Hello, friends! I'm in the process of organizing a journal-esque documentation of my experience. I wanted to have all the posts be together, which, in retrospect, was a pretty dumb idea.
Here are some questions to consider based on my experience with StumbleUpon:
(1) In what ways could this site play into what we were talking about in section last week as far as polarizing opinions and filtering information? In what ways does it contrast this idea?
(2) Would you use the profile options on this site, or others like it, to meet people in 'real life', not just on the internet?
(3) Are a person's 'like's and 'dislike's a more honest representation of who they are than, say, Facebook? Why or why not?
(4) How are social bookmarking sites more passive than social networking sites? Is there a different 'type' of person that might prefer bookmarking to networking? Could this bookmarking in addition to the profile option turn into networking?
Hey Sasha, I think Stumbleupon could definitely add to group polarization. For example, I am huge into politics and by my other interests StumbleUpon has pretty much figured out I Lean towards the left and I really only get left type stories, images and sites. I don't get things from the other side very often, therefore this could clearly contribute to polarization. However, I think a lot of people don't focus on Stumbling on Politics but just on fun stuff, so it's not nearly as bad as the author in the article suggests.
ReplyDeleteSo after your group presented I decided to invest a little more time into my StumbleUpon account because, as you noted, most people seem to neglect it or not even think to socialize on there. So I added a picture and friended a couple of my friends. And to my surprise I found that adding a couple of my friends really added to my overall StumbleUpon experience. For one, it shows on your homepage recent "Likes" that your friends have clicked, which I find really useful because my friends have slightly different interests than me. Also it is just another way for me to stalk people I know so that is a plus.
ReplyDeleteIn response to your fourth question: I think that social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon are more passive than social networking sites because from what I know about my personal use of the site, and the use of everyone else I know who goes on the site, it is simply for finding fun pages based on your interests. It's also passive in that you're not searching a specific website, or typing into Google a topic you want to know about; rather you are allowing the site to choose for you. I guess StumbleUpon could turn into networking with the addition of a profile, but I don't think there are enough people who use the site for networking purposes. I think StumbleUpon bringing its users to other special interest sites makes it so that the "stumbler" can then use social networking based on that specific topic if they choose, as I would also assume it would be harder to connect to people who share in ALL of the same interests you select from StumbleUpon.
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