The Technological Generation

While I was growing up my friends and I would play marbles in the dirt or pogs on the sidewalk, but nowadays when I walk around my neighborhood I see young kids texting and playing on ipads.  Technology is becoming increasingly integrated into everyday life not just for us but also for our children.  There are many who claim that future generations will suffer from being constantly plugged in from such an early age, but there are many skills that will be fostered by having so much technology tightly integrated with everyday life.  Because children are being introduced to technology at an increasingly younger age, our children are becomming more and more tech savy.  The younger generations are learning to understand and use technology which is an invaluable skill in the world today.

Vlog: Effect of violent video games

Here Comes Everybody

With the rise of the internet and the formation of social media sites such as Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter a new environment for groups and collaboration has emerged. Now more than ever it is easier to get in touch with long lost friends, keep tabs on everyone you know, and meet completely new people from faraway places. With this new development comes the ability to easily form massive groups to collaborate on anything from a software development project to discussing your favorite movie. The benefits to forming a group this way are enormous because it is incredibly easy and reaches such a wide audience. Whether it is starting a group on Facebook or joining a project on Sourceforge it has never before been so possible to organize, manage, and participate in groups.

With so many benefits to these types of online groups many people forget about the weaknesses that they also posses. The first of those weaknesses is the lack of face to face interaction. The internet allows people from all over the world to communicate and collaborate but doesn't require any kind of face to face contact. There is value to communicating face to face especially because communication involves more than just the words you say. Also many times with online communication there is an added measure of detachment that is felt. Whether it is uploading photos or posting a on a blog, there are often things shared that would never actually be shared in a physical group consisting of the audience of this media. For example those photos of you partying with your friends would never have come out during Sunday’s family dinner, but they are posted on your wall that the whole family can see.

technology in the gospel

Technology is a wonderful thing that allows us to do things easier, faster, and more effeciently, but when it comes to many things within the gospel this may not always be a positive.  Today's technology gives us access to an extensive library of gospel works at the touch of a button, we can listen to the prophet live from almost any part of the world, and we can discuss gospel topics with a worldwide audience as quickly as it would take us to tell our neighbor, but how much technology is too much.  There is a place in the Lord's work for technology but at what point does the technology begin to take away from the spirit of the activity and the way it should be done.  Its a tough line to draw because it is not the same line for each person.  Some people will have the same spiritual experience whether they are reading the scriptures on their ipad or from a book, while others lose out on some level because of the implications brought on by the technology that they use.

My right to privacy

With the growing phenomena of social media, one of the concerns that are constantly being addressed is that of privacy and peoples perceived right to keep things private that are put out onto the public domain.  Between social media sites such as facebook and twitter peoples entire lives are being documented and put up for others to view.  In the past privacy has always been a right that could be always be expected, what happens between friends over the weekend never had to face public scrutiny, but with the growing popularity of documenting ones own life how much privacy will remain in the future.  When applying for a job is it ethical for employers to look into facebook and see those embarissing photos of you, or follow twitter to see what you are doing throughout the day.  Privacy was a lot easier to enforce when private things were kept in private but now that everyones private life spills into the public domain the lines become a lot more blurry.

The information age

One of the newest trends in the sharing of information is through massive social collaboration.  The shining example of this new form of technology is wikipedia.  Wikipedia has many benefits over the traditional forms of publication and encyclopedias, but is also accompanied by many risks.  One of the greatest benefits to wikipedia is that it is constantly evolving to include some of the most up to date information.  Another benefit is that it is easily accessable and easy to use.  Unfortunately along with the great benefits and innovation of wikipedia, there are also risks that accompany this new technology, of which many people are unaware.  The greatest of these risks is the possibility of inaccurate information with no accountability.  Wikipedia allows all of its users to contribute to its pages, this includes both the experts and the idiots, with no one being accountable for the information shared.  Another weakness inherant to a system such as wikipedia is inconsistancy in writting style.  Because there are often many authors to a single article, the writting style is often inconsistant and sometimes even confusing.  There are many benefits to a system such as wikipedia but these benefits are equally accompanied by risks and weaknesses.

Cathedrals vs Bazaars

With the continuing phenomena of open source software, a new system of developement has emerged.  This new system is what Raymond compares to a bazaar, where people from all over the world come together and collectivly collaborate and contribute to the developement of software.  Classically, software would be developed by a smaller group of individuals and would normally be commissioned by an overseeing company who would own the software upon its completion.
The classic approach to software developement will continue to dominate the field and is also the explanation to the sucess of open source software.  The classic approach to software developement has the major advantage of unity and a shared vision.  The most difficult part of building and maintaining software is to develope a mental model of the system.  This mental model needs to be the same between all the developers so that they can collectively build the software.  In open source developement maintaining this mental model becomes difficult because each participating developer brings their own ideas of what and how this software should perform.  In those extremely sucessful open source projects we see that this same classic model of building is still mostly followed, where the large majority of the project is built by a smaller group of individuals who hold and maintain that mental model.