1. S O C I AL M E D I A Ammar Yasir
To be or not to
be social?
When it comes to social media, there’s a fine line
between social good and information overload
How many of us out there think to not bond with real-life relations, yet take
that social media is over-rated – pride in having hundreds of virtual friends
that ‘Facebooking’ and tweeting is one hasn’t met in years. Why then, are the
nothing but a waste of time? The truth of supposed “smart people” at Silicon Valley
the matter is we spend half our day “liking” still investing in startup after startup, and
pictures we don’t actually like, and re- product after product to facilitate people in
tweeting articles we hardly read. Social the way they interact on social media?
media has bred a culture where it’s normal To understand the dimensions of social
media, we need to venture back in
time and see how societies
functioned before the advent of
internet, computers or even
electricity. Back then, people had to
rely on word-of-mouth. Information
travelled from person to person, and
anyone who was interested in the
facts had to find the right person to
respond to their query. This method of
information retrieval and knowledge
acquisition is often referred to as the
village paradigm, where information-
seekers’ trust (the information) which
comes from someone whom they
know personally.
In contrast, the modern digital
technique of information retrieval
comes from impersonal resources
like libraries – online and offline. This
is called the library paradigm. If we
dig deep and compare the two
methods of information retrieval, we
will find a lot of interesting points.
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2. SOCIAL MEDIA
members of the community in real-time,
and the authority’s reliability is based
on one’s personal affiliation with it.
Keeping these facts in mind,
one must understand that
though the human race is
evolving technologically, it is
sticking to the innate instinct
of information retrieval.
The difference is, with
the additional layer of
For library-supported
instance, in knowledge base,
the library paradigm, information retrieval
queries are made based on can be done in real-
keywords (“new iPad specs”, “Android time, and be verified
firmware download” etcetera). In this from multiple sources.
instance, the knowledge base exists prior This scenario may have
to making the query, whereas trust is built been perfect 10 years ago, but
based on the authority and credibility of considering the current state of the ever-
the content publisher (Tech Crunch, growing pile of data, one has the right to
Gizmodo etcetera). complain about information overload.
So is the village paradigm still relevant? Another issue is differentiating between
The answer is a resounding “Yes”. It is the useful data and all the existing white
useful for retrieving information in real- noise – a task that is anything but easy.
time, real-life situations, like for a traffic Of course, with technology, one has to be
update or the law and order situation. In patient; it always eventually catches up
this case, queries are answered by with people’s demands.
Location-based
Fans of location-based social networks (LBSNs) agree that these tools have great
potential to succeed on both commercial and humanitarian grounds. This is exactly why
the initial success of Foursquare forced social media giant Facebook to jump on the LBSN
bandwagon, with its product Facebook Places. Initially, all that Foursquare offered was a
game, based on the number of times a user publicly checked into his favourite places.
Fast-forward a couple of months and truckloads of success across the globe, Foursquare
evolved into a network that could recommend users to check out bookshops, restaurants,
coffee shops etcetera, based on their interests and needs. Similarly, online deal broker
Groupon offers shopping deals via social media, earning significant profits for Groupon
and its clients. Rumour has it that a similar product is in the pipeline in Pakistan.
We must also open our eyes to the humanitarian benefits of social networking, with
projects like Ushahidi, an open-source platform used to collect information. It has also
been used for interactive mapping and visualisation during many recent global crises.
Even in Pakistan, Ushahidi came in handy during rehabilitation and rescue efforts for the
flood survivors. Following Japan’s recent incidents of a devastating earthquake, tsunami
and nuclear power plant meltdown, technology giants like Google, Apple, Microsoft and
Twitter assisted in rescue efforts, by providing their platforms for the greater good.
Google’s Person Finder is one example.
Taking into consideration, the growing acceptance of social media in our society, and
the progress of telecommunications, it is time we plan a future where we can build or
customise existing platforms to take advantage of our understanding of the library and
village paradigms
| 89 | april 2011 | SPIDER