the Earth was the center of the universe. 500 years ago, everybody knew that the Earth was flat. And 15 minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."

Until science can gain some insulation from the influencers and reaffirm the scientific method which never closes discussion, the crisis in confidence will likely malinger.

The Internet Privacy Irony

"We got computers; we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed."
Life During Wartime - Talking Heads

For some time now scholars and commentators have pointed out the sense of anonymity that one experiences when going online and how it influences us. Many have suggested that it is this sense of being cloaked that unfetters a coarser side of one's nature, tossing off epithets as if you're in the locker room, exploring dark corners of the web that you wouldn't do at the library. Oh there might be the occasional cookie or browser history to contend with, but hey, any modern browser lets one go into 'stealth' mode to deal with that. And I must say that from what I have seen I have to agree that when the possible stigma of being called out for bad behavior is removed then individuals behave differently.

And now we learn (although I have always suspected) that indeed 1984 is here, albeit a few years late. The government is amassing all sorts of "meta-data" about us - our phone records, our social media activity like Facebook, this blog, maybe even our credit card transactions. Couple this with a new gargantuan data center being built by the NSA out in Utah, and it's not hard to see where this is going. The techniques of mining large amounts of data with platforms like Hadoop (which businesses use to gain insight into their customers' habits) is being applied on this treasure trove of data. It is no exaggeration to say that when the supercomputers connect all the dots of your digital breadcrumbs they will have a stunningly complete picture of you. And we simply have to hope that the folks in charge will play nice and not use this information to consolidate their power. You dare to run for office against Boss Hog? Well we'll just see about that.

The grand irony here is that people surfing the net in supposed anonymity are in fact revealing the details of their political views, sexual interests, and only God knows what else. And while that is scary as hell, it pales in comparison to the people I meet whose assessment is "well if you haven't done anything wrong you don't have anything to be worried about." That sort of naivety must be comforting to those in power.

Death of an Icon

For someone rooted in the last half of the 20th century it seems somewhat inconceivable to me that Kodak is on its deathbed. Over the last 50 years it was a part of my personal and at times my professional life. Somehow the company didn't get that the magic it introduced into our lives during the 20th century would be inexorably replaced by the digital wizardry that unfolded in the 21st.

As a kid it was a milestone when you were allowed to take pictures. When I was given permission to get a roll of B&W film for my mom's old Brownie camera and take some shots I was on top of the world that afternoon. Friends were eager to mug for the camera, pets were coerced into poses, and before I knew it my 8 shots were done. And even the parental critique of my work ("Why did you take a picture of the sidewalk?") failed to dim the desire to get that next roll of film with my allowance. I was hooked on this new hobby.

Soon I graduated to one of Kodak's best innovations, the Instamatic camera with the revolutionary flash cube that could let you take four indoor shots in quick succession. That camera really epitomizes the genius of the company and its ability to remove the obstacles to anyone creating their own 'Kodak moments'. The film cartridge was idiot proof - it would only fit in the camera one way, and there were no worries as to whether you had engaged the film leader. Its fixed focus lens worked well, almost always giving you a picture in focus. The film advanced in such a way that you could not take a double exposure. The camera was a staple of prom night, Ocean City vacations, Christmas, and any other family occasion.

I got my first 'real' camera, a used Minolta 35mm, for Christmas of 1967. That was the same year that I got my first 'real' telescope. The synergy of the two things ignited my desire to master film and soon ASA ratings, Wratten filters, f/ stops, and more entered my vocabulary. The small closet in the basement became a dark room where I'd work for hours to tease out the best details from my shots of the Moon, Jupiter, and star fields. A trip to the camera store ignited an excitement in the soul as I'd contemplate what roll of film or what developer to use for my next round of celestial photography. And through all my endeavors Kodak was my trusted partner.

When I joined CareFirst's Document Management team I found Kodak was there as my partner as well, this time as the maker of high speed scanners that captured insurance claims for our workflow. The magic was still alive, creating a machine that could turn out in a split second a legible image of an insurance form which we could then electronically forward to the keyers. Even more importantly they were there as our workflow application vendor as Eastman. They gave us the tools to allow us to apply virtual post-it notes to a claim and forward it to someone for review.

I guess in the end Kodak did not understand just how much the dawn of the digital age was causing the earth to shift beneath their feet. The company clearly had competency in digital imaging but must not have had the conviction that it was where the future lie. They certainly also had the ability be an innovator in content management, but others took the lead away from them. In the end they instead become the most recent poster child for what happens to you when you cannot adapt to change.

Cold Stone Stupid

So I get a call last evening from my son, "Dad, you have to check out this photo that I just sent you - it's classic." The photo was indeed a classic snapshot of our continued descent into illiteracy. There was a time when we expected a certain amount proofreading to be exercised before something went public, whether it be a newspaper article or a store sign. It reflected poorly on you if you made gross errors in spelling or grammar. No longer true - today there's no shame in being careless about the English language, nor any effort to correct one's mistakes.

No, it's not that I secretly long to be an English teacher. I grew up in a time when students suffered through learning the difference between affect and effect, imply vs. infer, and understanding why it should have been Winston tastes good as a cigarette should. The purpose was to help keep us from embarrassing ourselves as we started our careers following graduation. What's happened?

I guess part of it is Bill Gates' fault. We expect Word to find all our spelling errors and grammatical mistakes. The sign does make a sentence without spelling errors and conveys meaning (i.e., we do not reject $50 or $100 bills - the opposite of the author's intent). So Word blesses it and away we go to the Signs Tomorrow shop. There's no proofreading skill by the writer to see if the statement really conveys what they are trying to say.

I think we also have to take some of the blame for not responding when we see the language being openly mugged. I'll bet that in today's PC world that very few - if any - customers have bothered to point out to the shop owner that the sign is fodder for Jay Leno.

As we continue down this path I guess this is what our future looks like for communication...

You Think We're What?

The History channel has been airing a multi-installment special "America -The Story Of Us" this week, and I happened to catch last evening's episode "Westward". I was anticipating a piece about how the west was settled, the challenges that were faced and overcome. I would not expect a sanitized Wagon Train story, and boy did I not get it.

We got to meet the Donner Party, a cursed group of people heading west who are caught in a savage snowstorm and marooned in the mountains for 5 months. Husband ends up eating wife's dead body to survive - you know, classic Americana. We revisit the Trail of Tears where Andrew Jackson and Congress ordered the Indian nations onto reservations out west, one of our darker moments. We get a recap of slavery, complete with scenes of children being torn from their moms, since its spread into the west was a contentious issue as the frontier opened up. We visit the factories up North where women work in textile factories for $2 a week to support their families since dad's a drunk or invalid (with a cameo commentary by that great historian Martha Stewart). We overan Mexican territory and forcibly took it from them, we built the Erie canal with drunk Irishmen who blew themselves up since there was no OSHA around, and - well, you get the picture by now - a film Michael Moore would just adore.

While I'm all for an awareness of our low points since such examinations allow us to become a better society, I somehow have to believe that characterizing America's real history as that of a bunch of druken, slave-owning, racist, misogynist cannibals misses that balance one needs to have an effective, accurate story about us.

Ambiguious Signs

So I'm heading back from a wonderful evening of observing at Tuckahoe State Park, traveling along 404 to the Bay Bridge. I get within reading distance of the box truck in front of me and I'm given the following warning: Caution! Show Flowers.

So what exactly does one do with this piece of information? Is this admonishment issued so that I will keep additional distance between me and the showy flowers? Are the flowers at risk of dropping their splendid petals if they sense that I'm getting too close?

Or perhaps we are talking about show as in Little Shop of Horrors show, and this is more of a disclaimer. Don't even think about trying to steal anything in this truck because you'll be lunch for our man-eating flowers.

This is somewhat like the "Caution - Show Dogs" or even the "Baby on Board!" stickers that you'll see on the back of a car. I've always kinda put those into the "My Child's an Honor Student" classification - the driver wants you to know about their special cargo of which they are very fond. If the intent of these rear end communications is a plea not to run into their vehicle then I have to wonder about the owner's grasp on reality.

Here's a suggestion to the box truck - put your logo and/or contact information on the back - that way you get some advertising out of the effort instead of puzzled looks.