Tampilkan postingan dengan label Cyberanthropology. Tampilkan semua postingan
Tampilkan postingan dengan label Cyberanthropology. Tampilkan semua postingan
Sabtu, 17 September 2011
Has Social Media come of age?
One of the main characteristic of any mass media is its ability to impact the society. Be it the newspapers, television or radio, each had played its part, in terms of changing views and shaping the society.
In the recent past, there have been many news articles about the impact of social media in the civil society movements… Be it Coffee Party in America, The elections in Iran, the civil movements in Tunisia, Egypt (#Twitterrevolution) and other Arab countries...or, closer home, the Team Anna’s anti corruption movement in India…. Social media usage has become an important tactic in terms of spreading awareness and mobilizing support.
The question is - has social media come of age?
If you look at the history of mass media… it has always been associated with politics. In fact, it is referred to as “fourth estate”, the other 3 being Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. Traditional mass media was and has been controlled by a few (Just imagine, more than 90% of mass media consumed in the US is owned by just 6 media companies), and is limited by its ‘real estate’ – print area, bandwidth, or time… Mass media has always been used as a mass communication system to reach the public.
The relatively new Social Media however is built on a different model. The characteristic of social media is that it is not limited by any ‘real estate’, and more importantly is a mass communication system for the public. On the same platform, one can either broadcast or send a personal message.
There are 3 distinctive features for any mass media –
- The reach
- The information
- Influence on the people/society
The Reach:
The Internet boom took place in most countries during the mid 90’s. Majority of the social media consumers are the people who grew up with the Internet. Of the 640 Million Facebook users, more than 70% of the users are under 34 years…and close to 50% of the users under 25 years (source: checkfacebook.com). According to worldinternetstats.com, there are 2.1 Billion internet users in the world. If we assume that at-least 40% of these users are on social media, we are talking about close to 800 Million users globally. Looking at the sheer numbers, the social media surely fits into being called a mass media
The information:
Any mass media is known by the quantity and quality of information it disperses. Nobody can doubt the quantity of the information… be it a foursquare update on one’s check-in into a local bakery, or a Facebook update of a traffic jam on your way to work, or a tweet about environmental impact of discarded laptop batteries, linking to a blog or YouTube video..there are millions of such updates happening every minute, globally
But, when it comes to quality of information, most of the stuff seen in social media is found wanting. It is known fact, that ‘noise’ is the biggest factor that impacts effective flow of communication. In the traditional media, information flows from a professional few, and a lot of ‘filters’ before it is actually transmitted to the users… But in social media, the number of professionals and the reason for filters do not exist. Hence, there is a lot of information created, but very little percentage of that is of substance… It is early days of social media, but ‘filters’ for information has already begun… be it the search engine algorithms, or the social bookmarks, or user reviews… it is just a matter of time, before the perfect mouse trap in terms of social media filters is created
Influence on the society:
The influence of mass media shapes our concepts of who we are, what is important to us, and how we live our life. Majority of the social media users are the youth. Most information in the social media is created by the youth for the youth. Where as in today’s world the society is being led and shaped by people with experience. Most Decision Maker’s in our society still belong to the classic era of media, and have only adapted to social media (or for that matter, Internet) pretty late. However, the divisional lines between traditional media and social media are diffusing. It is a world of convergence media; Where-in each media feeds of the other for information seeking and broadcasting… You’ll find traditional media tweeting about their articles and liberally seeking information from other people’s tweets… so too, you will find tweets and updates based on the information the user gets from print, TV or radio.
So while, in today’s context, social media may not directly influence the society at large… it can indirectly influence the people who influence the society… (eg. the traditional media). However, as more and more internet generation people becomes decision makers…the impact of social media on the society and popular culture would become strong
So has social media truly come of age?? I’d dare say, yes. However, there are some things that social media needs to overcome to be accepted as a powerful and influential medium by all… The concentration of the users should not be skewed to few locations, there should be stronger filters to reduce the noises, and more importantly wait for few more years
Cheers
Santosh
Has Social Media come of age?
One of the main characteristic of any mass media is its ability to impact the society. Be it the newspapers, television or radio, each had played its part, in terms of changing views and shaping the society.
In the recent past, there have been many news articles about the impact of social media in the civil society movements… Be it Coffee Party in America, The elections in Iran, the civil movements in Tunisia, Egypt (#Twitterrevolution) and other Arab countries...or, closer home, the Team Anna’s anti corruption movement in India…. Social media usage has become an important tactic in terms of spreading awareness and mobilizing support.
The question is - has social media come of age?
If you look at the history of mass media… it has always been associated with politics. In fact, it is referred to as “fourth estate”, the other 3 being Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. Traditional mass media was and has been controlled by a few (Just imagine, more than 90% of mass media consumed in the US is owned by just 6 media companies), and is limited by its ‘real estate’ – print area, bandwidth, or time… Mass media has always been used as a mass communication system to reach the public.
The relatively new Social Media however is built on a different model. The characteristic of social media is that it is not limited by any ‘real estate’, and more importantly is a mass communication system for the public. On the same platform, one can either broadcast or send a personal message.
There are 3 distinctive features for any mass media –
- The reach
- The information
- Influence on the people/society
The Reach:
The Internet boom took place in most countries during the mid 90’s. Majority of the social media consumers are the people who grew up with the Internet. Of the 640 Million Facebook users, more than 70% of the users are under 34 years…and close to 50% of the users under 25 years (source: checkfacebook.com). According to worldinternetstats.com, there are 2.1 Billion internet users in the world. If we assume that at-least 40% of these users are on social media, we are talking about close to 800 Million users globally. Looking at the sheer numbers, the social media surely fits into being called a mass media
The information:
Any mass media is known by the quantity and quality of information it disperses. Nobody can doubt the quantity of the information… be it a foursquare update on one’s check-in into a local bakery, or a Facebook update of a traffic jam on your way to work, or a tweet about environmental impact of discarded laptop batteries, linking to a blog or YouTube video..there are millions of such updates happening every minute, globally
But, when it comes to quality of information, most of the stuff seen in social media is found wanting. It is known fact, that ‘noise’ is the biggest factor that impacts effective flow of communication. In the traditional media, information flows from a professional few, and a lot of ‘filters’ before it is actually transmitted to the users… But in social media, the number of professionals and the reason for filters do not exist. Hence, there is a lot of information created, but very little percentage of that is of substance… It is early days of social media, but ‘filters’ for information has already begun… be it the search engine algorithms, or the social bookmarks, or user reviews… it is just a matter of time, before the perfect mouse trap in terms of social media filters is created
Influence on the society:
The influence of mass media shapes our concepts of who we are, what is important to us, and how we live our life. Majority of the social media users are the youth. Most information in the social media is created by the youth for the youth. Where as in today’s world the society is being led and shaped by people with experience. Most Decision Maker’s in our society still belong to the classic era of media, and have only adapted to social media (or for that matter, Internet) pretty late. However, the divisional lines between traditional media and social media are diffusing. It is a world of convergence media; Where-in each media feeds of the other for information seeking and broadcasting… You’ll find traditional media tweeting about their articles and liberally seeking information from other people’s tweets… so too, you will find tweets and updates based on the information the user gets from print, TV or radio.
So while, in today’s context, social media may not directly influence the society at large… it can indirectly influence the people who influence the society… (eg. the traditional media). However, as more and more internet generation people becomes decision makers…the impact of social media on the society and popular culture would become strong
So has social media truly come of age?? I’d dare say, yes. However, there are some things that social media needs to overcome to be accepted as a powerful and influential medium by all… The concentration of the users should not be skewed to few locations, there should be stronger filters to reduce the noises, and more importantly wait for few more years
Cheers
Santosh
Has Social Media come of age?
One of the main characteristic of any mass media is its ability to impact the society. Be it the newspapers, television or radio, each had played its part, in terms of changing views and shaping the society.
In the recent past, there have been many news articles about the impact of social media in the civil society movements… Be it Coffee Party in America, The elections in Iran, the civil movements in Tunisia, Egypt (#Twitterrevolution) and other Arab countries...or, closer home, the Team Anna’s anti corruption movement in India…. Social media usage has become an important tactic in terms of spreading awareness and mobilizing support.
The question is - has social media come of age?
If you look at the history of mass media… it has always been associated with politics. In fact, it is referred to as “fourth estate”, the other 3 being Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. Traditional mass media was and has been controlled by a few (Just imagine, more than 90% of mass media consumed in the US is owned by just 6 media companies), and is limited by its ‘real estate’ – print area, bandwidth, or time… Mass media has always been used as a mass communication system to reach the public.
The relatively new Social Media however is built on a different model. The characteristic of social media is that it is not limited by any ‘real estate’, and more importantly is a mass communication system for the public. On the same platform, one can either broadcast or send a personal message.
There are 3 distinctive features for any mass media –
- The reach
- The information
- Influence on the people/society
The Reach:
The Internet boom took place in most countries during the mid 90’s. Majority of the social media consumers are the people who grew up with the Internet. Of the 640 Million Facebook users, more than 70% of the users are under 34 years…and close to 50% of the users under 25 years (source: checkfacebook.com). According to worldinternetstats.com, there are 2.1 Billion internet users in the world. If we assume that at-least 40% of these users are on social media, we are talking about close to 800 Million users globally. Looking at the sheer numbers, the social media surely fits into being called a mass media
The information:
Any mass media is known by the quantity and quality of information it disperses. Nobody can doubt the quantity of the information… be it a foursquare update on one’s check-in into a local bakery, or a Facebook update of a traffic jam on your way to work, or a tweet about environmental impact of discarded laptop batteries, linking to a blog or YouTube video..there are millions of such updates happening every minute, globally
But, when it comes to quality of information, most of the stuff seen in social media is found wanting. It is known fact, that ‘noise’ is the biggest factor that impacts effective flow of communication. In the traditional media, information flows from a professional few, and a lot of ‘filters’ before it is actually transmitted to the users… But in social media, the number of professionals and the reason for filters do not exist. Hence, there is a lot of information created, but very little percentage of that is of substance… It is early days of social media, but ‘filters’ for information has already begun… be it the search engine algorithms, or the social bookmarks, or user reviews… it is just a matter of time, before the perfect mouse trap in terms of social media filters is created
Influence on the society:
The influence of mass media shapes our concepts of who we are, what is important to us, and how we live our life. Majority of the social media users are the youth. Most information in the social media is created by the youth for the youth. Where as in today’s world the society is being led and shaped by people with experience. Most Decision Maker’s in our society still belong to the classic era of media, and have only adapted to social media (or for that matter, Internet) pretty late. However, the divisional lines between traditional media and social media are diffusing. It is a world of convergence media; Where-in each media feeds of the other for information seeking and broadcasting… You’ll find traditional media tweeting about their articles and liberally seeking information from other people’s tweets… so too, you will find tweets and updates based on the information the user gets from print, TV or radio.
So while, in today’s context, social media may not directly influence the society at large… it can indirectly influence the people who influence the society… (eg. the traditional media). However, as more and more internet generation people becomes decision makers…the impact of social media on the society and popular culture would become strong
So has social media truly come of age?? I’d dare say, yes. However, there are some things that social media needs to overcome to be accepted as a powerful and influential medium by all… The concentration of the users should not be skewed to few locations, there should be stronger filters to reduce the noises, and more importantly wait for few more years
Cheers
Santosh
Kamis, 02 Desember 2010
Information Scarcity to Information Abundance – Changing thoughts
Couple of things that happened recently, made me think… Has the growth of technology (esp. Internet) actually diminished the value of information?
2 reasons that got me thinking were -
1) I was planning to make a Goan dish – Vindaloo... I logged on to the Internet to check the recipe. I read it, used it to make the dish. All throughout, I never made an effort to remember the recipe and process of making it…One reason could be - In case I need the same information in the future, I could get it at the click of a button…
2) In the past few weeks… the (scam) news sequence could be summed up as follows – IPL scam>CWG scam>2G scam>Adarsh>Media Tapes. While each of the news is important in terms of the freshness and context…the value we attach to the previous incident diminishes drastically with each passing day. The News today has a short shelf life
About 20 years back, (access to) information was scarce. The only known and popular sources of information were – the books, Newspapers, Radio, Television, Magazines, People, etc. Information was also available on computers and various storage devices (remember the floppy disks, tapes ). The information on the new technology systems were more on limited data retrieval rather than real time access of information/news. There was a lot of barrier in terms of accessibility and availability (on demand, real-time basis) of information/news. Yes, in those days, information was a scarce commodity.
The increase in usage of Internet and availability of Internet for public at large changed it all. Suddenly, Information generation and sharing have become simpler. It no longer was confined to mediums that were not in the grasp of the common man. Real time exchange of ideas, news, and content across the globe was a norm. In today’s world, the use of social media platform has made the availability and accessibility of news on as-it-happens basis. In today’s world Information/News is in abundance.
What is the effect of this on the Human Behaviour??
Economists, sociologists have long said: Every market-place reaction is based on 2 key factors of scarcity and abundance. The technology guru George Gilder has long postulated: "Every economic era is based on a key abundance and a key scarcity." I have to add here that most human development and behavior too is formed basis scarcity and abundance.
When the food is in abundance, the Human body stores it as fat in the body so that it can survive during the time of scarcity.
The human brain is also constructed to store huge amount of information. This ability to store and retrieve information has put humans in the apex of the animal kingdom. Humans would have developed the memorizing capabilities by trying to store information about hunting grounds, watering holes, things to avoid, etc during their early years of development as primates. Since the source of information was mostly through experience it was important crucial for our primates ancestors to memorize and store the experience
One of the important effects of things being scare is that its value is always high. That is the reason why we put high value for limited and finite resources like precious stones, minerals, land, etc…
The value of information and specifically information such as News was high during the scarce period. Since the value of News was high, we used to make extra effort to memorize and store the information. I remember my childhood days on how I used to consume news.. reading the newspaper from Left Hand Top to Right Hand Bottom, and trying to memorize as much as possible. Mapping that day’s information with earlier day’s News to construct a flow of events. Even with the advent of TV into every household the consumption of News/Information remained the same… only the format of the source of information changed. Our behavior in terms of storing/memorizing information remained similar
Since there was a high value assigned to information…We conditioned our brains to memorize and remember it.
With the adoption of technology (especially Internet) and the information abundance that followed with it, especially access to real-time news, the value of information has reduced
Whether it is a news item or a video clip of a particular episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S …it is all available at a click on YouTube or similar Video sharing channel
While ready access to information would have reduced the value of information in terms of us trying to memorize and remember it, another reason could be that we are exposed to multiple source of information (same and different) and human brains could have an auto switch-off mechanism when it reaches, what it believes is, overdose of information. The communication experts have coined a nice term for such thing – Short Attention Span
My guess on the impact of information abundance on the human behavior is that we would depend more on technology to store information and use our brains to memorize where we can find them in the technology map. We would train our brains more on how to index where the information is and how to find the information rather than the content of the information itself
Example: I would try and remember what keywords I had used to search for specific information on Google and what website I visited post the search results… not necessarily the content of the webpage itself
A few centuries later, this could be a common household scenario
Child: Dad, Where is Africa?
Dad: Ask Google (surely by then Google search would be in speech command mode)
Until then, try and remember the content that is written above :)
Cheers
Santosh
Santosh E.G. |Associate Vice President - Digital Marketing
MRM Worldwide | McCann Worldgroup
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/santosheg
Twitter: @santosheg
2 reasons that got me thinking were -
1) I was planning to make a Goan dish – Vindaloo... I logged on to the Internet to check the recipe. I read it, used it to make the dish. All throughout, I never made an effort to remember the recipe and process of making it…One reason could be - In case I need the same information in the future, I could get it at the click of a button…
2) In the past few weeks… the (scam) news sequence could be summed up as follows – IPL scam>CWG scam>2G scam>Adarsh>Media Tapes. While each of the news is important in terms of the freshness and context…the value we attach to the previous incident diminishes drastically with each passing day. The News today has a short shelf life
About 20 years back, (access to) information was scarce. The only known and popular sources of information were – the books, Newspapers, Radio, Television, Magazines, People, etc. Information was also available on computers and various storage devices (remember the floppy disks, tapes ). The information on the new technology systems were more on limited data retrieval rather than real time access of information/news. There was a lot of barrier in terms of accessibility and availability (on demand, real-time basis) of information/news. Yes, in those days, information was a scarce commodity.
The increase in usage of Internet and availability of Internet for public at large changed it all. Suddenly, Information generation and sharing have become simpler. It no longer was confined to mediums that were not in the grasp of the common man. Real time exchange of ideas, news, and content across the globe was a norm. In today’s world, the use of social media platform has made the availability and accessibility of news on as-it-happens basis. In today’s world Information/News is in abundance.
What is the effect of this on the Human Behaviour??
Economists, sociologists have long said: Every market-place reaction is based on 2 key factors of scarcity and abundance. The technology guru George Gilder has long postulated: "Every economic era is based on a key abundance and a key scarcity." I have to add here that most human development and behavior too is formed basis scarcity and abundance.
When the food is in abundance, the Human body stores it as fat in the body so that it can survive during the time of scarcity.
The human brain is also constructed to store huge amount of information. This ability to store and retrieve information has put humans in the apex of the animal kingdom. Humans would have developed the memorizing capabilities by trying to store information about hunting grounds, watering holes, things to avoid, etc during their early years of development as primates. Since the source of information was mostly through experience it was important crucial for our primates ancestors to memorize and store the experience
One of the important effects of things being scare is that its value is always high. That is the reason why we put high value for limited and finite resources like precious stones, minerals, land, etc…
The value of information and specifically information such as News was high during the scarce period. Since the value of News was high, we used to make extra effort to memorize and store the information. I remember my childhood days on how I used to consume news.. reading the newspaper from Left Hand Top to Right Hand Bottom, and trying to memorize as much as possible. Mapping that day’s information with earlier day’s News to construct a flow of events. Even with the advent of TV into every household the consumption of News/Information remained the same… only the format of the source of information changed. Our behavior in terms of storing/memorizing information remained similar
Since there was a high value assigned to information…We conditioned our brains to memorize and remember it.
With the adoption of technology (especially Internet) and the information abundance that followed with it, especially access to real-time news, the value of information has reduced
Whether it is a news item or a video clip of a particular episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S …it is all available at a click on YouTube or similar Video sharing channel
While ready access to information would have reduced the value of information in terms of us trying to memorize and remember it, another reason could be that we are exposed to multiple source of information (same and different) and human brains could have an auto switch-off mechanism when it reaches, what it believes is, overdose of information. The communication experts have coined a nice term for such thing – Short Attention Span
My guess on the impact of information abundance on the human behavior is that we would depend more on technology to store information and use our brains to memorize where we can find them in the technology map. We would train our brains more on how to index where the information is and how to find the information rather than the content of the information itself
Example: I would try and remember what keywords I had used to search for specific information on Google and what website I visited post the search results… not necessarily the content of the webpage itself
A few centuries later, this could be a common household scenario
Child: Dad, Where is Africa?
Dad: Ask Google (surely by then Google search would be in speech command mode)
Until then, try and remember the content that is written above :)
Cheers
Santosh
Santosh E.G. |Associate Vice President - Digital Marketing
MRM Worldwide | McCann Worldgroup
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/santosheg
Twitter: @santosheg
Information Scarcity to Information Abundance – Changing thoughts
Couple of things that happened recently, made me think… Has the growth of technology (esp. Internet) actually diminished the value of information?
2 reasons that got me thinking were -
1) I was planning to make a Goan dish – Vindaloo... I logged on to the Internet to check the recipe. I read it, used it to make the dish. All throughout, I never made an effort to remember the recipe and process of making it…One reason could be - In case I need the same information in the future, I could get it at the click of a button…
2) In the past few weeks… the (scam) news sequence could be summed up as follows – IPL scam>CWG scam>2G scam>Adarsh>Media Tapes. While each of the news is important in terms of the freshness and context…the value we attach to the previous incident diminishes drastically with each passing day. The News today has a short shelf life
About 20 years back, (access to) information was scarce. The only known and popular sources of information were – the books, Newspapers, Radio, Television, Magazines, People, etc. Information was also available on computers and various storage devices (remember the floppy disks, tapes ). The information on the new technology systems were more on limited data retrieval rather than real time access of information/news. There was a lot of barrier in terms of accessibility and availability (on demand, real-time basis) of information/news. Yes, in those days, information was a scarce commodity.
The increase in usage of Internet and availability of Internet for public at large changed it all. Suddenly, Information generation and sharing have become simpler. It no longer was confined to mediums that were not in the grasp of the common man. Real time exchange of ideas, news, and content across the globe was a norm. In today’s world, the use of social media platform has made the availability and accessibility of news on as-it-happens basis. In today’s world Information/News is in abundance.
What is the effect of this on the Human Behaviour??
Economists, sociologists have long said: Every market-place reaction is based on 2 key factors of scarcity and abundance. The technology guru George Gilder has long postulated: "Every economic era is based on a key abundance and a key scarcity." I have to add here that most human development and behavior too is formed basis scarcity and abundance.
When the food is in abundance, the Human body stores it as fat in the body so that it can survive during the time of scarcity.
The human brain is also constructed to store huge amount of information. This ability to store and retrieve information has put humans in the apex of the animal kingdom. Humans would have developed the memorizing capabilities by trying to store information about hunting grounds, watering holes, things to avoid, etc during their early years of development as primates. Since the source of information was mostly through experience it was important crucial for our primates ancestors to memorize and store the experience
One of the important effects of things being scare is that its value is always high. That is the reason why we put high value for limited and finite resources like precious stones, minerals, land, etc…
The value of information and specifically information such as News was high during the scarce period. Since the value of News was high, we used to make extra effort to memorize and store the information. I remember my childhood days on how I used to consume news.. reading the newspaper from Left Hand Top to Right Hand Bottom, and trying to memorize as much as possible. Mapping that day’s information with earlier day’s News to construct a flow of events. Even with the advent of TV into every household the consumption of News/Information remained the same… only the format of the source of information changed. Our behavior in terms of storing/memorizing information remained similar
Since there was a high value assigned to information…We conditioned our brains to memorize and remember it.
With the adoption of technology (especially Internet) and the information abundance that followed with it, especially access to real-time news, the value of information has reduced
Whether it is a news item or a video clip of a particular episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S …it is all available at a click on YouTube or similar Video sharing channel
While ready access to information would have reduced the value of information in terms of us trying to memorize and remember it, another reason could be that we are exposed to multiple source of information (same and different) and human brains could have an auto switch-off mechanism when it reaches, what it believes is, overdose of information. The communication experts have coined a nice term for such thing – Short Attention Span
My guess on the impact of information abundance on the human behavior is that we would depend more on technology to store information and use our brains to memorize where we can find them in the technology map. We would train our brains more on how to index where the information is and how to find the information rather than the content of the information itself
Example: I would try and remember what keywords I had used to search for specific information on Google and what website I visited post the search results… not necessarily the content of the webpage itself
A few centuries later, this could be a common household scenario
Child: Dad, Where is Africa?
Dad: Ask Google (surely by then Google search would be in speech command mode)
Until then, try and remember the content that is written above :)
Cheers
Santosh
Santosh E.G. |Associate Vice President - Digital Marketing
MRM Worldwide | McCann Worldgroup
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/santosheg
Twitter: @santosheg
2 reasons that got me thinking were -
1) I was planning to make a Goan dish – Vindaloo... I logged on to the Internet to check the recipe. I read it, used it to make the dish. All throughout, I never made an effort to remember the recipe and process of making it…One reason could be - In case I need the same information in the future, I could get it at the click of a button…
2) In the past few weeks… the (scam) news sequence could be summed up as follows – IPL scam>CWG scam>2G scam>Adarsh>Media Tapes. While each of the news is important in terms of the freshness and context…the value we attach to the previous incident diminishes drastically with each passing day. The News today has a short shelf life
About 20 years back, (access to) information was scarce. The only known and popular sources of information were – the books, Newspapers, Radio, Television, Magazines, People, etc. Information was also available on computers and various storage devices (remember the floppy disks, tapes ). The information on the new technology systems were more on limited data retrieval rather than real time access of information/news. There was a lot of barrier in terms of accessibility and availability (on demand, real-time basis) of information/news. Yes, in those days, information was a scarce commodity.
The increase in usage of Internet and availability of Internet for public at large changed it all. Suddenly, Information generation and sharing have become simpler. It no longer was confined to mediums that were not in the grasp of the common man. Real time exchange of ideas, news, and content across the globe was a norm. In today’s world, the use of social media platform has made the availability and accessibility of news on as-it-happens basis. In today’s world Information/News is in abundance.
What is the effect of this on the Human Behaviour??
Economists, sociologists have long said: Every market-place reaction is based on 2 key factors of scarcity and abundance. The technology guru George Gilder has long postulated: "Every economic era is based on a key abundance and a key scarcity." I have to add here that most human development and behavior too is formed basis scarcity and abundance.
When the food is in abundance, the Human body stores it as fat in the body so that it can survive during the time of scarcity.
The human brain is also constructed to store huge amount of information. This ability to store and retrieve information has put humans in the apex of the animal kingdom. Humans would have developed the memorizing capabilities by trying to store information about hunting grounds, watering holes, things to avoid, etc during their early years of development as primates. Since the source of information was mostly through experience it was important crucial for our primates ancestors to memorize and store the experience
One of the important effects of things being scare is that its value is always high. That is the reason why we put high value for limited and finite resources like precious stones, minerals, land, etc…
The value of information and specifically information such as News was high during the scarce period. Since the value of News was high, we used to make extra effort to memorize and store the information. I remember my childhood days on how I used to consume news.. reading the newspaper from Left Hand Top to Right Hand Bottom, and trying to memorize as much as possible. Mapping that day’s information with earlier day’s News to construct a flow of events. Even with the advent of TV into every household the consumption of News/Information remained the same… only the format of the source of information changed. Our behavior in terms of storing/memorizing information remained similar
Since there was a high value assigned to information…We conditioned our brains to memorize and remember it.
With the adoption of technology (especially Internet) and the information abundance that followed with it, especially access to real-time news, the value of information has reduced
Whether it is a news item or a video clip of a particular episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S …it is all available at a click on YouTube or similar Video sharing channel
While ready access to information would have reduced the value of information in terms of us trying to memorize and remember it, another reason could be that we are exposed to multiple source of information (same and different) and human brains could have an auto switch-off mechanism when it reaches, what it believes is, overdose of information. The communication experts have coined a nice term for such thing – Short Attention Span
My guess on the impact of information abundance on the human behavior is that we would depend more on technology to store information and use our brains to memorize where we can find them in the technology map. We would train our brains more on how to index where the information is and how to find the information rather than the content of the information itself
Example: I would try and remember what keywords I had used to search for specific information on Google and what website I visited post the search results… not necessarily the content of the webpage itself
A few centuries later, this could be a common household scenario
Child: Dad, Where is Africa?
Dad: Ask Google (surely by then Google search would be in speech command mode)
Until then, try and remember the content that is written above :)
Cheers
Santosh
Santosh E.G. |Associate Vice President - Digital Marketing
MRM Worldwide | McCann Worldgroup
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/santosheg
Twitter: @santosheg
Information Scarcity to Information Abundance – Changing thoughts
Couple of things that happened recently, made me think… Has the growth of technology (esp. Internet) actually diminished the value of information?
2 reasons that got me thinking were -
1) I was planning to make a Goan dish – Vindaloo... I logged on to the Internet to check the recipe. I read it, used it to make the dish. All throughout, I never made an effort to remember the recipe and process of making it…One reason could be - In case I need the same information in the future, I could get it at the click of a button…
2) In the past few weeks… the (scam) news sequence could be summed up as follows – IPL scam>CWG scam>2G scam>Adarsh>Media Tapes. While each of the news is important in terms of the freshness and context…the value we attach to the previous incident diminishes drastically with each passing day. The News today has a short shelf life
About 20 years back, (access to) information was scarce. The only known and popular sources of information were – the books, Newspapers, Radio, Television, Magazines, People, etc. Information was also available on computers and various storage devices (remember the floppy disks, tapes ). The information on the new technology systems were more on limited data retrieval rather than real time access of information/news. There was a lot of barrier in terms of accessibility and availability (on demand, real-time basis) of information/news. Yes, in those days, information was a scarce commodity.
The increase in usage of Internet and availability of Internet for public at large changed it all. Suddenly, Information generation and sharing have become simpler. It no longer was confined to mediums that were not in the grasp of the common man. Real time exchange of ideas, news, and content across the globe was a norm. In today’s world, the use of social media platform has made the availability and accessibility of news on as-it-happens basis. In today’s world Information/News is in abundance.
What is the effect of this on the Human Behaviour??
Economists, sociologists have long said: Every market-place reaction is based on 2 key factors of scarcity and abundance. The technology guru George Gilder has long postulated: "Every economic era is based on a key abundance and a key scarcity." I have to add here that most human development and behavior too is formed basis scarcity and abundance.
When the food is in abundance, the Human body stores it as fat in the body so that it can survive during the time of scarcity.
The human brain is also constructed to store huge amount of information. This ability to store and retrieve information has put humans in the apex of the animal kingdom. Humans would have developed the memorizing capabilities by trying to store information about hunting grounds, watering holes, things to avoid, etc during their early years of development as primates. Since the source of information was mostly through experience it was important crucial for our primates ancestors to memorize and store the experience
One of the important effects of things being scare is that its value is always high. That is the reason why we put high value for limited and finite resources like precious stones, minerals, land, etc…
The value of information and specifically information such as News was high during the scarce period. Since the value of News was high, we used to make extra effort to memorize and store the information. I remember my childhood days on how I used to consume news.. reading the newspaper from Left Hand Top to Right Hand Bottom, and trying to memorize as much as possible. Mapping that day’s information with earlier day’s News to construct a flow of events. Even with the advent of TV into every household the consumption of News/Information remained the same… only the format of the source of information changed. Our behavior in terms of storing/memorizing information remained similar
Since there was a high value assigned to information…We conditioned our brains to memorize and remember it.
With the adoption of technology (especially Internet) and the information abundance that followed with it, especially access to real-time news, the value of information has reduced
Whether it is a news item or a video clip of a particular episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S …it is all available at a click on YouTube or similar Video sharing channel
While ready access to information would have reduced the value of information in terms of us trying to memorize and remember it, another reason could be that we are exposed to multiple source of information (same and different) and human brains could have an auto switch-off mechanism when it reaches, what it believes is, overdose of information. The communication experts have coined a nice term for such thing – Short Attention Span
My guess on the impact of information abundance on the human behavior is that we would depend more on technology to store information and use our brains to memorize where we can find them in the technology map. We would train our brains more on how to index where the information is and how to find the information rather than the content of the information itself
Example: I would try and remember what keywords I had used to search for specific information on Google and what website I visited post the search results… not necessarily the content of the webpage itself
A few centuries later, this could be a common household scenario
Child: Dad, Where is Africa?
Dad: Ask Google (surely by then Google search would be in speech command mode)
Until then, try and remember the content that is written above :)
Cheers
Santosh
Santosh E.G. |Associate Vice President - Digital Marketing
MRM Worldwide | McCann Worldgroup
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/santosheg
Twitter: @santosheg
2 reasons that got me thinking were -
1) I was planning to make a Goan dish – Vindaloo... I logged on to the Internet to check the recipe. I read it, used it to make the dish. All throughout, I never made an effort to remember the recipe and process of making it…One reason could be - In case I need the same information in the future, I could get it at the click of a button…
2) In the past few weeks… the (scam) news sequence could be summed up as follows – IPL scam>CWG scam>2G scam>Adarsh>Media Tapes. While each of the news is important in terms of the freshness and context…the value we attach to the previous incident diminishes drastically with each passing day. The News today has a short shelf life
About 20 years back, (access to) information was scarce. The only known and popular sources of information were – the books, Newspapers, Radio, Television, Magazines, People, etc. Information was also available on computers and various storage devices (remember the floppy disks, tapes ). The information on the new technology systems were more on limited data retrieval rather than real time access of information/news. There was a lot of barrier in terms of accessibility and availability (on demand, real-time basis) of information/news. Yes, in those days, information was a scarce commodity.
The increase in usage of Internet and availability of Internet for public at large changed it all. Suddenly, Information generation and sharing have become simpler. It no longer was confined to mediums that were not in the grasp of the common man. Real time exchange of ideas, news, and content across the globe was a norm. In today’s world, the use of social media platform has made the availability and accessibility of news on as-it-happens basis. In today’s world Information/News is in abundance.
What is the effect of this on the Human Behaviour??
Economists, sociologists have long said: Every market-place reaction is based on 2 key factors of scarcity and abundance. The technology guru George Gilder has long postulated: "Every economic era is based on a key abundance and a key scarcity." I have to add here that most human development and behavior too is formed basis scarcity and abundance.
When the food is in abundance, the Human body stores it as fat in the body so that it can survive during the time of scarcity.
The human brain is also constructed to store huge amount of information. This ability to store and retrieve information has put humans in the apex of the animal kingdom. Humans would have developed the memorizing capabilities by trying to store information about hunting grounds, watering holes, things to avoid, etc during their early years of development as primates. Since the source of information was mostly through experience it was important crucial for our primates ancestors to memorize and store the experience
One of the important effects of things being scare is that its value is always high. That is the reason why we put high value for limited and finite resources like precious stones, minerals, land, etc…
The value of information and specifically information such as News was high during the scarce period. Since the value of News was high, we used to make extra effort to memorize and store the information. I remember my childhood days on how I used to consume news.. reading the newspaper from Left Hand Top to Right Hand Bottom, and trying to memorize as much as possible. Mapping that day’s information with earlier day’s News to construct a flow of events. Even with the advent of TV into every household the consumption of News/Information remained the same… only the format of the source of information changed. Our behavior in terms of storing/memorizing information remained similar
Since there was a high value assigned to information…We conditioned our brains to memorize and remember it.
With the adoption of technology (especially Internet) and the information abundance that followed with it, especially access to real-time news, the value of information has reduced
Whether it is a news item or a video clip of a particular episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S …it is all available at a click on YouTube or similar Video sharing channel
While ready access to information would have reduced the value of information in terms of us trying to memorize and remember it, another reason could be that we are exposed to multiple source of information (same and different) and human brains could have an auto switch-off mechanism when it reaches, what it believes is, overdose of information. The communication experts have coined a nice term for such thing – Short Attention Span
My guess on the impact of information abundance on the human behavior is that we would depend more on technology to store information and use our brains to memorize where we can find them in the technology map. We would train our brains more on how to index where the information is and how to find the information rather than the content of the information itself
Example: I would try and remember what keywords I had used to search for specific information on Google and what website I visited post the search results… not necessarily the content of the webpage itself
A few centuries later, this could be a common household scenario
Child: Dad, Where is Africa?
Dad: Ask Google (surely by then Google search would be in speech command mode)
Until then, try and remember the content that is written above :)
Cheers
Santosh
Santosh E.G. |Associate Vice President - Digital Marketing
MRM Worldwide | McCann Worldgroup
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/santosheg
Twitter: @santosheg
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