The Sad Reality of Gun Control by Bruce Feirstein
Illustration by Steve Brodner
A Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users
Like a personality test but about how you use information and communication technology, aka the interwebs and gadgetry. Interesting and fun. I’m an omnivore, how about you?
- 8% of Americans are deep users of the participatory Web and mobile applications
- Another 23% are heavy, pragmatic tech adopters – they use gadgets to keep up with social networks or be productive at work
- 10% rely on mobile devices for voice, texting, or entertainment
- 10% use information gadgets, but find it a hassle
- 49% of Americans only occasionally use modern gadgetry and many others bristle at electronic connectivity
Omnivores: 8% of American adults constitute the most active participants in the information society, consuming information goods and services at a high rate and using them as a platform for participation and selfexpression.
The Connectors: 7% of the adult population surround themselves with technology and use it to connect with people and digital content. They get a lot out of their mobile devices and participate actively in online life.
Lackluster Veterans: 8% of American adults make up a group who are not at all passionate about their abundance of modern ICTs. Few like the intrusiveness their gadgets add to their lives and not many see ICTs adding to their personal productivity.
Productivity Enhancers: 8% of American adults happily get a lot of things done with information technology, both at home and at work.
Mobile Centrics: 10% of the general population are strongly attached to their cell phones and take advantage of a range of mobile applications.
Connected but Hassled: 9% of American adults fit into this group. They have invested in a lot of technology, but the connectivity is a hassle for them.
Inexperienced Experimenters: 8% of adults have less ICT on hand than others. They feel competent in dealing with technology, and might do more with it if they had more.
Light but Satisfied: 15% of adults have the basics of information technology, use it infrequently and it does not register as an important part of their lives.
Indifferents: 11% of adults have a fair amount of technology on hand, but it does not play a central role in their daily lives.
Off the Net: 15% of the population, mainly older Americans, is off the modern information network.
Download full report by Pew Internet & American Life Project here.
Do you love or hate the 80s? I have mixed feelings. When I look at the architecture from that decade my eyes ache but then I remember my first WalkMan and the excitement of walking on the streets listening to my very own private music. National Geographic is launching a new series titled ”The 80s. The Decade That Made us” and this is its wonderful teaser.
Creative by The Corner agency, directed by Hoku & Adam at Partizan.
Via Creative Review.
First World Problems Read by Third World People.
This is just how ridiculous and out of reality we all are.
The Sociology of Gossip
We all love gossip and it doesn’t matter if you want to admit it or not. At some point or another, we all have questions and need answers about not only “academic” or intellectual stuff. We want to know what, when, how, and why about people around us and people up in the stars: celebrities. And this eagerness —sometimes secret, sometimes addictive, sometimes even irrational— to know more about what is happening is just a reflection of us trying to understand why and how something happened. It’s an unconscious quest to find in gossip a reflection of who we are as a society.
Gossip is anthropology. And even though I pride myself of not buying any of those tabloids full of gossip, maybe we all should try to figure out what all the covers and stories filling those publications mean and say about us.
Maybe I should stop trying not to buy into gossip —aka stop being an arrogant nerd— and try to understand what this “Celebrity Obsessed World” means.
A new University of British Columbia psychological study used a new acronym to help explain why results from behavioral studies on people in Western nations don’t usually represent the rest of the world. It’s because we’re WEIRD (“Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic.”)
Source: Boing Boing
‘In what may come as a pleasant surprise to people who fear the Facebook generation has given up on reading — or, at least, reading anything longer than 140 characters — a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project reveals the prominent role of books, libraries and technology in the lives of young readers, ages 16 to 29.’ Listen to Kathryn Zickuhr discuss the new report on NPR’s Morning Edition earlier today.
America’s Facebook Generation Is Reading Strong
Young Americans are reading more than just status updates and 140-character tweets. A new study by the Pew Research Center shows that among 16- to 29-year-olds, 8 in 10 have read a book in the past year. That’s compared with 7 in 10 among adults in general.
Source: NPR
In 2001, Americans opposed same-sex marriage by a 57% to 35% margin.
Today, there is slightly more support for same-sex marriage than opposition to it, with 48% in favor and 44% opposed.
—The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
This is due in part to generational change. Younger generations express higher levels of support for same-sex marriage. In 2012 Pew Research Center polling, Millennials are almost twice as likely as the Silent Generation to support same-sex marriage.
Source: features.pewforum.org
MIT management science professor Arnold Barnett will deliver a presentation next week on his study that suggests that, despite overall homeland security increases in the past 11 years, people who use subways and trains for travel are at higher risk for terrorist attack than just about anyone else.
Source: bigthink.com
Facebook: The Things That Connect Us.
by Samantha Jiménez
Have you seen Facebook’s first TV ad? It went live today (10-04-12) and seems to have sparkled some buzz. The spot was directed by Alejandro González Iñarritu (Go Mexico!) and beautifully shot with a photography to die for, yet the only thing I’m left with after watching it is confusion.
The analogies narrated throughout the spot make me wonder if the insights used in this film are deep enough to connect and resonate with Facebook’s audience, which is… umm… well, only 1 billion strong. I find it a bit hard to get the chair analogy, though I do get the bridges and doorbell. I even think that pondering about how we all have at least once wondered if we are truly alone in this world is a very universal insight. Tying some of the spot’s analogies back to Facebook seems to have sense in my mind, yet I wonder if they should really be tied to one another. It’s a bit hard to see how a chair connects me to the world like a bridge or a plane does.
This particular spot has generated a huge wave of comments, memes, articles and reactions in social media. Starting with the “Are Chairs Like Facebook?” website and then perhaps with Mashable’s public response to Facebook’s ad. “Facebook chair” was even a trending topic today on Twitter and tweets tying back Clint Eastwood’s speech to an empty chair during the RNC are still frequent.
Some people say the spot lacks visual presence of technology by not having computers, smartphones, or tablets but rather books and magazines. I humbly disagree on this critic. If anyone on earth can have the luxury of not showing technology at all and talk about people is Facebook.
In an era where brands and consumers communicate in real-time and in bilateral ways, having a big #fail or a successful spot #FTW is becoming an everyday thing.
Facebook is part of our daily lives so, what do you think? Love it or hate it?
Final note: For some reason, after watching Facebook’s ad, I couldn’t help to think about Everynone’s video titled “Words.”
The 47 Percent, In One Graphic
Mark Memmot explains the contextaround Mitt Romney’s comment that 47 percent of Americans pay no income tax. Here’s a closer look at the numbers. As of the latest accounting, it’s actually just over 46 percent of Americans that pay no federal income taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center (PDF). Here’s how that breaks down.
“Mitt hits the fan.”
Amazing headline by New York Daliy News.
Mitt Romney caught on video telling wealthy GOP donors that 47 percent of Americans are government freeloaders.
I’m not going to lie. Even if I watch this kind of videos for cultural reasons, this particular one made me feel very uncomfortable. I’m not saying all these educational videos from the 50s were not well-intended. It’s just that the way they were written, directed and produced is unnecessarily strict! Tone is dreadfully rigid, judgemental and harsh. No wonder why babyboomers’ attitude and views towards younger generations are rather tyrannical. It is very interesting to be able to see how WWII hardened an entire generation. After all, when you’ve been through a massive war, you don’t feel like fooling around or wasting time. Who needs social lubricants, right?
Stand Up Straight, or Else! – vintage PSA circa 1951 makes the case for good posture. Complement with these vintage PSA posters for reading, a kind of intellectual uprightness.
Silenc
How much of a language is silent? What does it look like when you take the silence out? Can we use code as a tool to answer these questions?
silenc is a tangible visualization of an interpretation of silent letters within Danish, English and French.
One of the hardest parts about language learning is pronunciation; the less phonetic the alphabet, the harder it is to correctly say the words. A common peculiarity amongst many Western languages is the silent letter. A silent letter is a letter that appears in a particular word, but does not correspond to any sound in the word’s pronunciation.
A selection of works by Hans Christian Andersen is used as a common denominator for these “translations”. All silent letters are set in red text. When viewed with a red light filter, these letters disappear, leaving only the pronounced text.
silenc is based on the concept of the find-and-replace command. This function is applied to a body of text using a database of rules. The silenc database is constructed from hundreds of rules and exceptions composed from known guidelines for “un”pronunciation. Processing code marks up the silent letters and GREP commands format the text.
silenc is visualized in different ways. In one form of a book, silent letters are marked up in red yet remain in their original position. In another iteration, silent letters are separated from the pronounced text and exhibited on their own pages in the back of the book, the prevalence of silent letters is clearly evident.
Source: ciid.dk
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