Digital Natives Volume 8 Issue 3

8/3/2019 Digital Natives Volume 8 Issue 3

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What did come rst then, the chickenor the egg? The vast universe ofthe sunny yolk had to be cracked

open for the chick to be born, grow up, mate

and lay an egg. But who put that rst chickenin the haystack? Would you say our DigitalNatives group and the members within are aKafkaesque chicken-and-egg waiting for theirmoment of evolutionary truth?

A groups presence is crystallized longbefore its given a name, right from that cre-ative moment when the idea to form a groupcame into play. Of course, the moment of bigbang is quite hazy. The blank, white space ofthe cyber walls wait for proclamation from thenewly hatched members to validate its exis-tence; that moment when we all say, We arepart of this group, or when you click, join

and your membership is conrmed thatswhen the group takes its rst breath.

Again, what came rst, the empty-walledgroup with only a name to go by andunseen ideologies keeping it awake, or thegroup members, who are bursting with theknowledge of what they are, where theycome from, what they want this group tobe. The group, so long as it is a conscious,Kafkaesque chicken, doesnt even have thatmuch to go on. It only knows that it has tonurture the egg and wait for it to hatch. Doesthe chicken know the color, dimensions, sizeor thoughts of the egg and chick within? No,

nothing!So, by denition, a groups outline is pre-

dened even before members join it. Oncethe members join, they dene that outlinefurther, sort of like darkening a pencil line onpaper with a charcoal marker. What happensas the days go by? Does the group stick tothe outlines of its ideals or do the membersslowly change its shape and denition? Dontwe slowly erase the boundaries of denitionand redene the group for what we are,rather than for what it (the group) stoodfor? In this metamorphosis, members alsochange, exhibit new traits and behavior and

continue molding the group in unforeseenways. The group in effect can never be astatic entity and cannot be effectively quanti-ed or dened at any one point in time.*****

If posts are representations of a person their voice, so to speak what does it sayabout group behaviour online when we ig-nore or remain neutral to status updates?

In a t of frenzy, when I was feeling par-

ticularly stir-crazy, I deleted the more than100 posts I had up on a Facebook group I ampart of. A hundred-odd status updates, newsand information links, poetry, polls, video,and photo uploads that were specic to theinterests and theme of the group digital na-tive culture. The hardest part was the fact thatof the 70-plus members, not a one noticedthis transgression. The most surprising fact isthat I didnt get all hyper-emotional for losingvital bits of what I had invested in the groupfor more than a year. So, what gives?

Well, it wasnt all mayhem. I was particu-larly interested in nding out if, rstly, would

anyone notice the missing posts; secondly;would anyone miss the deletions on anemotional note; thirdly, would it concern any-one enough that posts that were Liked, Com-mented and Gushed over were no longeravailable to the group as an archive; fourth,did anyone think that I unfairly deleted poststhat was partly, group property, consideringso many of them commented and expressedconsidered opinions on them; and lastly, whatare the qualities that we attribute to posts are they merely information bytes, or dopeople use them as reference to understandthe person behind the posts?

The last point is crucial to delve intoconsidering that group members on Face-book hardly meet each other, especially if theoriginal way they came together was virtualand not an ofine-meet up-turned-cyber-hangout. So, the way we interact within agroup is, apart from one-on-one or one-to-many group chats is primarily through thedozen postings. The posts become a guide toform impressions on group members: some-one who simply Likes several hundred postsover the year but never responds throughcomments would be considered a lurker or aintrovert, neutral or talk-shy person. At other

times, posters can be classied as informationsharers, information consumers, opinion mak-ers, persuaders or other personality-typeswithin groups. There is much to make senseof from those posts!

In a group, an overt response to your postor links is the only way to ascertain if youhave been heard. Posts serve an information-al as well as emotive, neutral or non-descriptfunctional values. Being seen as data ratherthan a persons voice makes it difcult toformulate a framework within which we makesense of the way we treat persons and theironline contribution.

Coming back to the original sleuthinggoals, if no one missed the deletions andhardly anyone noticed that certain importantnews links or Infographics are gone forever,what does that say about the value weascribe to people as well as the collective

presence of a group? Thats just like postinga Facebook update, I am feeling miserableafter my dog died, for example and no onedecides to respond to it. And is it really abouta calculative action: do I, should I comment

or Like beneath an update, do I skip it over,do I scroll to more interesting news; do wedeliberate over it so consciously?

This brings us to the question: Are all postsgiven the same value? Perhaps, some of youmight already ask to change the interroga-tive context to, Should all the posts be giventhe same value for which the answer wouldbe an obvious no. Think about this, whileconversing in a physically present group on aphysical plane, you make an announcementor talk about the most mundane of things,knowing that you have the surety, guarantee,of being heard. After all, your voice cant

be shut out. Its a different matter to gaugewhether your group is paying attention toyour speech or if they are tuning you out.However, you are guaranteed feedback,either through verbal or a facial cue, or viabody language. If the importance we assignto posts is set at an arbitrary level, no one isguaranteed any measurable response andthe Message Board of Facebook, Twitter orany other social media site just becomesanother grafti wall, no response required, itsall over in the process itself.

Ok, so the sum-total of all my energiesand efforts to curate interesting links for the

group and start an inspiration thread on apost-Singularity dystopian future didnt somuch as register a blip on the attention radarof the members when it all (the posts) van-ished overnight. I waited, tapped ngernailson keyboard, prayed to the cyber-goddessshakti to salvage my vanity, and eventuallythe impatient hyper-enthusiast in me leakedthe secret to a couple of group members.The reaction? They ended up seeing myriotous deletions as a lol, fun activity ratherthan a subversive experiment in chroniclingthe value of our textual detritus that I intend-ed it to be. So much for Rainbows Gravity.

Well, I have erased all traces of my past. Ihave erased the back story that made refer-ences to what gave me a kick and what sad-dened me. I bet, I bet you a good deal of thegold pot at the end of the rainbow that notmany of you would remember a quarter ofall I said, debated, disliked or perhaps stayednon-committal about. If you dont haveproof of the text that gave evidence of myexistence (as a member of your group), whatare you going to rely on to talk to me today,tomorrow? Are your impressions of me goodenough and well-formed, or did you earmarkmy words links and posts to be looked up

later on?I feel its not human to look at our com-munications online as merely information-archives streaming our individual walls forconsumption. But I also wonder, will it reallymatter to those who come after me?

Links ChainA Newsletter of the Digital Natives with a Cause? Project Vol. 8 Issue III

in the

The Chicken is the EggDo members make a group or is it the other way around?

An oval egg helps me reason.

Editorial Decoding Web Groups

GUEST EDITOR: Niloar Ansher | IndiaJournalist | Editor | Digital Native |

Blog: http://www.trailopapercuts.wordpress.com|Twitter: @culture_curate

OctOber 2011


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The UKs rst ever online ash mob sawhundreds of colored hoppers invadeone of the biggest sites on the Internet.

Flash mobs normally take place in thereal world, when a large group of peoplesuddenly converge in a public place andperform an unusual activity for a short while- normally to the surprise and confusion ofpassers-by - before disappearing as suddenly

as they appeared.The rst ash mobs were started in New

York in 2003 as a social experiment, but their

popularity boomed. Famous events have in-cluded a silent disco at London Undergroundstations, where participants were encouragedto dance wildly to their own personal musicplayer, and a mass pillow ght which tookplace in 25 cities around the world simultane-

ously.The online ash mob which caught

Yahoo!s users by surprise saw thousands of

individually designed coloured space hoppersbounce across the screen for 40 seconds atexactly 3 pm, before vanishing.

Source: http://hopperinvasion.admedia.yahoo.com/uk/watch

Digital technologies have ofciallytaken over every aspect of humaninteraction and communication.

Families use video conferencing technologyto speak to their relatives overseas. Schoolsuse internet resources to share information,give assignments and even grade papers.And now, businesses use programs to shareles out-of-ofce, speak to employees acrossdifferent departments or branches, and even

let employees do some tasks remotely fromtheir homes. Very soon, perhaps in the nextdecade, the idea of having to go to your of-ce building would seem ridiculous!

Digital technologies have modied thedenition of workplace and teams. Nowa-days, its not uncommon to see several teamsworking on one project across different timezones and physical spaces, share and editdocuments and les together using innova-tive web-based applications such as GoogleDocs for instance, and use cloud-backupprograms that allow more than one person toaccess the same le easily. Project manage-ment websites like freedcamp allow groupleaders to give tasks and share milestoneswithout convening a boardroom meetingwith dozens of tea-breaks, unnecessary sta-tionery distributed and the boss talking downto specic members about whos not gettingthe job done.

Even with all this technology geared to-ward creating a seamless work environment,basic questions still remain: is digital projectmanagement here to stay, and is it more ef-fective in getting work done compared to tra-ditional, face-to-face monitoring at a work-place? Let me discuss the pros and cons. The

rst issue with online work is that it makes thebasic assumption that all workers are tech-enabled, meaning everyone has the samecapacities to grasp digital technologies andmake use of ofce-related digital tools. In or-der for every person to have the same accessto necessary information, participate in groupprocesses in a timely manner and le cor-respondence according as per deadlines, allmembers need to have: 1) access to Internetat home 2) the same hardware 3) spend thesame number of hours working online as pertheir team members.

If the group is required to be constantlyparticipating in the process of the projector relay new information as it is received,then the group is expected to have thesame broadband speed or plug-in Internetconnections with same bandwidth. Can thisbe guaranteed? If members are required totravel for client meetings, then they need tohave Internet-enabled mobile phones andlaptops to send or receive critical les, dataor communicate information in real time. Noteveryone, however, has these facilities readyat their disposal. Companies do provide netconnection to those who work from home,however, as we know, there are several tech-nical difculties in accessing faster broadbandconnections across different geographicregions. This might mean that the group, orits leader, will have to decide how to gatherthose resources for the benet of the group,and hope that it is properly utilized.

This leads me to problem number two.Giving employees the freedom to work attheir own pace or in their own space meansthat they can be easily distracted by thethings that usually take up a persons timewhen they are not in ofce or on the elddoing work. In a 9 to 5 business environment,family and friends usually restrict calling em-ployees and workers know that they cannottake unusually long coffee or lunch breaks or

go out to complete their chores! This is actu-ally what happens when you do work fromhome: many of us get caught up or distract-ed with paying the bills, calling our friends oranswering the door as we dont restrict thework zone at home. All this translates intoan erratic work pattern and delayed projecttimelines.

Often, groups that are managed onlinefor the purpose of nishing a project sufferfrom a lack of leadership, even when a leaderis assigned. The problem is seldom that theleader is incompetent or lazy, but ratherthat his sphere of inuence is restricted tovoice chats or video conferencing. The forceof someones personality, their emotionsor body language gets diluted when themedium is a screen. The good thing about amanager in the real world is that he has theopportunity to get in your face and speak toyou one-on-one. He can observe your will-ingness and ability to work, read your bodylanguage to tell if youre enthusiastic to getthe job done, and look into your eyes whenhes telling you what youre doing wrong andmake sure you understand how to correctit. This can also be a problem for the othermembers of a team, who could very well be

working their tails off but will not be able toget that recognition because the work takesplace in a space where only the end resultsmatter and are seen, and not the processitself, which remain hidden.

Also a regular problem is communicationbetween all members of the team, which canvery easily turn hostile. In every group thereare people who nd a harder time to getalong and work together than everyone else.Usually, because of subtle social pressuresto keep the peace, even two team memberswho cannot get along will decide to just suckit up and work around each other. In thedigital space, however, where there is no oneto hold you back or speak to you before yousay or do something you might regret, wordscan be more easily taken out of context orread too much into. This can lead to lack ofcohesiveness within the group, and even cre-ate animosity between members. Since thereisnt a project manager sitting right across theoor or in the next cabin or cubicle, problemstend to simmer or stretch out, or worse, teammembers continue working without solvingthe issue.

In sum, a group that is digitally manageddoes seem to have a lot of shortcomings.There are several advantages at the sametime, such as being able to share informa-tion quickly and easily, promote an open andtransparent working environment where alldata is shared and available, tracking of a

projects timeline becomes easier, and nally,it allows for greater levels of multi-tasking.However, unless they are met with some levelof on-shore in-ofce monitoring, it is notlikely to yield great results. While innovativeand advantageous, online project manage-ment has a long way to go before beingaccepted as norm across industry, NGO andgovernment sectors.

CONTRIBUTORS

Paidamoyo Muzulu | ZimbabwePoet | Journalist | Activist orgender rights | Dreamweaver

Dwarkanath Prabhu | India | Final year MechanicalEngineering student at IIT Bombay | What gets meticking: Gossip, scandals, ashion fascoes, oot-in-

mouth situations | Twitter: @dk_prabhu |Blog: http://imoticon.blogspot.com

Fernanda Tusa | Ecuador | Sketch &Cartoon Czarina | Communications

Specialist | Reporter | Blogger

Opinion

History Sheet

Poets Hangout

Digital Project Management:

Better Than Oine Monitoring?Brendon OBrien examines the viability of remote working and managing groups onlinein an age where every process seems to be digitally connected

Aditya Kulkarni | IndiaCo-ounder, VoteIndia | Sotware developer

| Game DesignerEmail: [email protected]

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Its twelve midnightMy eyes are glued to the monitor,Alert ngers type furiously,

Im conversing with friends across the world.

The chat is on Facebook,While the other window monitors my mail,

A third zips through my RSS feeds,My head is like the ying Twitter Whale.

I have been to MySpace,Networked on LinkedIn,

And most recently on board Google PlusI signed up for my communication needs.

I doze off,Wake up,

Make a cup of coffee and asked myselfWhy am I watching my ngers dance?What do I get from all this mayhem?

Realization struck;Virtual Talk has changed my lifestyle

Most of my friends are digital,Most of my work oating in space,

It was the way of the world,I am just one among the herd.

Its time I get back to my bodyTime to walk away from the herd mentality

I head back to sites that I can control,Perhaps, my friends will follow me?

Paidamoyo Muzulu

UKs first ever online flash mob

Brendan OBrien | Trinidad and TobagoSpoken Word poet | blogger | amateur

journalist | blogger | activist

Blog: http://adverse.tumblr.com | Email:[email protected]

Prabhas Pokharel | Nepal ~ U.S. | Activein new media technology, mobile ordevelopment, all round do gooder

Herd Mentality


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Guest Editor: Nilofar Ansher | Design: Albert Mucunguzi (http://almuc.me) / Ronald Muhwezi (@Arr_emRonnie )

Herd MentalityIts twelve midnight

My eyes are glued to the monitor,Alert ngers type furiously,

Im conversing with friends across the world.

The chat is on Facebook,While the other window monitors my mail,

A third zips through my RSS feeds,My head is like the ying Twitter Whale.

I have been to MySpace,Networked on LinkedIn,

And most recently on board Google PlusI signed up for my communication needs.

I doze off,Wake up,

Make a cup of coffee and asked myselfWhy am I watching my ngers dance?What do I get from all this mayhem?

Realization struck;Virtual Talk has changed my lifestyle

Most of my friends are digital,Most of my work oating in space,

It was the way of the world,I am just one among the herd.

Its time I get back to my bodyTime to walk away from the herd mentality

I head back to sites that I can control,Perhaps, my friends will follow me?

Paidamoyo Muzulu

2

Fernanda Tusa

adiTya KulKarni

Quick Bytes

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t, i v-ade eae mage n ieo, p, ui, dont et ha

m nracin m nesn - Dwkna Pr


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Cyber Selves:

Feminist Ethnographies of South

Asian WomenRadhika Gajjalahttp://amzn.to/nf68oy

Review:

In her book, Radhika Gajjala examinesonline community formations and sub- jectivities that are produced at the inter-

section of technologies and globalization.

She describes the process of designing andbuilding cyberfeminist webs for South Asian womens communi-ties, the generation of feminist cyber(auto)ethnographies, and offersa third-world critique of cyberfeminism. She ultimately views virtualcommunities as imbedded in real life communities and contexts, withhuman costs. The online discussions are visible, textual records of thediscourses that circulate within real life communities. Her methodologyinvolves a form of cyberethnography, which explores the dialogic anddisruptive possibilities of the vir tual medium and of hypertext. Gajjalaswork addresses the political, economic, and cultural ramications of theInternet communication explosion. This book will be a valuable refer-ence for those with an interest in cultural studies, feminist studies, andnew technologies.

V for Vendetta (2006)

Directed by James McTeigue

Based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore, V for Vendetta takesplace in an alternate vision of Britain in which a corrupt andabusive totalitarian government has risen to complete power.

During a threatening run in with the secret police, an unassumingyoung woman named Evey (Natalie Portman) is rescued by a vigilantenamed V (Hugo Weaving) -- a caped gure both ar ticulate and skilledin combat. V embodies the principles of rebellion from an authoritarian

state, donning a mask of vilied would-be terrorist of British history GuyFawkes and leading a revolution sparked by assassination and destruc-tion. Evey becomes his unlikely ally, newly aware of the cruelty of herown society and her role in it.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0434409/

Ibreak silence today, and come out of the woodwork, but I had

every right not to.In an age of increasing digital participation, silent participation

must be considered participation, and left be. Not everyone needs tocomment, vote, whatever else. Some may just read/watch/listen, andperhaps, appreciate. It is okay if no thumb is clicked up, no quick replysent back. No blog written.

O designers of engagement, let us, sometimes, enjoy the noise ofour computer fans as the bits whizz by. A click here and a scroll there,and pitter patter of rainfall rather than keyboard.

http://digitalnatives.in/prabhas/blogs/right-lurk

Internet and phone bullying causes loss of condence and damagesmental health, study shows Nearly one in ve UK youngsters havebeen the victim of cyberbullying, with girls affected more than boys,

research suggests.Many victims said the experience had damaged their condence, men-tal health and even school attendance.The study, by academics at Anglia Ruskin University, questioned almost500 young people aged between 11 and 19.Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/aug/01/cyber-bul-lying-victims

Distribution of cyberbullying venues used by young

people in the US, according to the Centers for Disease

Control

Geek Speak

Editor Recommends:

Did you know? Contrarian View

Almost One-ftho Youngsters

Cyberbullied

Evolutionary theory suggests that humans evolved into aspecies that is best equipped for survival when it functions ingroups.

The study of groups in a psychological manner was rstfounded by Kurt Lewin (1943), which consisted of explainingthe way small groups and individuals act and react to differentcircumstances; he called this group dynamics.

The groups cohesion (sticking together) depends on the ex-tent that the individuals in the group want to accomplish thegroups common goals and group identity.

Right to Lurk- Prabhas Pokharel

Next Issue: Analog Relics in Digital AgeArcade games still set your pulses on re? Secretly hoarding yourAtari game controllers? Why do we write emails like we do letters

on paper? Remember the good old days of oppy discs and wristwatches? Our next issue will explore all these nostalgic analog

dinosaurs! To volunteer as the Guest Editor / Writer, please get intouch with Nilofar:

[email protected] for submission: November 10

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Digital Natives Volume 8 Issue 3