Unlearning...

Epilogue: What have you had to “unlearn” (i.e. that only phones are for having conversations) in the past 10 years due to technological change?

I think that the biggest example out there is that only phones are for having conversations. This idea has been completely 'unlearned' in almost anyones mind. Today, there are so many different ways of communicating with people that phones sometimes are on the bottom of the list. Twitter, Facebook, Instant Messaging, Text Messaging and even video chatting allow people to connect with one another almost anywhere and at the touch of a button. Along with this is the way that news is delivered. Instead of watching TV for the 5 o'clock news, people can quickly log online and search for any news that they want.

Another thing that I have had to 'unlearn' is using technology during school. In middle school, we all learned the dewey decimal system. Although I never fully grasped the system anyways, it really is unnecessary to know anymore. By looking on the computer you can find almost any resource you need.

Consumer Review Sites...

Many online merchants today, such as eBay and Amazon, use rating systems empowered by its customers. Is this adequate for determining which products to buy, or which users to trust? Cite examples from these two merchants that support your opinion (whether it is good enough, or inadequate).

I think that the rating systems that are empowered by customers are great sources of information for consumers who are looking to purchase a product. For consumers to read a product review, they can figure out why or why not the product is a good selection and if someone had a really good or really bad experience with the product. Consumers really are the best judges of the products because they are the ones that take the product into their home setting and test it there. Although, I would be hesitant to buy a product with only 1 or 2 reviews.

Pool Speakers - I was looking to buy these over the summer and didn't because they all got very poor reviews. This specific one only has one review but after looking at a couple of different versions, I got the feeling that these speakers were not worth the money.

UGGS - Just by searching for UGGS on ebay, you can see that they are a very popular product because of the abundance of them!

Wise Crowds

James Surowiecki’s book mentioned in this chapter outlines four elements to create a so-called “wise crowd,” one that can make decisions better than experts. These include “diversity of opinion” and “independence.” Since social groups online seem to form crowds of many like-minded people, what caution would you give someone using information they find from a socialized website or resource?

Information found from these "wise crowds" can be very useful because most likely the group is very knowledgeable about the subject. But, if everyone in the group has the same opinion about the subject, the information could become very biased. For example, in a group about universities across the US in which it allows people to post about their own school, for the most part, the posts are going to be from people who all go to or went to that school and had positive experiences. This information could become extremely biased because in reality, these students have not gone to another school to compare theirs too. The main idea is that there is a tying factor to everyone in these "wise crowds" and that tying factor probably doesn't allow for much room to express strong opinions which are contrary to those of the group. Even if a group member did have an opposing opinion, there is a slim chance of them bringing it up because of the fear that the group would look down on them.