gender gap in digital divides

One of the debate on digital divide will be whether it is shrinking or not. My overall answer will be no. However, in terms of gender gap, I think it's shrinking. The matter of this problem is,  I think, the younger they are, the better they can adapt. 

I hoped to find recent data, but this is what I could find. The data is from the UCLA center for Communication Policy, a unit in the UCLA Anderson School of Management. The news release says that their "World Internet Project" shows "digital gender gap."

According to the news release, an average 8 percent gap between men and women using the internet was observed. "That figure is not as large we might have expected, given the gender disparities that persist around the world. However, in several technologically developed countries, the gap is surprisingly large - in some cases almost twice as many men as women use the Internet."  Following is the data. You can find a full story here, World Internet Project.

Britain men 63.6; women 55.0

Germany men 50.4; women 41.7

Hungary men 20.3; women 15.1

Italy men 41.7; women 21.5 (20.2 percent)

Japan men 54.7; women 46.2

Korea men 67.8; women 53.8

Macao men 37.8; women 28.8

Singapore men 47.2; women 34.0

Spain men 46.4; women 27.2

Sweden men 67.7; women 64.4

Taiwan men 25.1; women 23.5 (1.6 percent)

United States men 73.1; women 69.0 (4.1 percent)

Sorry for the old data, but I think even now we'll have higher percentage of the Internet usage. (If anybody found more recent data, it would be great to share though.) Plus, the gap between women and men would be narrower. 

Setting aside this Internet digital divide, chapter 10-4 and the New York Times news article were about girls' education in new technologies. The New York Times article "What has driven women out of computer science?" says "women accounted for only 12 percent of undergraduate degrees in computer science and engineering in the United States and Canada granted in 2006-7 by Ph.D.-granting institutions, down from 19 percent in 2001-2." 

After I read this story, I was curious whether it's true in Asian countries. I could find a statistics about the number of females students during 2007 school year at the School of Engineering in the University of Tokyo, and surprisingly, similar trend was found. There were much lower percentages of female students' enrollment. You can find a full story here female engineering students. 

In IIT-Delhi, according to a EE Times India on Sep. 1, 2008, there were a significant rise in the number of female students in engineering - 65 percent - and electrical, chemical and bio-chemical engineering are popular. However, even though 65 percent increased, compared with female percentage in New York Times (less than 10 percent are female students), it was not a hugh difference. In 2007, only 9 percent(50/550) were female students. In 2008, only 13 percent (83/626) are female students. you can find a full story here IIT-Delhi welcomes more female students.

Why is that? How can we solve this problem? Can we ever solve the problem?

I could find a paper about "how to motivate girls to choose science and technologiesw?" In the abstract of the article, it provides a couple of says to motivate them. 

1. Showing female role models to girls before high school age.

2. Let mothers have positive attitude for choosing S & T.

3. Notice that the S&T occupation is less gender discriminating.

Privacy we should play around it.

Looking back in 2003 or 2004 when the social networking site called "Cyworld" was enjoying its heyday in Korea, I remember my friend talking about her future blind date. When you think of "blind date," you are not supposed to know about the opposite person, right? 

But my friend got his name and his age from somewhere and went to cyworld website. Cyworld offers a feature of finding people. If you enter the person's name and the year the person was born, it gives all the cyworld users. For example, if I enter "Eun Sook Kwon and 1982," it gives all Eun Sook Kwon's cyworld accounts who was born in 1982. So, what she did was to drop by all cyworld whose name and age matched with him. She found his cyworld and she went through it. She saw his pictures, profile and some comments with his friends. She seemed to like his appearance. 

On the blind dating day, she was excited to see him, but when she came back, she was very disappointed. His face was not like the picture she saw on his cyworld. He posted all photoshopped pictures. 

Does this example apply to you?How do you use our social networking sites? Well, this week our reading is about privacy. Yes, the privacy is something really important and we should take it as serious. But don't you know your privacy is leaking and you can control your privacy in those social networking site? 

We're telling people what our personal stuff, aren't we? Think about the Twitters, Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, and you name it. In Twitter, you tell people whatever you do and it doesn't matter whether other people are listening or not. In Facebook or Myspace, it's all same thing. Even people know whether you broke up with someone, right after you really did. It's very personal. 

But on the opposite side, you know your information is out is in public. Now you play around it. Like my friend did, I only post on my cyworld something nicer and better things. 

On April 1st, I went to Communication Career Fair and one of the employer said I should connected in LinkedIn. I didn't know about it and recently, I started to using it. I'm sure all of you know what it is, right? It's a business-oriented social networking site. You use it for searching for jobs, internships, or looking up the future employer's information.

I'm sure I'll put the information that makes me look nice and more attractive for the job. 

I think because of those social networking sites, you should control well so any personal information goes public. 

Is this too cliche? 

Anyway, I found a blog talking about the privacy on the social networking sites. Click to read, Learning curve

News- When Everyone's a friend, is anything private?

I think people in the States have privacy problems related online social networking sites. I did too in Korea. From 2001 or 2002, "Cyworld," which is like faccebook or myspace, got really popular among young people. 

Wikipedia says, "as much as 90 percent of South Koreans in their 20s and 25 percent of the total population of South Korea are registered users of Cyworld, and as of September 2005, monthly unique visitors are about 20 million." While South Korean population is 495.4 million, according to Wikipedia. 

I started using it in 2002 or 2003. Back then, there was an issue on privacy. Since all my friends who are my cyworld friend could see my comments or my friends' comments, they knew basically what I was doing and what I was going to do. Basically my daily life was in public. There was no secret. Like today's facebook here in the United States. 

But now, we can left messages in secret. So, if I leave a message on my friend's cyworld, she and I only can see. Maybe facebook should include this kind of feature. I have facebook, but I don't write about my feeling or what I'm doing or things like that, to keep my privacy. 

Here I could find a privacy-related news about facebook.

 

To read this story, click When Everyone's a friend, is anything private?

Against microsoft's monopoly

Reading materials this week were interesting, but it was a little bit hard to me. I’m not tech-savvy at all. I’ve only used Internet Explorer (IE) until I use Safary in the States, which is only 3 or 4 years back. Although I remember the days when I opened Netscape a couple of times when I was in high school, rest of my life so far I was with Internet Explorer.

To be honest, I even had never heard of Firefox. When I first came here in Austin, last semester, taking Dr. Coleman’s Visual Journalism class, until she mentioned Firefox, I didn't know what it is. When she mentioned Firefox, I saw the weird looking icon, a orange-color fox embracing a globe, and it was really awkward and I thought I'll not use it. 

Well, it hasn't been that long that I started opening Firefox. While I was learning photoshop, my TA taught us how to “view background of image.” Because in Safary, I cannot view the background, so I opened Firefox and I could see image of the background. 

Even until I read articles this week, I didn’t understand much about what open source is, what Firefox is, what Chrome is.  What I know now is that "open source" is "code that is freely available to anybody who wants to make improvements and share these with everybody else, according to  Firefox swings to the rescue. And Netizens’ involvement helped in development of web browser like Firefox or Linux. And those open-source web browsers are developed against the monopoly of Micrsoft.

I think firefox is known in Korea recently. I think most of public people are using Internet Explorer still a lot. While I was researching about it in Korean websites, Naver encyclopedia (Naver is a search engine like google in Korea and many people are using it), it said that most websites in Korea is using Active X, so when people use Internet banking or internet shopping, Firefox may cause conflicts or some problems when they transact. 

Hmm.. I'm really behind the recent technologies, so it's really hard to understand articles, and I don't have much opinions on open source yet. I was curious how the development or open source run, but the article Firefox swings to the rescue explains on this: "...financed by donations and a share of search-related advertising."

I'd like to raise a question because still open source (or open source web browser) is very vague to me. What can I do with open source? Is this something that I should care about? Why it's important? (Does my question make sense? Hopefully it's not a rude question. Because it's only texts, I may sound like rude. :) )

Am I rational consumer?

While I was reading about placebo effect in our reading Power of Price: Why a 50-Cent Aspirin Can Do What a Penny Aspirin Can’t by Dan Ariely, I wondered several times whether I'm reading the right article. It was not about the new technologies that we’ve been reading and thinking about recently. So, I went back to the syllabus. It said, “Are we rational consumers of technology?”

Am I rational consumer of technology? At that moment, I hesitated to answer. I couldn’t say yes or no. I usually buy or use new technologies by the need. I think everybody does too. Just the question will be whether we rationally buy technologies. I think so, but hmm.. I’m not sure.

I bought a new laptop this year. What affected my decision were weight, price, screen size and the company’s credibility. I really like my laptop, but I’m not sure about the quality after 6 months or one year. If this computer is broken, what should I do? I trust this compan, but the fact that it was cheap makes me a little bit antsy about it.

As the reading goes, it says "...belief and expectations affect how we perceive and interpret sights, tastes, and other sensory phenomena..." I really agreed with this statement. We perceive and interpret things differently by our believes and expectations. I think that’s why people have religions. This article provided the example of “royal touch,” which is belief the pope’s touch will cure your illness. I think those kind of belief goes on even today. When people are sick, they try to do whatever they can as if a drowning man will grab at a straw. People become irrational in that moment as far as somebody's health is concerned.

I find myself fasinating whenever I read about placebo effect, but I was a little bit upset. I understand the doctors and researchers didn’t want to fool the patients around and need to do the experiements, and they would have done it with the patients who are not seriously ill. However, if I was in a patient’s shoe, I would have been mad at the doctors when I realized it was a fake surgery. Because my illness is still there, and I was not cured at the right moment, my illness could have been even worse. Just imagine that the placebo patients thought her illness is gone, but now the doctor says he lied to her and she has to undergo real surgery. I wouldn’t want to be worried about it again. I think this shows my opinion on the last question the author threw at the end of the article, “Should we always test every procedure and carry out placebo experiments?”

When the author discussed about the discounted medicine vs. medicine with original price, I could not agree with the test result. I think people buy cheaper ones as far as it has the same quality. I think regardless of what products I’m buying if it is the same products, the quality will be the same as the ones with the original price. I guess I’ll be wondering why this medicine is cheap, but because I am a poor college student, I prefer to buy products during on sale, or buy cheaper ones.

Have you ever heard of Reset Syndrome?

I was talking to my friend about the story I told you in the second week that when I made a mistake, I wanted to hit Go back to Previous page. Do you remember?

I told her about this, and my friend told me there is a Reset Syndrome. In a real case, a teenager or in his early twenties was playing a computer game, Lenage, one of the famous game in Korea among young people. In the virtual reality, to win, one has to kill all others. A teenager lost the game and in anger he tracked down the winner who was playing in the same game PC room. In korea there are a lot of PC room, which provide fast speed of internet so many young generations go and play computer games. The teenager found the winner and killed him. After that, as if he press reset button when computer has problem, he thinks it didn't happen.

I tried to find Reset Syndromes in English, and only I could found was a news article from Cauon, Joongang University newspaper on Dec. 23, 2006.
Click here to read more, Computer, the greatest creature creates syndromes

It says:

It "PC Reset Syndromes" is pathology phenomenon that raises a serious social problem. It spread among teenagers. It originates thought that people can start something not to suit them again anytime like pressing reset button when computer does not work. People who suffer PC reset syndrome tend to think a criminal act easily, because they have an illusion between cyber space and reality. In addition they think that is okay they can press reset button in reality.

I tried to find the other syndrome she told me, but I couldn't. According to her, which is a "reliable source," becuase we always use computer and sees everything on the "rectangular" screen, there are some people who cannot see, cannot concentrate on without rectangular-shape frame. So, they create rectangular with their thumbs and index fingers (like you see the world through when you photograph).

I assume becuase in South Korea computer game is very popular among young generation so this kind of digital syndrom occurs. I couldn't find this syndrome in google.

It is very scary to even think about the reset syndrome.

Is my boyfriend cheating on me?

I really enjoyed this reading making the Connection: Single Women's Use of the Telephone in Dating Relationships With Men. I guess becuase I'm a single woman, the article title drew my attention right away.

It was really fun to read about how technology changed our way of datings as well.

As I kept reading, I realized even people in a different culture a decade ago shows the similarity on how they use when they date with someon--waiting him to call me and getting angry if he doesn’t. I used to hear often my friends sighing because of that too.

There are cultural differences between Korea and the U.S. on regarding to phone use. It’s like a rule among us, girls. I don’t remember them all, but I can give a couple of them.

Here is a females' rule:

1. Do not answer the phone at least twice so that you can pretend you were not waiting for his call. Men never give food to HIS fish. What it means is that when men think his girlfriend loves him more, they don't try hard to develop their relationship better. (Not everyman in Korea is like that though.) So, it is one way to control him at the beginning of their relationship. However, if he doen't call at the third time, women get angry and regret.

2. Do not answer the phone on the night when you go to a nightclub with your female friends. Sometiomes you have a girls’ night with only your female friends. You have to hang out with your friends also and you go to a club and meet new faces. But as you get to the club, the phone rings in your bag. He keeps calling you. Noisy music around, people shouting. If you answer the phone, he will definately know where you are. So, do not answer the phone! Just tell him that you went to bed early the next day.

It’s not something about the phone, but I quite often hear from friends that she always logs in his social networking sites with his password and checks her boyfriends’ emails. Sometimes they use GPA system on cellphone, so that they can track down where he is and make sure if he is not cheating on me.

I think distrust is one thing that comes to the surface in the interpersonal relationship thanks to technologies. I don't know if there were more distrust between lovers in the period without technologies or not. But I think we can notice if he or she cheats on the other in the relationship easily.

Reading week 4- Eun Sook - Short attention span as a goldfish.

While I was reading “A New Perspective on Business: Welcome to the attention economy,” I realized my attention span is very short. I read the first several paragraphs. Then I was logging on my email account. I went back to reading, and I was googling and etc. I’m sure my language barrier takes a part in it, but it was shocking to realize my short attention span.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1834682.stm

This is a news article that tells our short attention span on web browsing is 9 seconds, the same as goldfish.

As the author says, there are too many information in the online world. I really agree with this. When I used to commute to my school by subway, which usually took about 40 minutes, I used to read a book. I I could concentrated on my reading, but now I go to school with my laptop, and I listen music, check emails, reading articles, browsing the web, and etc. Whenever I turned on my laptop, there are so many things to do.

Is there any way that I can have longer attention span? How do you manage with this phenomenon?

Sometimes I get tired of checking emails and web browsing. So during the weekends, I do not log on the Internet intentionally and have some fresh air and try to read hard-copy of book.

reading week 3

I don’t know much about how telephone, television and computer developed. I’m just using them as if I used to have them even before my birth.

Yes, I think it is true people tend to forget what the technologies were like 5 years ago and 10 years ago. When the author Frances Cairncross (right?) was mentioned the days of “the use of glass fibers” or “development of fiber-optic cables,” I have no idea what they are. But I thought it does not matter because I can use them. Should I understand the development of those three technologies? I think it's not necessary.

I want to answer the question 2 from the “Consider” in the first page of the chapter 1. It was asking whether those technologies deserve to be called “revolutionary.” My answer is yes. It is evolution but at the same time it is revolution especially the Internet. Because of the Internet, what we are using now are possible.

I remember when I was a little girl. I was curious about phone on a shelf taller than me. I jumped to touch it, but I failed. When I could touch it, my mother put it a little higher so that I couldn’t reach it. It was just a forbidden object.

In my senior year of high school when I proclaimed to live alone close to my high school, my sister bought me a cell phone so that she can reach me any time. Since then I always had cell phone, and if I don’t have it in my hand, I could not focus on my study.

Now, in Korea, almost everybody has a cell phone, and even kindergarten kids have it. Guess what? What it’s like now? As I said, almost everybody has cell phone. What about the telephone? At many of their house, there is no telephone anymore.

And I could notice the changes on telephone. This is not the first year studying in the States. I was in Kansas in 2004- 2006. While I was there, I had to buy international phone card to talk my mom and dad.

Now? I call them with my internet phone. It is like a telephone. It has a receiver. What is different is that there should be an internet connection. If there is no internet connection, it is useless.

One of the best features is that it does not charge a lot. When I’m only charged with the Korean domestic rate (it means it’s the same thing that I’m calling my mom and dad in Korea) and it’s cheaper to call them. I only pay approximately 7 cents for 3 minutes. What a change! When I learned about this, it was amazing. I don’t know exactly how it works, but it’s really great change. It’s a revolution!

I don’t know what it will be like in 3 years and 5 years, but I’ll be looking forward the days of another change.