What I learned this semester

    I learned a lot about technology in the classroom this semester and I learned how to enhance my life through technology. Coming into this class, I thought I was tech-savvy, but in actuality I wasn't as well informed as I thought I was. The biggest surprise to me came when we were discussing mobile technology and the research that I did for the mobile technology usage and knowledge as well as the study that I read "Addicted to Cellphones". I didn't know the extent of the reliance on technology that people have these days. After taking this class, I feel that I have such a greater grasp of technology and how to use technology to my advantage. For example, I have created a blog for myself as an artist as well as a website which has twitter updates. Utilizing these tools will help my career as an artist because networking is an increasingly popular way to be "discovered".  Click here for a link to my website.

  The most important thing I learned was the importance of quality photos on my blog or website. I will show you with two examples.

This photo set right here is my painting called "Shadow Puppets". My family members all loved my paintings before, but I did not realize that the picture looked like Photo A. You definitely cannot see the detail and the richness of the color in the photo sent from my Blackberry. I realized this and on my website of course I put professional photos.

AB

These set of paintings is entitled "Underwater Lilies"

 A

B

   What I learned in this class is how to effectively use tools such as twitter, blogs and mobile applications as well, to advance my career. I also learned that there is an extremely fast growing dependency on technology (see my research) and it worries me about what might happen in the future. I also learned a lot about privacy and I definitely am aware of privacy settings on phones and how hackers can access your information.

Emotional Responses During Social Information Seeking on Facebook

    A research conducted by Kevin Wise, Ph. D., Saleen Alhabash, M.A., and Hyojung Park, M.A. was based on existing research on social networking and information seeking. Facebook is a social networking website defined by its creators as "a social social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers." It's popularity is worldwide with over 350 million active users. Facebook use could be conceptualized as serving two primary goals: passive social browsing and extractive social searching. This study explored if these categories adequately reflect facebok use and wheter they moderate physiological responses associated with motivation and emotion were recorded. Results showed that the majority of screens encountered during Facebook use could be categorized as devoted to social browsing or social searching. Participants spent more time on social browsing than  they spent on social searching. Facial EMG data indicated that participants experienced more pleasantness during the course of social searching than they experienced during social browsing.
     Recent research on Facebook can be divided into three areas: its uses and gratifications at both intrapersonal and interpersonal levels, its sociopolitical and psychosocial influences and the privacy implcations of its form and function. This research builds on these exploring the uses and gratifications of Facebook use. For this research, thirty six undergraduates were recruited from an introductory advertising class at a large Midwestern University. Participants spent 5 minutes on each of the three test websites: Amazon.com, CNN.com and Facebook.com. The order of the websites were randomized and participants were instructed to navigate each website as they normally would and to not go outside the particular website during the 5 minute period. For the results, the screens were coded according to their indications of social browsing, social searching, communication, and impression management. Social browsing screens were the screens which include, the participants' main page (news feed) or pages with a list of the participants' friends, friends photo albums, Facebook group list, and events. Basically social-browsing screens had information about different friends of the participant. Social searching screens were categorized as visiting pages related to a specific friend of the participant, such as visiting a friends page, reading their wall, etc.
      Researchers measured emotional responses, skin conductance and facial EMG while participants viewed and browsed Facebook. This study provided a peliminary conceptualization of how users' spen their time on Facebook and how different uses of Facbeook affect psychological responses associated with emotion. Social browsing is categorized as passive social information-seeking and social searching as an extractive social information- seeking. Video data of participants behavior while browsing Facebook, showed that participants devoted most of their time to social browsing or social searching and communication. Participants spent more time overall and per page on pages that were defined as social searching pages, than they spent on pages defined as social browsing pages.

Technology and Art

These days it's hard to see a image that hasn't been retouched and digital images are increasingly popular in art and advertising. Still, you can walk into a Starbucks, or a boutique and still see an original painting. Is art dying? The answer is up to you. The viewer. As an artist, the only way to fully appreciate any of my paintings is to walk into a gallery and look at it. A painting has texture, life, and the paint vibrates differently than a flat printed image. Baltimore is still brimming with possibilities for art and galleries are still curating shows. http://citypaper.com/special/topten/the-year-in-art-1.1073867 lists and describes the top 10 galleries this year.

http://www.shinyshiny.tv/2010/12/yota_space_-_ho.html talks about how technology is changing art. Along with digital imaging, artists are using technology to make a statement. Using lights, projections, video editing, etc, artists are creating very interesting installation works.

Addicted to Cellphones?

      Cellphones are obviously very convenient means of communication and now days cellphones have even more capabilities. Rarely are people ever seen without a cellphone and problematic cellphone use has become more and more apparent. People are constantly connected to their phones, is it addiction? and what are the identifiable traits of addiction? Cell phones are no longer purely communication devices but they are  now an instrument for a persons social and work life. The GPS services, different calender applications, email and now various social and lifestyle "apps"available make it nearly impossible to be disconnected from a mobile phone. Mobile phones are taking up our lives and even though there are laws now against using a mobile phone while operating a vehicle, people are still engaging in this activity.
      I recently read a study about Addictive Personality and Problematic Mobile Phone Use done by Motoharu Takao, Ph. D., Susumu Takahashi, M.S., and Masayoshi Kitamura, M.A. Their study tried to see if there was a correlation between commonly known addictive personality traits and problematic cell phone use. The personalization of a mobile phone can also be a mean of self identity, which leads to over attachment to mobile phones. There is a lack of reliable diagnostic markers but the study examined similarities between other addictive behaviour such as smoking, drugs, alcohol abuse, internet, and gambling. People addicted to their mobile phones usually are characterized by being depressed, lost, or isolated without their phone, their work and lives are disturbed by frequent calls, texts, emails and active chats. Self monitoring, low self esteem, approval motivation, and loneliness are also well known predictor traits for addictive tendencies. Low self esteem is closely related to problematic mobile phone use as well as other kinds of addictive behavior. Approval motivation and self monitoring is closely related to extraversion and self esteem which are possible predictors to problematic cell phone use.
      The study concluded that problematic mobile phone use was a function of gender, self monitoring and approval motivation but not of loneliness. High self-monitors are social in nature and sensitive to social cues and susceptible to peer pressor. They are more prone to risk behavior and sensation seeking problematic behavior. Approval motivation is closely related to problematic mobile phone use because they are disposed to seeking approval, assurance and admiration among their peers. They said that management of problematic use could be done in two ways, one could focus on the functions of the mobile device. Mobile devices could be designed purely to display their functions without a design that would stimulate or fascinate problematic users. Another way could be teaching students about awareness to the possiblity of being addicted to their mobile phone and therefore possibly preventing problematic use.
       This study really came close to home because recently a law has been passed in Maryland that makes it illegal to use hand held devices while driving, yet there are still people on the road using their phones while driving. This activity NEEDS to stop. There have been MANY texting while driving accidents and it has been proven over and over again that taking your eyes off the road for just a second could result in an accident. Now that we know the traits that are correlated to problematic use, maybe we could develop ways to help these people. Or possibly since technology seems to get better and better each year, maybe develop technology that SOLVES these problems.

For my concluding note, PLEASE DO NOT TEXT and DRIVE. My car was rear ended and TOTALLED on 495 a few months ago, because of a MOTHER who had her 4 year old son in the car was looking at her phone while driving. If I wasn't paying attention, it could have been a 3+ car pile up, but I saw the person in front of me STOP because I DON'T text and drive anymore. I slowed down and was able to avoid hitting the person in front of me, but unfortunately the person behind me did not, and she hit me at almost 60 mph.  So if there is any lesson to be taken away from this, it is obvious that there is problematic cell phone use and it needs to end.

Cell Phone Security Knowledge and Usage Survey

For my project, I was curious to explore the cell phone security knowledge of different age groups and what factors may contribute to cell phone knowledge. I finally got a sample of 50 participants. The majority of my sample was between the age of 19-24 with 80% and 8% were 25+ and 12% were 15-18. I think it is important to survey a wide range of age groups because age may have a factor in technology. My sample also had 70% female participants and 30% were male participants. 64% of my sample is currently enrolled in college with 14% who's highest level of education was High School or GED. Of my sample, 18% had already completed their Bachelor's Degree and 4% of my sample had their Master's Degree.
I surveyed people on their model phone and 15% owned an iPhone, 2% owned an Android, 18% owned a Blackberry, 8% owned an other smart phone and 56% owned an "other" phone. The majority (50%) of my sample rated their tech-knowledge as between a 7-8 and 30% said they were between a 9-10. For mobile web, 38% of my sample use this application more than 1-2 times a day, 45% either do not use the application or do not have the application. Bluetooth usage is rare with only 6% saying that they use bluetooth more than 1-2 times a day and 88% saying that they rarely use the feature or don't have this feature. 94% of my sample said that they text message more than 1-2 times a day and 50% said they use email more than 1-2 times a day. On the other hand 44% say they don't receive emails or they do not have this option.
When I questioned my sample about cell phone security, I used the question from lecture "Which of the following ways can a hacker access your information?" and, I was surprised to find that 28% chose Address book and 22% thought it was Bluetooth. Answers were very spread out which made me come to the conclusion that only a few people know about cell phone security. Most of my sample, about 60%, rate their cell phone security between a 5-7. When asked about encryption on the cellphone, 52% said they did not know how to use that feature and 16% said they do turn encryption on. My sample had 60% not requiring authentication or a password on their phone and 36% said they do. Many people do not have or do not know how to use remote wipe on their device, 54% and 20% do have this feature.
I was not surprised when I reviewed the data. I first looked at who answered the "cell phone hacker" question correctly. There were 11 people who answered bluetooth and 5 were males and 6 were females. I found that it was interesting that 2 of the girls who answered were 15-18. They also rated their tech-knowledge as 9, based on this information, I would assume that younger people have grown up with the technology and perhaps this could lead to better tech-knowledge? The people with the higher tech-knolwedge are also the same people who have iPhones, Blackberrys and Androids. This data leads me to believe that people with the more advance technology also have more knowledge of the technology. Based on my data, I learned that many people are not aware of the security features on their device. Some people who own smart phones are not aware of the security features on their device. After doing research on wireless provider websites, I found that finding security information was very difficult to find. Websites like Verizon Wireless and AT&T do not have easily accessible information regarding security on their devices. I think that the public is not aware of security issues on their phone because everyone is taught to be half-hazard about their cellphones. If wireless providers would give their users information about cell phone security I think that people would be more aware of the security issues that may occur and how to prevent them.

Privacy and Uploading your Artwork

Artists's be wary of where you post pictures of your artwork. Facebook is a popular venue for posting pictures. You retain the copyright, but did you know that you are granting them license to use and display your photos. http://www.facebook.com/legal/copyright.php?howto_report#!/help/?faq=12008 As you all know, by posting information on Facebook, it is saved to their data system FOREVER. On Facebook's policy page, they state in their content section that "One of the primary reasons people use Facebook is to share content with others. Examples include when you update your status, upload or take a photo, upload or record a video, share a link, create an event or a group, make a comment, write something on someone’s Wall, write a note, or send someone a message. If you do not want us to store metadata associated with content you share on Facebook (such as photos), please remove the metadata before uploading the content." In other words, do not post any pictures on to Facebook, if you do not want them to store the data that is associated with the photo, which is the photo itself. It is a rhetorical statement.

An alternative to Facebook is Flickr Creative Commons.
Flickr Creative Commons is a non-profit alternative to full copyright. Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation to make it easier for people to share and build on the work of others, working within the rules of copyright. They provide free licenses and other "legal tools to mark the creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to carry, so others can share, remix, use commercially, or any combination thereof." Creative Commons seems to me the best way to share your work on the internet as well as holding the legal rights to your photos.

A synopsis of Creative Commons copyright policy
-Attribution means that you allow others to copy, distribute, display and perform your copyrighted works and other works based on it, if they give you credit.
-Noncommercial means that you let others copy, distribute, display and perform your work, but for non commercial purposes only.
-No Derivative Works means that you let others copy, distribute, display and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based on it.
-Share Alike means that you allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work.

By a comparison of these two website's privacy policy, you have much better control over the work you post under Flickr Creative Common's policy. You have no control of what Facebook and what other users do to your work on Facebook, but under Creative Commons, you have legal rights to your work and you own the photo that you post on their website. You pretty much lose your rights to the photo that you post on to Facebook.

Of course in addition you can always add a watermark to the photo that your uploading, but that does not cover legal rights to your property, i.e. your photo or your artwork. Facebook seems to me as an unsafe place to post anything at this point. After doing this research, I realize that I should change where I post my pictures of my own artwork. I think the safest place to post my artwork is under Flickr's Creative Commons. I am worried about my rights to my work and that people could possibly copy and reproduce my work.

Information About Art and Technology

When looking for information about art and technology it usually includes research of other artists and ideas or how to find a job in this field. Technology in The Arts is a good place to look for this information as this website has many resources for art technology. This website is credible but it is not as good as a source of information as http://www.i-dat.org/research/. I-dat is a university research project exploring interdisciplinary subjects such as art, design, technology, science and architecture at Plymouth University, UK. I-dat is a good source of information about research using technology within art to change culture or influence culture. At University of California, Santa Barbara a research project called CREATE has a laboratory for research and development of a new software and hardware tools to aid in media-based composition. CREATE's goal is to aide in the highest possible level of artistic and technological capability. Research is also being done at University of California Santa Barbara in their Media Art's and Technology graduate program. MAT Labs is a reliable source of information when looking for research concerning media art and technology. MAT Projects is a website that displays all of the projects currently being worked on at UCSB's Media Art and Technology.

Art is not usually looked upon as "science" and art is underground, contemporary, modern and historical, therefore when searching for research or websites concerning art technology one should carefully consider the context of the website. The website Free Art and Technology is a public website where everyone can post and find information. This website is not as a reliable source for research information as the websites listed previously because you do not know exactly who posted the information. The research university websites however, are very credible sources of information because they are research universities.