This Monday evening, I’ll be chairing a panel of esteemed web academics at the Royal Society, including Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Northwestern’s Prof Noshir Contractor, Southampton’s Prof Nigel Shadboldt and Dame Wendy Hall and – my external examiner - Oxford’s Prof Bill Dutton. We’ll be discussing Web Science, the multi-disciplinary arena of study that looks at the web holistically – from a social, economic, political, psychological point of view – rather than approaching it within a purely technical framework.
As a psychologist, I recognise the importance of examining this communication technology from within the social sciences for asking questions about its local and global impact. As I presented earlier this week at Brunel and have been positing in my list of Big Ideas, there are countless implications of the Web on our social lives that we really don’t know enough about. Here are a just few:
- To what extent do recommendation engines encourage cultural homogeneity and serentipity?
- How might the Web contribute to extremism because of confirmation biases and pluralistic ignorance?
- What does the notion of having 700 ‘friends’ on a social media site mean for account holders?
- What are the real social, political, economic and psychological long-term effects of the new Web in new territories?
The panel will be streamed live.
Comments
How can we get notification on when to join the live stream, please?
Sounds interesting!
One thing I keep seeing/hearing you discuss is the ‘Web’. However, with DOM, AJAX and now HTML5, the Web is no longer distinct in any meaningful way from any other networked graphical user interface. Looking at many sites/GUIs (facebook for example), the use of the original notion of hyperlinking is very limited. Most of the user experience is input boxes, buttons and background refresh through DOM manipulation.
At what point to you believe we should move away from thinking of the ‘Web’ as a web and actually as one huge mashed up distributed graphical interface into the major cloud engines of the world?
The experience of my children of the web is nothing like that of myself. Their internalised model of the web is a place populated by dynamic graphical representations of cybernetic realities. My view of the web is still a set of resources sat on computers about which I navigate. Whilst my view is a product of my experience and technical background, and hence deterministically accurate, as a psychologist, I expect you are fully aware that is it incorrect as a model of how the Web, as it functions now, actually maps its self (or is mapped – where is the agency?) into the mind of the users.
It would be very interesting indeed for someone like yourself – riding a wave of publicity and thrust into the public eye – to start to draw a distinction between ‘The Web’ and what generation Y internally understand as the modern connected/distributed cyber consciousness, which ultimately rests as much on the low cost of the cloud as it does on the technology of the HTTP protocol.
Best wishes – AJ
Dr Alexander J Turner
another interesting question: the next Billion. Africa is rapidly getting on the web through mobile phones. How will that change the web, Africa & north-south relations?
Any chance of getting a ticket? Can’t find info on site.
@alex “the Web is no longer distinct in any meaningful way from any other networked graphical user interface.”
the web is about people, not bits. the availability of good UI oils the joints of human networks, but the web is like no other mechanism in its social dynamics.
As technology develops one likely outcome is that all the existing communication, data transmission and media will be distributed solely through Internet infrastructure. Everything we do will be transported and stored on the Web. After all, why duplicate on broadcasting equipment, cabling and satellites when the Web can carry it all? The Web has the potential to unify all our existing transmission technology but also has the potential to dominate it to the exclusion of all else.
The implications of such a future are enormous:
1. As more is invested in the Web, traditional forms of broadcasting will diminish, placing at a disadvantage those with poor or no infrastructure; there’s a potential for an ever widening gap between the tech-rich and tech-poor.
2. If the Internet becomes the sole carrier of all communications, data and media any coordinated attack on the infrastructure could be very destructive.
3. As has happened with other advancements, certain skills will be lost or forgotten.
4. The elimination of choice: ultimately will we have Internet or nothing?
5. The Internet may become, for many people, the “source of all knowledge”, this will hand extraordinary power to large corporations, governments or anyone wishing to manipulate the masses.
It would be interesting to hear from yourself and the panel: (a) Do they think that the Internet will eventually be the sole conduit for all communications, data and media? (b) How can we mitigate against the possible negatives whilst retaining the benefits?
Dr Turner is absolutely correct; the “web” is no longer just the linking of information.
Looking forward to listening in on the discussions.
Best regards
Victor Spanner
Web Technology Specialist
@YishayMor I think you are somewhat naive to believe this. The technology shapes the interaction of those people as much as the reverse. Equally, if the Web is about people not bits, then is PlayStation Network Web or something else? Is bit torrent Web or something else?
As I state in my post below: If we do not address these issues and understand their implications we could sleep walk into a very different world from that we are expecting.
http://nerds-central.blogspot.
@Alex Turner
Very useful insight. Thanks.