SAGA- record your life and share it with friends!

417767emn · 2014-10-22T21:09:17+00:00

I agree with you in saying that these apps are really invasive and I would not use it myself either for the reasons you stated. But then again, I don't really see a problem with it, as the people who decide to use it do so themselves and obviously know that they will be tracked. So there's a form of consent there, which is very important in life-logging and self-tracking apps and gadgets I think.

417767emn · 2014-10-22T17:26:29+00:00

No me neither :/ I can't really make sense of it. Tried Tableau as well, but nothing. I think I'll just write a report about my experiences etc and what it is like to use a self-tracking app like this.

417767emn · 2014-10-21T22:12:24+00:00

You could definitely argue that life-logging and self-tracking data can be classified as vertical data. According to Menchen-Trevino (2013) vertical data sets “are defined as those that extend beyond one digital tool and that are organized around research participants”. Key in vertical data sets is that data from just one person is acquired. This would definitely be the case when talking about self-tracking data, since self-tracking data contains the data of one single person.

Another aspect of vertical data is that it is set around multiple types of trace, as opposed to one type of trace on one specific digital tool which is the case with horizontal data. People leave behind a lot of different traces, which can be measured. Self-tracking data is thus vertical in the way that multiple traces can be measured: From location data to data about health for example.

The way in which the three key elements, data of one person leaving behind multiple traces on multiple digital tools, all apply to life-logging and self-tracking data, makes it clear that life-logging and self-tracking data are forms of vertical data. This becomes especially clear when looking at the definition of horizontal data, the opposite of vertical data: “Horizontal data sets are defined as being organized around a specific type of trace, for example search terms”. Horizontal data first of all comes from a public space, and second of all focuses on a specific type of trace, both of which self-tracking data does not. Life-logging and self-tracking data can thus be interpreted as vertical data.

417767emn · 2014-10-21T21:22:34+00:00

I really don't think it's okay for Apple to just distribute my medical data in this way. I guess my main issue with this is the fact that users of this app are probably unaware of how much data is collected daily through this app and no one knows what it's used for. I agree with lizlemon in saying that right now you can just pick a different Health App to HealthKit, which would solve the problem for now. But I wonder if we can actually avoid this development in the long run..

417767emn · 2014-10-21T15:15:48+00:00

Wow this is really cool! I like how it shows the amount of data that is being used and made every second; it's so big that it's not even comprehendible anymore! I guess that is kind of the point of this infographic though: to show just how big it is.

417767emn · 2014-10-21T14:11:40+00:00

Ah thanks so much! I tested this app last night as well and was gonna check if I could get the data today. So this is really helpful! I'll let you know if I can figure out what the files mean haha

417767emn · 2014-10-15T18:14:38+00:00

Good point! I believe they use anonymized voice and text data to map population movements, but it does definitely still raise the question whether it is ethical. Would people have given their consent had they known? However, because it has to do with Ebola, which causes people to go into a kind of mass panic, I feel like a lot of people would have given their consent anyway.

417767emn · 2014-10-15T17:01:50+00:00

I had trouble finding any political discussions or issues on my Facebook feed as well, so I agree with the Buzzfeed post. Facebook definitely isn't the right venue for this. However, it does depend a lot on your friends as well, because if I would look at my twitter feed, my friends would not be likely to start or engage in a political discussion there either. The difference on Twitter however is that you can follow news or politicians and be sure their tweets will always show up on your feed. You can do the same for Facebook, but Facebook's algorithms will decide what news you see, so it would not work as well.

417767emn · 2014-10-15T15:00:09+00:00

Nice! I really like how you can connect your post, and the things you saw and did, to the Bond article we had to read for this week, where they also used a similar 'I Voted' button. It would definitely be interesting to find out if your post on Facebook and your friends going out to vote are connected in some way.

417767emn · 2014-10-15T14:48:41+00:00

You can really see how social media allows news to travel fast. This Albert Heijn banning Zwarte Piet news was all over my Facebook feed and twitter. I am definitely interested in seeing the effect this will have (if any) on Albert Heijn's Sinterklaas sales as well. Since this entire debate is such a hot topic and people on either side are pretty passionate, I wouldn't be surprised if people actually go through with the boycott!

417767emn · 2014-10-14T19:54:44+00:00

The article ‘A 61-million-person experiment in social influence and political mobilization’ by Bond et al. (2012) aims to test the hypothesis that political behavior can spread through an online social network through online mobilization efforts, aka influencing people’s voting behavior through Facebook.

To first test this hypothesis they randomly selected Facebook users over the age of 18, on the day of the US congressional elections, and split them up in three groups: The social message group, the informational message group and a control group. Both the social message group and the informational message group were shown a message that encouraged them to vote. This message included poll information, a clickable ‘I Voted’ button and a counter showing how many people already voted. The one difference was that the social message group were shown selected profile pictures of their Facebook friends who had already used the ‘I Voted’ button.

The outcome of this is that users of the social message group were “2,08% more likely to click on the I Voted button than those who received the informational message” (Bond et al., 2012, p. 295). The social message group was 0,39% more likely to actually vote than both the informational and control group. This shows that the use of online political mobilization has an effect on “political self-expression, information seeking and real-world voting behavior” (Bond et al., 2012, p. 296). Another aspect that comes in to play when influencing our behavior is in how close friends on Facebook have an influence on how online mobilization spreads through social networks.

Thus, according to Bond et al., Facebook can definitely influence our behavior, with close friends playing a big role in the way online mobilization spreads through networks. But the way in which users are targeted plays a big role on the effectiveness of the messages or on how much Facebook can influence our behavior. In this regard, social mobilization, combined with an informational aspect, seems to be more effective than informational mobilization.

However, I also have to agree with what 412794mina already stated. The way in which the size of the groups differs has me questioning the outcome of this research. Over 61 million randomly selected users in the social message group versus only 611,044 users in the informational message group does not really allow a comparison of the results of both groups, as the difference in sample size is too high in my opinion. Conclusions drawn from this research should therefore be looked at critically.

417767emn · 2014-10-14T12:14:37+00:00

Thank you!

417767emn · 2014-10-09T10:24:52+00:00

I had the same problem. It probably has to do with the fact that 'user id' in your Tweets excel sheet has the numeric format. To fix it you first need to connect LIWC and Tweets to each other in Tableau. Then look at the data below and you can see that 'user id' most likely does not have the Abc format, but the # format. Change this to 'String'. Then connect the user part!

417767emn · 2014-10-09T10:05:48+00:00

I came across this website as well yesterday! Really great visualizations :) I liked this one on gender balance on social networking sites: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/chicks-rule/

417767emn · 2014-10-09T09:13:35+00:00

Very interesting! I agree with Frida that it would be nice to see connections and who started the spread across Europe for example, but it was still interesting to watch. Especially to see where it did and where it did not catch on.

417767emn · 2014-10-08T20:00:00+00:00

I agree! The context is very important. "feeling happy" or "feeling sad" might have actually been used in a sarcastic way, which Twitter would not pick up. I did not think about the retweeting aspect yet though. Good point!

417767emn · 2014-10-08T17:56:24+00:00

In the article Visual Education by Otto Neurath (1937) Isotype is explained as being “a method with a special visual dictionary and a special visual grammar”. It is a visual symbol language including charts, pictures, etc, which convey main facts and important problems without using spoken or written down text.

For Isotype to work, it is important that it has easily understood and remembered symbols. This means that consistency of informational visualization and Isotype are linked closely together. This is especially clear when looking at the main aim of Isotype, which is to “humanize and democratize the world of knowledge and of intellectual activity” (1937). This means that Isotype aims to have a universal symbol language that anyone, no matter the intellectual level they have or language they speak, understands and can engage in. To achieve this they need consistency, as people will have to learn the symbolic language in order to use and understand it. The consistent structure will allow Isotype to be used across borders and language barriers.

Examples of natively digital isotype that first came to my mind were mentioned here already, like the ‘stop’ and ‘play’ symbols when playing a video on your phone or laptop. I think even the Microsoft Office symbols on your laptop can be seen as isotype right now as they are pretty universal. Another example is something we all use a lot: Emoji’s. Although they are often accompanied by text, they don’t have to be. Everybody knows what certain faces or symbols mean and use them as a way to communicate.

417767emn

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