Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing has become quite popular over the years. Especially with the rise of social media and the need to get data and input from many different people at once. I myself am totally for crowdsourcing. Me personally, I think it is a great way to get different perspectives and opinions on a topic from many different people. I myself am guilty of crowdsourcing; especially on facebook. When it comes to the nail polish and make up department, I am clueless. I don't know how to do makeup nor do I know which color nail polishes coordinate well with certain color dresses. Which is why when I have attended two weddings where I would have to dress up and look all nice, I turned to facebook to ask which color nail polish I should get. Sure it's not a serious question but it is a simple question that many different people can answer which allows me to eventually come up with a solution. By asking people's opinion on something such as nail polish color, it gives people the impression that I care about their opinion. I do care about certain people's opinion but not as many as some people may think. I have seen the good that crowdsourcing can do. Take for example Buzzfeed. One of the Buzzfeed posting concerns unsolved mysteries. Some include Jack the Ripper, missing people, spontaneous combustion, and the famous JonBenet Ramsey case. Most of the videos end with different theories of what happened to these people. What Buzzfeed unsolved has people do is post questions or comments on their social medias. What that allows is new theories to arise, possibly leading to more clues, and a high chance of the case being solved or maybe even the ability to point things out they may not have been caught initially. Maybe one day these videos will help solve one of these cases. Anyways, there is also the cases of where crowdsourcing has really helped people. There is this group of biker gangs that block the westboro baptist church. That way when the families are grieving their loved ones, they don't have to see that awful "church" picketing the funeral of their loved one. That I think is a great example of crowdsourcing doing good. It probably started from someone with an idea t shield families,  other people jumped on that idea because it helped people and now there is a whole biker gang of people doing this good deed. However, it's not to say that crowdsourcing is perfect because nothing is truly that perfect. I don't doubt that it has been used with bad intentions but all I have seen it do so far is more good than bad. I understand why companies do it; it's a quick, easy, and convenient way for them to reach out to their customers and then in turn the customers feel valued because the companies show that their opinion matters and so you get happy customers and happy companies and so everyone wins. Sure it's less personal but they get the results they want and they get them fast.

Midterm...

While it may seem as though none of these pictures could possibly have anything in common, they actually do. They all required people to focus on getting the "instagram perfect" picture in favor of enjoying the moment. For the people who posted food pictures, how much of what they ate will they remember? Will they remember how the food tasted or will they remember the possible extreme lengths they had to go through to get that perfect angle? You know, standing on a chair or other object that will give them some added height and then standing at weird and almost dangerous ways on the chair to get that perfect picture. The nature focused pictures; did the view really look that great or did the person choose to take the picture of the specific side of the landscape because it looked the best. The pictures with the person being the focus on attention; how many tries did it take for them to get the perfect picture? How long did it take for think of those motivational words. Is the picture a genuine candid or is it a posed candid? How much of their time spent in that place will they actually remember if all they were focused on was getting a picture. I understand the want to take a picture when you go someplace cool. I used to be like that; I used to be that annoying person who wanted to snapchat everything I did every time I went out somewhere (which wasn't a lot because I don't get out as much as I may say I do). Any type of motivational thing is always pictures of people, places, and food. To be honest, I am not even quite sure how half of these things supposed to motivate me. I just look at these pictures and feel envious of the cool places these people are going. I wonder if we did that same experiment as that woman did and could see how much of their surroundings these people remembered. Probably not much because they were too busy posting, looking up motivational words, and getting the right angle. After seeing all these pictures, I am still very much in favor of being in the moment and absorbing what is happening and existing around you.

To Document or Not to Document

Looking at the amount of impact that people’s photos can have on not only yourself, but others is a very interesting concept because it is not something I have really ever thought about. But after reading these two articles, the authors both brought up very good points and reminded me of my own personal experiences with instagram and looking at other people’s vacation photos.

            With relation to pictures in general, I have noticed that people are so camera focused. Whether it be a concert, their kids play, or even a dinner with friends, people love to document almost everything in their lives. Whether it be to show others what they are up to or just for their own purpose, people tend to have this compulsive need to whip out their phones anytime something exciting is happening or if their kid is doing something that they deem document worthy. While I understand the need to document things for the later purpose of having it documented, sometimes I do wish people would just be in the moment. It’s not just the compulsive need to document everything that annoys me but people’s obsession with social media. I knew someone that whenever we hung out she would be on her phone the entire time which got very annoying. We could be at dinner, watching a movie together, or just even hanging out and she would be on her phone the entire time and wouldn’t even be involved in the conversations of others around her and the fact that she thought her phone was more interesting than the people sitting in front of her was quite annoying. I try my best when I am with my friends to not be on my phone. I don’t want to be that person who is remembered as the friend who was never able to hold a conversation because she was too invested in staring at her screen. I want to create these long-lasting memories and the only way for me to do that is to not be overly invested in my phone. In relation to the compulsive documentation, too often I come across peoples overly long snapchat stories where they have decided to document the entire concert or parent who wants to film their kids entire concert. I get wanting to document these sorts of things because they are exciting but by doing so they miss out on being in the moment and just enjoying the concert and the ability to see their favorite performer live and in person or just simply enjoy seeing their kid attempt to play an instrument or sing and while they may not sound great, it is still cute to see them try. I have been to too many recitals where the entire room is nothing but phones and iPads and it just kind of ruins the beauty of the moment.

            I have no doubt that social media can alter one’s memory of an event or moment. When people take pictures of things, what it ultimately does is that it forces us to focus on one specific thing and as a result we may miss out on other things. Henkel conducted an experiment where she led a bunch of undergrad students around a museum and they looked at all sorts of cool art stuff. Some were told to take pictures while others were told to simply observe. The next day, they were told to recall what they saw, and the result of this test was that those who were told to take pictures remembered less than those who were told to observe. I think that just goes to show the importance of being in the moment because by doing so you are really able to take in the scenery and see all the small details as opposed to being photo focused and just getting your “instagram worthy” shot. That is one the reason why they don’t want us on our phones at my job, because when you are on your phone, your ability to  properly supervise the children deceases significantly and you may miss something important; whether it be a fight between campers or an injury. If you properly supervise, you can properly assess the situation and figure out how you want to handle it and if you have to rely it to a higher up, you are able to do so because you witnessed it and were able to get both sides of the story by being invested in the conversation. In the end, I do understand why people take pictures and whatnot but I also think that being in the moment and taking in your surrounding is just as important because it allows you to enjoy things more and you remember more of what happened.

https://www.citylab.com/life/2013/12/how-camera-phones-modify-our-memories/7829/