Candidates in Student Government Association elections experimented with different uses of social media and technology to campaign for their positions.

Few students realize the impact of the Student Government Association has, or the benefits that one can reap from being a part. Some assume that the only students who get involved in SGA are those that wish to pursue a career in government and politics. However, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. SGA members span across all academic disciplines, most of which don’t seem to be anything related to government and politics. The members are those that genuinely care about the way that our student body at Maryland is represented, which is something that all students should care about. Why? Well, if you have to ask that question, you are probably not familiar with what SGA truly does.

SGA FUNCTIONS AS THE VOICE OF THE STUDENT BODY, AND THE FUNDING SOURCE FOR STUDENT-GROUP ORGANIZATIONS.

            SGA operates as the governing body for undergraduate students at the University of Maryland. So basically, what they say, goes. Furthermore, SGA acts as the voice of the undergraduate students, therefore all students should be interested in the kinds of programs and initiatives they are advocating for. Because whether you enjoy politics, if you are not involved in the process, you can’t be upset when things don’t go your way.

Chair of the elections board speaks on behalf of SGA by encouraging students to come out and support their governing body.

            SGA also plays a very integral part in student organizations. Mainly because, they give them money. Each year, every recognized student organization is allowed to request money to put on programs for their organization. So any student a part of any other student organization should be familiar with how money is allocated to the student groups in order to fund your programs. Because if you thought those programs were free and/or the money just was sitting in a bank account waiting for you to use it, think again.

And if for whatever reason you feel as though you want no voice in the governing of your student body, the very least you can do is elect officials that you feel will represent you well. We concluded the month of April with SGA elections, and I followed the candidates to talk about their experiences on SGA, as well as what they plan to contribute to the student body.

IN ORDER TO BECOME PART OF THE EXECUTIVE BOARD FOR SGA, YOU MUST BE ELECTED BY THE STUDENT BODY.

First off, what is the election process?

Well, just like our governmental system, SGA is made up of three branches: the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The executive branch is made up of the student body president, the executive board, and the executive cabinet. The student body president and the executive board positions are all posts which must be elected by the student body.

And for the candidates, the process started almost two months ago. First the interested candidates have to attend mandatory information sessions, to get deadlines and find out what SGA is looking for in their executive members. Then, the potential candidates gather amongst each other to create political parties, platforms, and positions. Then, the candidates submit their intent to campaign for office. Once the candidates are approved, they are given a 2-week campaign period up until elections. Violators of any step of the process are fined, and lose the opportunity to run. It is not required that you have been a previous member of SGA, but it certainly is recommended.

For instance, Talia Alter, sophomore psychology major who ran for Vice President of Financial Affairs, served on the financial report commission and the finance committee for SGA before she ran for office. She commented that though neither of those things were necessary, it gave her experience for her voters to reference, and also confidence in herself that she knew what she was doing.

IN THIS YEAR'S ELECTION, THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY IN CAMPAIGNING VARIED GREATLY BETWEEN THE TWO PARTIES. 

The two running parties were the Go Party and the For Party. How did the Go Party use technology in their campaign process?

Talia mentions the use of memes on Facebook in her campaign. Memes are denoted as “an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture”. The idea of a meme on facebook is similar to the idea of uploading a video on youtube that goes viral. You want your idea to spread around the millions of people that use the social media site. An example, if youre hard pressed to think of one, is the “planking” epidemic that was all the rage last year, with everyone taking pictures of themselves laying down across random objects. Same concept, except in this case, Talia and other members of the Go party wanted their campaign ideas to spread all over world.

 And though the memes employed by the Go Party didn’t exactly go viral, it was a brilliant image branding tactic.

Also, Talia mentioned another campaign technique: seeking out members with laptops on election day to get them to vote. It is extremely important, and smart of SGA to hold the elections online, so that the ease of access will entice more people to vote. And it was also smart of Talia’s campaign team to use that ease of access to their advantage, giving gentle reminders to laptop users around campus so that they had no reason not to vote for them.

Meanwhile, Talia’s running mate, Justin Dent of the For Party, used technology in a much  more traditional method for his campaign.

listen to ‘What a lovely skirtboo’ on Audioboo

Justin Dent represented the For party in
the campaign for VP of Financial Affairs,
earning the most votes of any other
member of the party.

He even referred to the use of a Facebook group and a Twitter page as basic tactics, hinting that his party didn’t exactly think outside of the box for their campaigning. Instead, they chose to focus on more traditional, even non-technological tactics such as chalking and word of mouth.

I dont side with one method over the other, because though Talia did win the election, the votes were within 10% of eachother. I will say that it is very interesting that the Go Party’s campaigning techniques were much more aggressive and up to date than the For Party’s. Before looking at the results, my personal opinion was that the more technology used, in something as complicated as an election, the easier it will be to get people to vote for you. Or at the very least, they’ll be impressed with your campaign. As mentioned, the Talia only won the spot for VP of Financial Affairs by 10%.  However, in terms of the whole campaign, my opinions were right, as the Go Party dominated, winning almost 70% of all elected positions. Not to say that the creative use of technology was the sole reason that the Go Party dominated, but I am sure it helped.

Researchers study the frequency and intent of students to "Facebook stalk" their significant others

A study was published in the Journal of Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking last November that analyzed how frequently students in relationships used Facebook to check for signs of unfaithfulness.

This is basically the equivalent of “Facebook stalking” your significant other.

The study was conducted using the theory of planned behavior (TPB) which analyzed 1) one’s attitude (positive or negative) about stalking, 2) the social pressures (pos or neg) exerted about stalking, 3) how much control one feels they have over whether or not to stalk.

In summary, the hypothesis was that TPB would predict the level of intent to stalk, and the level of intent to stalk would predict whether or not one would actually go through with the behavior.

It also examined demographics (age, gender, length of relationship, and frequency of FB use), and the levels of trust in the relationship and self-esteem that one had to see if these things had any impact on the intent to or frequency of stalking.

My personal hypothesis was the following: If one has a negative attitude towards the idea of stalking, then they are less likely to have intent to stalk, whether or not the pressures are high. If one has a positive attitude toward the idea, then they are more likely to have intent, regardless of the pressure. I think that the idea that one may or may not have control over the action is ridiculous.  Facebook stalking is a very controlled behavior.

As for demographics, I would predict that younger females in any length of relationship would be more likely to intend to perform the stalking. Of course, this is the stereotype of most females that I have never seen evidence of being true, so I am predicting this based off of experience. I also predict that anyone (male or female) who uses FB frequently, will have a greater intention to stalk. And lastly, I would predict that anyone with low self-esteem and/or low trust sill have a greater intention to stalk.

Evaluation of the Results

The results of the study yielded the following:

·         Students with a positive attitude toward stalking and were receiving social pressure in favor of stalking had a higher level of intent to stalk. Level of controlled behavior had no reported effect.

·         Those that visit Facebook frequently throughout the day, as well as those in newer relationships both exhibited higher intents to stalk, and did stalk. Other demographics didn’t show a particular correlation.

·         Low levels of trust were revealed higher levels of intent. Self-esteem had no significant correlation.

The results seemed to be at least somewhat accurate to my predictions as well as the initial hypotheses however I found the results to be very vague. For instance, the results showed that “the shorter the duration of, or the less developed, an individual’s relationship, the more likely people are to spontaneously monitor their partner”. However, the results don’t explain what a short duration or less developed means. Is that couples that have been together less than a year? Less than 6 months? The article was very vague in that regard.

Besides this, it is the limitations pointed out in the story that discredit it. For one, this study is the first of its kind, meaning that there is little too no evidence besides these results to further prove or explain the results. Also, the sample was skewed disproportionately with a significant number of female participants than males. And lastly, in many cases the results did not yield significant variations between terms (for instance having a positive attitude toward stalking might have only yielded a high level of intent 55 out of 100 times, not 70 out of 100 as one might assume) so the results can’t exactly be taken as reliable fact. Basically, the study lacks validity and credibility.

All said though, I do believe that this is a very interesting study. I don’t necessarily believe that “Facebook stalking” partners has become an issue of mass concern, but this study also serves to bring light to the act of Facebook stalking in itself. The common use of the phrase itself insinuates negativity about social networking sites and begs the question: Why are we (as a society) so interested with basically leaving our lives wide open on the Internet, free to be “stalked”?

I would say that the solution would be to just advise users to share less information, or at least less detailed information, with the sites, but then that would erase the whole backbone of social networking in general. But, if we’re not going to get rid of social networking sites any time soon, and we put our personal business up for broadcast anyway, then why all the uncertainty with Google’s new privacy policy? Isn’t it a similar case?

*The link to the study is found in the second paragraph.

*Any references to "stalking" in the post refer to the unofficial term "Facebook stalking".

The Blame Game: Information Overload or Filter Failure?

“Information overload is when you are trying to deal with more information than you are able to process to make sensible decisions.”  (Infogineering)

This is to say that while online, you are introduced to more e-mail, advertisements, social networking, etc than you are able to process. But doesn’t one choose and control how engaged they are with the Web? If the above statement were true, and engaging with web content were too much for society to handle, then no one would enjoy using it.The opposite argument is that people mistake the use of broken filters for increased amounts of information. Clay Shirky loosely defines this concept in the video footage of the 2008 Web 2.0 Expo in NY.

However, I don’t believe that either of these terms are relevant to society. If there's an issue with one’s engagement with Web content concerning overload or an inability to properly process content, then I believe that the user is suffering from personally inflicted overconsumption, if anything.

For example, Shirky introduces spam e-mail as an example of filter failure. No matter how many settings one enables in attempt to get all ads and junk e-mails sent to a trash folder, a few always manage to sneak into your inbox, forcing you to manually sort and delete them. It used to be that a simple designation of directing spam to spam folders would have sufficed. But as technology has advanced, more of the same sites you were already visiting are changing their methods. Online shops now send newsletters and coupons to previous customers. Entering your e-mail address on certain shady sites releases your information to other sites, usually without your knowledge. It is not that the spam has significantly increased in volume, but that it has changed its format. Because you have relations with the online shop via purchases, your e-mail doesn't mark the newsletters as spam. To solve this, in Shirky’s opinion, you must change the way which your e-mail processes your spam mail in order to fit these new advertising formats, because clearly your previous filter has failed you.

By Toffler’s definition, this is not overload because the sorting of spam generally has no effect on one’s ability to process the rest of their e-mails or make sensible decisions. If anything, it’s just a hassle.  Furthermore, the issue with Shirky’s filter failure explanation is that the idea of filter failure insinuates that there is only one way,  (such as checking a few boxes and updating your sorting system) to fix the spam problem. But Shirky himself says no one solution will fix any information overload problem, including spam. If by overload Shirky means that Internet and media technology is forever changing and becoming more advanced, thereby forcing its users to have to adapt to it, then I completely agree. There will never be one solution, or filter, that will outperform any technology as it advances over time. Examining both of these arguments led me to the conclusion that the real issue here is that Internet technology has society spoiled. We often assume that technology is able to perfectly fit every want and need that we have, like a genie granting social media/technology wishes. 

However, this cannot be a problem for society, because everyone’s wants and needs when it comes to this technology are different.

Take for instance, Twitter. The article by City Paper, poses the question of whether or not Twitter will survive the times. Support for twitter says that it will, primarily because there is no “pre-defined way” to use Twitter. Millions of people use twitter in a million ways: some for business, to quickly connect with friends, or to get news and gossip short, sweet, and to the point. I could actually see how Twitter in itself could be considered overload. How could the developer expect one person to be able to decipher and comprehend hundreds of different and ideas from different people, changing by the second, all on one page? The idea may seem overwhelming, but regular Twitter users would probably say that its not at all as bad as it sounds. Advertisers might say neither does spam mail.

For twitter, to manage what one sees on their timeline, one must simply choose the people they follow wisely. Some mobile applications for Twitter even give the ability to “mute” certain users from your timeline briefly, if they aren’t discussing something of your interest. This works for now, but if Twitter is expected to stay around, the next thing a user might want is to be able to box their followers into groups, where certain followers (like parents and professors) are blocked from viewing certain tweets (like what college students do on the weekends). Facebook already claims to have this capability, but I forsee that eventually it will come to Twitter.  When this time comes, its not that a filter would have failed, because the muting option wasn’t designed for this purpose. And it’s not that this will be a problem for society, because certain users probably won’t be concerned about offending their followers or exposing themselves. This is a personal problem, created by the fact that one will expect technology to meet their needs out of the blue. The growth of Internet technology is truly amazing, but it is far from perfect, and it is doubtful that consumers will ever be satisfied. This is why developers work so hard to push out new technology so fast. Somewhere in the world, someone always thinks they need an updated version of the current.  

If you believe that the presentation of new technology in this regard then, is overload, then by all means, feel free to stop using it, or at least actively stop consuming so much of it. Because technology is only going to get better, or in the case that you consider yourself overloaded, worse, over time, and society is going to continue to use it. And that is the fault of neither information overload or filter failure.

To learn more about personal overconsumption vs. information overload, see: 

http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/11/information-overload-overconsumption-diet.html

Image source:

 http://rsuniversity.wordpress.com/2010/05/08/the-social-media-genie-and-five-core-principles/

GPS: Global Privacy Scandal??

Sure, the acronym GPS normally stands for Global Positioning System, but as the devices begin to function more and more as regular parts of society, one can't help to think about how the letters GPS have possibly taken on additional meetings, such as the privacy scandal suggested in the title. 

Many have heard about the recent Supreme Court ruling that now cites law enforcement's use of a GPS tracking device as a "search" that requires prior approval to be admissible as evidence in court. This ruling may feel like one step forward for criminals and the like, but we as a society should pay attention to not only what the ruling says, but more importantly what it doesn't say when it comes to the matters of GPS trackers and privacy violations. 

As a foxnews.com article pointed out, consumers should be aware of the fact that there has yet to be any restrictions on the use of GPS devices by businesses, and several private investigators can attest to the fact that personal uses of GPS devices for malice are on the rise as well. What this means in short, explained with detail in an article by The News Tribune, is that your current or future employer can pay money in order to track where you spend your free time, by way of car-tracking device or Internet visits, without restriction or regulation. Even scarier, is the idea that a jealous spouse or an overprotective parent can purchase a tracking device for your car and use it in secret the same way that a business could. 

Scary? Yes. But none of this is to say that we should abandon GPS altogether, because they are very handy devices when used properly.

It may be unnerving to think about the handy little gadget that often gets you from point A to point B being used with malicious intent, but it's probably better to be unnerved and aware, than oblivious and victimized.

That being said, it is up to us as a society, to make a call to action to regulate the use of this technology. Advancements in information technology are happening everyday, and there's little that we can do, or should want to do to stop it. However, we should always aim to regulate the use of this technology within our society, so that it does not pose harm to us and our rights. And how do we do that you ask?

Later in the News Tribune article, the owner of a company that sells GPS tracking devices is quoted as saying, "Selling a tracking device is similar to selling a firearm: You don't ask what they [the buyer] are going to use it for, and what they do with it is entirely out of our control." Well, similar to firearms, law enforcement needs to understand the danger that misuse of these devices can impose, and regulations need to be enforced to prevent it. 

Consider the idea that GPS devices need to be registered, just as a gun would. In the event of a tragedy, such as the death of a woman getting a divorce from her jealous husband, or accused discrimination such as a company not hiring an individual based on their Facebook posts, the registered device would be able to be located and searched by law enforcement. Regulations such as these would definitely be a start towards monitoring the misuse of an otherwise helpful device.

This article is a response to 2 articles from FoxNews.com and TheNewsTribune.com. To read this articles visit:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/01/25/privacy-one-step-forward/

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/01/30/2004703/personal-use-of-gps-trackers-growing.html

For a different, more academic perspective, please look into reading an essay by Professor Steven Mainprize of Douglas University, as he covers the advancements in electronic monitoring (GPS) and its effects on social control:

http://www.sociology.org/content/vol002.002/mainprize.html