The Case for Open Data

The government in our country keeps track of a lot of information. Whether it’s economic data, data about health and wellness, or information about traffic and accidents, our local, state, and federal governments have probably compiled more data over the years than they know what to do with. Until the last few decades, this information didn’t really have a place or way to be stored and accessed by many people. But the invention of the internet has made it much easier to disseminate that data. This doesn’t help with the issue that there is just more data out there than the government knows what to do with. This is where the public comes in to play.

If that data, millions and millions of pieces of information about everything from income to taxes, and births to mortality rates, is shared with the brightest minds in our country and beyond, a lot may be accomplished for the common good of society.

There is always a lot of talk of government spending and budget deficits, even more so in recent years. With this in mind it is unlikely that governments can afford to pay their employees to sift through this information and produce relevant findings. Enlisting the free help of the best analysts in the world can save the country money and hopefully produce socially beneficial solutions to some current problems.

Some may fear their personal information being given out to strangers, but the work being done should use this data in aggregate. A large amount of data, not tied back to any identified individuals, can certainly have more benefit to society than harm.

This may be the answer to many of our economic, healthcare, or other societal problems. Of course, I may be giving the data analysts out there too much credit, but it is worth a shot. If one productive use comes out of this information, more will have already been done than is currently happening while over-worked government employees file this information away and never get to it.

Hazards of Visualization: Misrepresentation of American Concern over Terrorism

Ross’s post about Vis Politics included commentary on the Political Climate site that made me realize the importance of having the message a visualization portrays be the message that was intended. I came to this realization because like Ross, when I first visited the Political Climate site I was amazed at the huge jump between 2001 and 2002 in how important terrorism was to Americans. It made sense that the events of September 11, 2001 would make Americans much more concerned about terrorism but I was still surprised at the jump from almost no concern to 83% of Americans who viewed terrorism as a top concern. Upon further inspection, I realized that the reason the visualization shows such a large difference is that there is no data available on terrorism from 2001.

We both interpreted the data to mean that Americans had an 83% jump in concern over terrorism when this was not actually the message the data was trying to get across. I would like to caution visualization sites against making their no data available visualizations look like their actual visualization. Political Climate could easily have grayed out terrorism in the 2001 plot to avoid any confusion or misinterpretation. The other side of this is that as consumers of information and visualizations in particular, we need to be careful about the conclusions we make. If an 83% jump seems unlikely, it is worth researching where the jump is coming from (or, in this case, not coming from).

Vis Politics and the Work of Mauro Martino

Vis Politics is a compilation of interactive studies on a number of topics, put together by several researchers, including Mauro Martino, who spoke in our class. These studies cover several topics, such as politics, energy, crime, and social networking, all presented in a graphically-rich and interactive way. One of the studies that I found most appealing, both visually and because of the quality of the data, was The American Energy Spectrum, by a website called Good.is. The infographic shows the distribution of energy generation and usage in America. The generated energy is shown as a list of several energy sources and how much energy source generates, and how much each source wastes. Also added is data on how energy is used, and how much consumed energy is used and how much is wasted. I found this particular study interesting because it showed exactly how much energy America generates, and especially how much it wastes. Specifically, America generates 94.5 Quadrillion (94.5 Million Billion) Btu of energy, and 54.5 Quadrillion of that is wasted.

Several other projects piqued my interest. Political Climate shows how important several issues were to Americas for the last ten years. For example, in 2001, Terrorism was a non-issue for most, but in 2002, after 9/11, 83% felt it was an important issue. Another study I found interesting is the County Sin Ratings, which shows statistics related to the Seven Deadly Sins for US counties. My home county, Cumberland, ME, shows low to mid "sin levels," whereas Suffolk, MA, where Boston is, shows mostly high sin levels. How Different Groups Spend Their Day shows what activities different age groups, socioeconomic groups, etc. do each day. Unsurprisingly, people aged 15-24 spend a lot of time in school, whereas people 65+ spend a lot of time watching TV and movies. Finally, a GE study on energy usage shows how much energy different home appliances use. Electic furnaces use the most power, but air conditioners cost the most to run each year. All of these studies, with their visuals-heavy presentation, made learning the information much more satisfying.

Upsides and Downsides to More Governmental Information

Whether there should be more transparency and information available about the government is a topic that is always being discussed. I know even just on the Northeastern level, there was concern raised by some students when SGA President Ryan Fox made certain formerly public finance meetings private last semester. I'm not fully informed on the situation, and I don't remember what the reasoning behind this decision was, but many students were angry and felt that it was their right to know how their tuition and student activity fees were being spent. I couldn't help but wonder if students only felt this way because they previously had access to this type of information and now they didn't. I wonder if those meetings had always been private, if anyone would have questioned it. I also wonder how many people actually ever attended and were active at these meetings. This "scandal" probably attracted the attention of one hundred times as many non-SGA students that regularly attended the open meetings because it was in the newspaper. Most students probably didn't even know or care about these meetings until now. I think that having more information from the government will only please people if it's what they want to hear. The Online Town Hall meetings appear to be a very effective way for politicians to talk to their constituents, and they are very mindful of what they are saying, I'm sure. In a different vein, it did no favors for government officials like Hillary Clinton when the WikiLeaks document dump happened, and many statements she wasn't expecting the public to hear were suddenly in everyone's faces. Even in work environments, people say things they wouldn't want publicly attributed to them all the time, especially when they think what they're saying is in confidence. The information released during WikiLeaks was unfortunate, in my opinion. I'm sure most, if not all, of Clinton's predecessors said unprofessional things about other world leaders, but because it wasn't in this age of technology, we don't know about it. It's not to say that our governemental leaders should be able to say whatever they want without us knowing about it, but they still deserve a certain level of privacy and should be able to trust a small number of internal people to be able to speak candidly with them.

Interactive Fireside Chats

I wonder if the findings from Lazer, Neblo, Esterling, and Goldschmidt’s research on online town hall meetings could be applied to a sort of Fireside Chat. The town hall meetings studied attracted a demographic that is less politically active and made participants feel more connected to their representative or senator. This seems to be a very promising finding, and the town hall meetings could be applied as a standard part of running for a position or maintaining support while holding office. It also seems promising to engage younger voters, minorities, and others that less often vote. While every president since FDR has given regular addresses, I wonder how well they penetrate the market. That is, I wonder how many people actually listen to or view the addresses. A quick search of Obama’s speeches on YouTube shows that, in general, there are between 200,000 and 500,000 views for each speech (the notable exception being his inaugural address with around 4.5 million views). I wonder if the town hall could be a way for Obama or any future president’s addresses to be more interactive and to reach a wider audience. It might be a real logistical issue, but I could imagine a town hall meeting with millions of people. I could imagine the president delivering a short speech regarding an issue that has been selected for that town hall meeting, and then fielding questions, much like a press conference. While it seems that the town hall meetings with representatives and senators could sustain a much larger number of participants than was studied, but I wonder if it would be as effective if 1 million people participated. I think, however, the interactive nature of the style of meeting would still engage less politically active citizens, would make the general population feel closer to the president, and possibly would increase overall voter turnout at national elections. In addition, it might serve to bring the nation together on certain issues. For better or for worse, there was a trend for participants in the town hall meetings studied to align their views with their representative or senator’s. Perhaps the same might happen with the president, and might be a way to increase bipartisan collaboration or at least to increase tolerance and understanding of differing points of view. Overall, it could be a very positive change to make the president’s addresses to the nation interactive.

Dangers of Open Government Data

One theme that came up often when discussing open government data was that there are certain risks involved in making the data available. As a class we thought of several examples where open data could have negative side effects. Some of these examples were sex offender data that does not differentiate between a child molester and a petty offender and traffic data causing more congested roads. In class we also mentioned the website Spokeo that gives personal data on people such as family information, house value, hobbies, and many other pieces of information. Curious as to how accurate the information was on the site I decided to search for my family members and friends. I found that a lot of the data was imprecise or erroneous for every person I searched. Although the false information on Spokeo does not pose a big threat because the site does not get a lot of traffic, I feel as though the website is a good example of the bad that could come from opening government data.

It is a natural tendency of people to accept the information they receive as fact without questioning its validity because of the extra effort it takes to verify the information is correct. As a result of this, false data can have a profound effect if many people accept it to be true. It is for this reason that I think open government data should be monitored after it is made available or only given to certain reliable individuals or groups. People with their own agendas could manipulate the data in a way that could present false information that would prove to be beneficial to them. If people saw the data and knew it came from the government, they would be even more prone to automatically accept the information as fact and make judgments based on falsified information. This would present a big problem for government and would be in opposition with the original reason why government data was made available. If the information was given to reliable groups, it could become a very powerful source of information and could positively contribute to democracy.

Boston City Council

The City Council of Boston preserves data from its meetings and makes it available online. There are a few other links for open government data here, as well.

Scroll to the bottom for a description of the new data management system. They're working to add more data, make already-available data easier to search and use, and exposing the data to developers. I'm particularly interested in the "Constituent commenting and testimony management" - from that description, I envision an online system for constituents to comment/testify on pending legislation. This does have the effect of lowering the barrier to engagement (as opposed to making a phone call or attending a meeting; I think sending an email is about the same level of difficulty, but this might feel more effective than email because it's a designated forum for communicating one's ideas to one's elected officials), but only for those who are privileged enough to have internet access. Unfortunately, I don't know how to extend this kind of open government initiative in the absence of technology.

Levels of Digital Involvement

When we first read The Social Life of Wireless Urban Spaces article, I thought it seemed kind of pointless to study people’s use of media (and especially computers) in public areas because to me, being on the internet or other media has nothing to do with socializing. However, the findings that a good portion of the population was in diads or triads made me realize that this is why we study such topics. In actuality, not everyone uses their laptops just like I do in public spaces. I tend to only use my laptop in public spaces for work. I do homework and respond to emails pretty often in Curry, Shillman, and even the occasional dining hall. However, I don’t think I’ve ever used a computer in a public space with others around unless it was for work purposes. It was good for me to recognize that some use the computer to show friends pictures or messages that they want to discuss in person.

In fact, the Digital Society readings and class discussion in general were pretty eye-opening to me in recognizing that as an individual, I am much less plugged in than many classmates, and presumably much of the country. As I mentioned in class, I pretty much only use my iPod at the gym and during long trips (airplane, car, bus, but not usually on the T since that is a pretty short trip). I do not have and do not want internet on my phone. I very rarely have phone conversations longer than about five minutes, and use text mostly for “transactional” interactions. This is not to say that I am a social hermit. In fact, I have recently been informed that I am quite the extrovert. Similar to the people Jackie encountered in Arizona, I probably wouldn’t have a hard time striking up conversation with someone at the fruit stand. This could very likely be due to the fact that I am from Utah (which borders Arizona…) In fact, I think Jackie may be onto something with the theory that different regions have different levels of digital involvement. It would definitely be an interesting topic for further investigation.

The Puzzling diversity of NU (from an Interview with potential ISSI director)

Yesterday I had the privilege of being on a student committee helping in the interviewing process for our new ISSI (international students and scholars institute) director. The institute is one of the largest in the US representing more than 4500 international students on campus, so the position is important, and the finances are huge. One issue kept coming up as we were trying to pinpoint some of the major issues that the new director is expected to focus on, and it reminded me of something we studied not so long ago.
NU is one of the most diverse (in terms of nationalities and ethnicities) in the US. But a puzzling thing is that this seems to exclude Americans on campus. While discussing this a lot of input from students, in addition to my personal experience indicate that Americans do not participate in almost any of the numerous events, including a 2 month-long carnvale (the longest in the US). In the orientation program only 1 (out of 70) last year was American. Many Americans when asked (and I tried this today), about what the ISSI stands for or does seemed to be completely clueless. This is despite the huge budget dedicated to advertising in all possible forms and locations. What adds to the puzzle, I think, is that NU has quite a large (in terms of enrollment) program in international affairs, and an equally large study aboard program. Americans are indeed interested in international matters, so why aren't they active with the international community on campus?
I think the issue has multiple interesting factors.
-The idea of the big sorts, and that the more diverse the overall environment the less diverse your own social network which is basically homophily in its purest forms. Going to these events means leaving your comfort zone (and network). forming lasting relationships (such as being part of the orientation program for 2 months means basically altering your network by adding some new weak ties and interacting with them) means you must oppose willingly oppose homphily (cost) to gain other things which might not be as high in their minds (or they don't realize the benefit yet)
-A difference between embracing diversity in ideas (intellectually) in the classroom or in study abroad with similar students (i.e. Americans), and doing the actual (physical thing) by going to the events and forming relationships and maintaining them.
-An interesting observation I heard from a grad student in higher education is that some American students are simply tired of hearing about diversity and so they reject it all together in college.
Our potential new director was kind of using network terminology when he said that having all of these programs/int students (the weak ties) is not enough. Segregation (i.e. homophily) will always take place, and so the main question is how to reach out in a subtle yet affective way to integrate both communities. Obviously dealing with social networks is not like computer networks where adding more/new ties is rather easy, and I think a school that has gone as far as NU in trying to solve this with no avail might, unfortunately, reinforce the concept of the big sorts. I'm afraid this might lead to extreme behaviors at some point (as was mentioned in going to the extreme) which our director called potential campus-cultural-wars. More clustering happens (in the classroom, dorms, labs,..) and dislike of the other spreads as stereotypes increase and diversity becomes a burden which is the opposite of what is should do. There are elements of exaggeration here, but maybe also some truth that the future will tell us about if we don't take some action.

Technology In the Public Sphere

This week, we have read many studies about the use of technology in public spaces, and the effect it has on interactions between people. When the weather is (finally!) nice in New England, it is not at all uncommon to see students outside all around campus, typing on laptops, talking or texting on cell phones, or listening to ipods/other mp3 players. In "The Social Life of Wireless Urban Spaces: Internet Use, Social Networks, and the Public Realm", Hampton, Livio, and Sessions say that using these technologies in public spaces generally makes people look less approachable. I asked my roommates and other friends what they thought of this assertion, and it seemed like the general opinion was that people talking on their cellphones or listening to music with earbuds in always seem less approachable than people simply on laptops with no headphones and no cellphones.

I also mentioned in class about my "awkward situation texting" with one of my friends. Whenever one of us is in a situation where we are waiting around for someone, we will text each other. Just the other day, I was waiting outside Blackman Auditorium for my friend to show up to go in to find seats to see a comedian, and I texted my "awkward texting" friend as large amounts of students filed past me. The aforementioned friends and roommates that I asked about approaching people using technology in public spaces also reported doing similar things in this type of a situation, either actually texting someone or just playing with their phones. We discussed how it was interesting that we felt the need to at least LOOK like we were communicating with someone as our peers walked by us in groups. We couldn't really come up with a concrete answer as to why we felt the need to fiddle with our phones, except for the superficial reason that we didn't want to look like a "loner", standing off to the side of a public place by ourselves. In the Blackman Auditorium case, I'm sure at least a handful of people I at least casually know and would wave to walked by me, but since my head was down, I didn't see or interact with them. I guess it is kind of a vulnerable position to be in, and texting or at least fiddling with your phone both puts up a barrier between you and the people passing by, and sends the message of "I may be standing alone right now, but look... I have friends that I'm texting!". The people I discussed this with and I decided that we're going to try not to put up the awkward texting cell phone barrier next time we're in a public place waiting for someone to see how it feels and if more passersby interact with us.

Technology, A Learning Inhibitor

In Hampton's article, "The Social Life of Wireless Urban Spaces," technology is identified as a mechanism for isolating one's self in a public space. For instance, cell phone users very rarely react to sudden loud noises in the surrounding area and people on their laptops give off an unfriendly vibe of not wanting to be approached. Although persons using technology may be communicating with others within their social network, they are missing out on the opportunity to interact with the broader diversity present in the public sphere.

Participation in the public arena may lead to the formation of new weak ties or the acquisition of new knowledge. Throughout this course, we have stressed the importance of weak ties as information pathways. When a person creates a private bubble for his or her self by using technology, he or she loses the chance to gain new knowledge from diverse interactions in public spaces. In this sense, technology is acting as an inhibitor to learning.

In class, several students admitted to using technology as a means for avoiding communication with persons in public areas. For instance, they may listen to their iPod, text, or make a phone call in order to avoid surveyors. As I looked around the room, I thought to myself that technology may act in the same way in the classroom setting. Students frequently use their laptops and cell phones during class. Regardless of whether students are using technology to look up material relevant to the class or not, the laptop or cell phone is still acting as a distraction. In the minutes a student takes to type a text message or read an online article, he or she may have missed some important, new, and diverse information from the class.

In conclusion, as much as technology allows us to communicate more easily and frequently with others in our social network, the overuse of it may deprive us of the opportunity to form new relationships and acquire diverse knowledge.

Do Not Approach Signals

In class today, a large majority of us admitted to using technology as a way to isolate ourselves in public settings such as putting headphones in to avoid being stopped by people with clipboards trying to talk to us. This has been blamed on technology which isolates us from the people in the public space around us by sending the message of busy, do not approach. We live in New England though, where it is the culture to be fast-paced, minimize down time walking places with listening to music or checking phones, and avoid standing around waiting for people. It is also not in the nature of people in Boston to talk to strangers on the T or to comment on what someone is buying, and most importantly to have patience. As I mentioned in class, I was in Arizona for my co-op and was very confused at the random people making small talk with me while I was picking out fruit in the grocery store.

One example of the different cultures was when I went to use my credit card for the first time out in Arizona. Since I was purchasing something 2,600 miles away from the rest of my purchases, the credit card company flagged my card as possibly stolen and denied it. I was in line with a cart full of stuff and my card kept being denied or having an error. I was trying to figure out why it was denied and profusely apologizing to the people in line behind me for holding everyone up. They looked confused and said it was no problem at all and they were having a nice conversation, no rush. To say I was shocked was an understatement. This happened less than a year ago, and I am sure that Arizona has just as many cell phones, laptops, and iPods as Boston, but I rarely saw people incessantly texting or with headphones in out in public. I think that technology is not to blame for why New Englanders try and shut people out in public spaces, but rather the culture of this area makes us wary of strangers and unengaged. Technology has just provided us with a convenient way of showing our desire to be left alone with visual cues. I wonder if people are actually less verbally rude now that they don’t have to be snippy when people try and approach them, because the person approaching knows not to even try by presence of isolating technology.

Texting, etc.

Along the same lines as the Hampton article "The Social Life of Wireless Urban Spaces: Internet Use, Social Networks, and the Public Realm," texting also seems to have some similar effects as internet use in public spaces even if those effects are not quantifiably backed up in the article. I've been finding that people who are waiting for something or in a room where they don't know anyone, everyone will have their phones out. (I too am guilty of this action) While this is indicative of each individual keeping in touch with people in their social network, they are also not talking to the other people in the same room with them, which creates an interesting dynamic. It is almost as if by texting other people one is showing that one is not without social contacts, and they are also lessening the potential awkwardness of sitting or standing in silence with people that you at the very least only have the present location in common with. It's kind of a toss up as to what this does to social networks, especially in a party or group setting. Sometimes people will get bored in groups and instead of figuring out a game or some activity to do together, you will see people go to their phones to see what other people are up to. If it is more interesting, (grass is always greener on the other side, right?) then they might change locations even though those contacts might very well be texting back for the same reason. From that perspective, there might be increasingly less engaged present or dynamic moments happening in groups because people can easily divert their attention, much like the waiting room scenario towards their outside network of people. It would be hard to quantify over-all social network in that case because while one part of interacting with people in the room is lessened, there is still over-all activity on the network. It would be interesting to study this phenomenon and why people are constantly going to their phone to maybe make people feel less alone? Less bored? Able to have more in depth conversations with people they know as opposed to “small talk”?

Rebecca Black a Network Phenomenon?

For a quick preface, while this doesn't relate directly to what we're studying at the moment, it does have some interesting implication for the some of the past studies we've looked at, specifically degree distribution and power law networks.

In the past week or so a new music video sensation has been making waves on the internet (and even on television as well): Rebecca Black's video for her solo "Friday" from the Ark Music Factory has millions of views on Youtube and over a million downloads with numbers rising as we speak. The song and video are notable not for their quality but for their lack of quality: here is a link if you think your ears can take it and haven't heard it yet. Lyrical gems include "Yesterday was Thursday/Today is Friday" and "Partyin' partyin'/yeah yeah." Dozens of parody videos have sprung up ranging from songs about Saturday and Thursday to songs about specific video games.

Clearly, "Friday" is very highly ranked if we were to rank modern pop songs-yet its notoriety is rooted only indirectly in its quality. This further confirms the hypotheses that exposure relies on network connections (rumor has it her parents paid the Ark Music Factory to produce and host the video) and sheer luck. This also suggests that there may be a U-shaped distribution between popularity or exposure to a certain media item and its quality with people being more likely to know about something if it's extremely bad or extremely good. For a list of other "So Bad It's Good" feel free to see this site's list. Whether for good or ill, increased fluidity of information through networks has made it easier for very bad things to get quick exposure just as much as it has eased the ability to find diamonds in the rough.

Link, with some thoughts.

A bit of a throwback to our strength-of-weak-ties conversations: Tenured Radical: The Social Network: Or; Does Networking Really Matter To An Academic Career?

In this post, Tenured Radical argues that deliberately "networking" (or strategically cultivating lots of weaker ties) is not particularly beneficial to academic historians in terms of their career prospects. Knowing the right people will not automagically get you the job you want. (I suspect this to be broadly true almost everywhere, actually.)

I think one of the most important parts of this post is Tenured Radical's differentiation between the various things that can influence a hiring process. Networking for its own sake: not so helpful, especially when compared to the kinds of influences over which you have more limited control. On the other hand, given the general hype surrounding networking and the fact that you can make an effort to network, I am completely unsurprised that people glom onto networking even when it's of limited utility for their concrete goals: it's popular and it can give a sense of greater control over one's life.

Tenured Radical does see upsides to networking for less concrete and less self-centered goals (Getting Shit Done, exchange of information and ideas) than the job search. I think it's best summed up in this bit from the end: This, I think, reveals the basic value of networking: when it works, it isn't about you. It's about you in relation to others.

[Crossposted to Dreamwidth]

Bowling Alone and Social Capital

Robert Putnam’s article Bowling Alone shows some very interesting trends, but I do not agree with the overall idea that the social capital of the United States is declining because people want to sit in and watch TV. His examples of decreased social capital include decreases in members and attendance of all of the following: voting, unions, religious institutions, Boy Scouts, Elks Club, and Parent-Teacher Association meetings. Of all of these groups, I see voter turnout as the biggest problem for America, but I do not attribute it to any sort of decrease in social capital. I view the decrease in voting as a result of the spread of anti-intellectualism in America, but that is another topic entirely. Besides voter turnout, the only other area that I really see a problem with is the attendance of Parent-Teacher Association meetings. I am surprised and curious about the attendance, and would like to see if it has increased at all since this paper was written.

For the other groups, I believe that it is not a problem that their attendance is down, and I think it is made up for in attendance of newer groups such as aid groups and community service focused ones. Unions, for instance, were originally made to ensure that workers were provided the proper working conditions. Now that workplace conditions are better, the group is almost obsolete and mostly fights for higher wages, which can actually be hurtful to the society. For instance, Washington DC has had really bad problems with the escalators in the city. There are always a multitude of escalators down, and they never seem to be fixed in a timely manner. This is because of unions. The Metro ignored the advice of independent task force, which told them that private sector employees could repair them faster and at a lower cost. Instead, the Metro went ahead as usual and hired union employees because of the strong relations between them and the Metro. If the union members were actually fixing the escalators, they would lose members, power, and money. This kind of problem is being seen everywhere with unions as there is a conflict of interest between steady employment and quality service. In addition, I don’t see unions as creating very much social capital. The membership for the Boy Scouts decreasing probably has more to do with its views on religion and homosexuality than people wanting to watch TV. Religious institutions do create a lot of social capital, but again, I see the decline as having to do with a rise in atheism, and not a rise in TV watching. The truth is, some people like being social and some don’t, and those that like being social will find a medium to do so, even if it is not by becoming a member of a type of group.

Bowling Alone and the Media

After reading Putnam’s “Bowling Alone”, I agreed that social trust in the United States has decreased significantly over the last 40 years. Although there are probably numerous factors playing into why this decrease has occurred, one major factor that comes to my mind is crime and the media coverage of crime. In my intro to criminal justice course, a class could not go by without talking about the 1980s crime patterns and how it changed so many of the current policing policies and strategies. Although crime had been on the rise since the 1960s, in the 1980s political leaders and police forces around the United States drew a lot of attention to the crime wave, drugs, and the media coverage of violent crimes. The sensationalizing of violent crimes into large media spectacles and all of the T.V. shows about crime has put citizens on alert. This is not to say there wasn’t crime before or child abductions or other violent acts, but they were not broadcasted as much. If a child goes missing nowadays, amber alerts go out and every state in the country is hearing about the child abduction. This fosters fear in parents and makes them less likely to let their children do as much. My mom always says that it was so much different when she was a kid because no one was worried about child abductions and as long as they were home for dinner, parents didn’t worry. I know personally this was very different from my childhood activities, where at least one of my parents knew where I was at all times and with whom.

I know I have a lot less social trust than most people after working on co-op in a police department and seeing the criminals and what they are capable of. That is a real life exposure to crime, but shows like CSI, Criminal Minds, Bones, etc. all portray violent crimes as well as the real life stories. TruTV and 48 Hours Mystery all talk about real cases of crime and often start the show by introducing the town and how no one would have guessed this sleepy, small town could have a killer. I guess the question is whether social trust is down because crime rates are higher, or because people are more aware of the crime through the media. Either way, if people are more aware and have less social trust this may create fewer situations for crime, but reduce the cohesiveness of the country and social capital.

Social Accountability, maybe there is another explanation?

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a few days regarding Mutz’s Hearing the Other Side. While her evidence is strong regarding conflict-avoidance and non-conflict-avoidance being influenced to vote or not to vote at all, I’m not sure I believe that social accountability would play a role in deciding whether or not to vote. We discussed this a little bit in class, but voting is a private act. When you go into the booth, no one sees how you voted. Therefore, no one knows if you are lying or not lying when you say you voted, did not vote, or if you say you voted for one candidate or another. I understand her logic that conflict-avoidant people might not vote so as not to be in opposition to friends or family, but I do not think that it is true. However, I have no evidence anecdotal or otherwise to support my refutation of her claim. In class we brought up the idea that conflict-avoidant people may also choose to vote for the same reasons that Mutz states that they would not vote. If a conflict-avoidant person has a densely Democratic or Republican social network, they may be compelled to vote for the candidate that the majority of their network would vote for. Also, if a conflict-avoidant person has politically active friends, even if they are mixed in their views, not voting may cause more conflict than voting for an oppositional party.

I wonder if there may be another factor that involved that would explain the data she presents on conflict- and non-conflict-avoidant people. Perhaps instead we could think of easily-influenced versus non-easily-influenced people. For example, those more open to suggestion or more easily swayed may be more confused by mixed information and oppositional views than people more steadfast in their views. They may also be more likely to vote for the same party as the majority of their network. Or they may be less likely to vote if they are in a network of people who also typically do not vote, with this decreased likelihood of voting being more pronounced than for non-easily influenced people. Ease of influence, though I have not data, may prove to be just as relevant to the issue at hand as conflict avoidance, and may explain the same propensity to vote or not to vote.

Girls' LEAP: Transaction and Social Ties

The Baldassarri and Diani article (Integrative Power of Civic Networks) caused me to wonder if the organization I volunteer for, Girls’ LEAP Self Defense, has organizational ties similar to those described in the article and if so, what organizations they are to. My conclusion was that LEAP definitely has transaction ties and social bonds to other Boston organizations and businesses. Some examples:

Transaction ties

- Strong Women Strong Girls: Co-hosted events, tabling at each other’s events, shared goals of empowering women and girls.

- The Ring Boxing Club: Shared office space. Shared goal of promoting self-defense.

- Anna’s Taqueria: Anna’s provides funding for the LEAP t-shirts distributed at each program graduation. In return, the shirts carry the Anna’s logo to promote that business.

- School partnerships, especially Citizen Schools: After school programs are where most of LEAP’s classes occur. This process provides the school with programming and provides LEAP with an outlet for our classes.

Social bonds:

- Massachusetts Promise Fellowship program: Part of AmeriCorps, this program places Fellows at non-profits and schools for 1-2 years. Fellows live on a small stipend and receive free courses at Northeastern (opportunity to earn a Masters degree). LEAP currently has three Fellows who are core to the operation of the organization.

- Northeastern’s Civic Engagement Program: Students in this program are required by their scholarship contract to perform 100 hours of service each year. LEAP has about 10 active CEP volunteers each semester.

Fundrace

In class, Professor Lazer mentioned a website called "Fundrace", where you can see who has contributed what amounts of money to which political candidates. I thought this sounded very intriguing, so I googled the website, and found that it is part of The Huffington Post. The little blurb about it at the top of the page says "FundRace makes it easy to search by name or address to see which candidates or political parties your friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors are contributing to. Or you can see if your favorite celebrity is putting money where their mouth is, who America's big companies are backing, and search contributions by location and occupation.". Not only does it tell you how much the person donated and to whom, it shows their occupation and also pinpoints where they live on a map.

Going along with our discussion in class about who you talk to about politics, I thought this was very interesting. Although entertaining (I just wasted about 10-15 minutes looking up various celebrities), in my opinion this website is pretty nosy. If you already know a friend or acquaintance's political views and affiliations, you're probably not going to use this website to look them up. This site also reveals economic information that is generally kept quiet as well. When searched, it is revealed that some people donated $10 to candidates, while some have donated many thousands of dollars, which is financial information some people may not want lots of people to know. My guess is most people would use this website to learn about the political leanings of people in their lives that they know but do not feel comfortable with asking or discussing politics. I suppose that if people are donating money to a candidate or cause, they are probably not as private or secretive about their political views as someone who chooses not to, but I still find it a little intrusive. If you don't know someone well enough to know their political views, or if what party they belong to isn't pertinent enough to your relationship that you've never discussed it before, why would you feel the need to go on this website and somewhat creepily search for them?

I will say that this site provides interesting demographic information. It is interesting to search people by occupations and regions in the country. For example, a search for "teachers" shows that 70% of teachers that donated money in 2010, donated it to a Democratic candidate or cause; and 59% of contributers from my hometown contributed to Republican candidates in 2010. In this way, the site can be a harmless tool to look at networks of people and how they view politics.

Group Think in the Engineering Profession

In his book, Going to Extremes, Sunstein discusses how when like-minded people work together, they often gravitate toward extremism on shared views. Collaborating with like-minded individuals has a lot of drawbacks. For instance, there is less wealth of information because everyone possesses similar viewpoints and reasoning for these opinions. Furthermore, there is a failure to consider the opposing viewpoint and why they might think in such a way.

As an engineer, I can fully appreciate the value of working with a diverse group of people. The field of engineering is a very innovative one that emphasizes a group approach to problem solving. However, engineers did not always operate in this manner. Before the 1980s, engineers practiced an "over-the-wall" approach of design and manufacturing. Design engineers would develop a prototype and then send it to manufacturers to be built to completion. Then the product would be tested and redesigned to correct its failures. As you can imagine, this was a very costly mechanism for implementing new designs.

In 1980, a man named Taguchi came along and introduced a better approach to engineering design. He suggested the collaboration of engineers and manufacturers in developing a design. In doing so, engineers were able to better understand the limitations of materials and machinery as communicated by the manufacturers. The manufacturers also spent less time building products that were prone to failure. This group work saved companies a lot of money and used time a lot more efficiently.

This instance provides a good example of the importance of heterogeneity in group work. Taguchi promoted diversity in engineering as Sunstein promotes diversity in politics and other settings.

Schelling Model and Racial Segregation after WWII

The readings and discussion on the Schelling Model reminded me of a class I had in Anthropology last year. The Schelling Model claims that spatial segregation can arise through homophily even if no one person explicitly wants segregation. The Anthropology discussion I had was on the topic of white flight. After World War 2, many African American families migrated to Northern cities. As blacks moved into particular neighborhoods, whites began to move out and major segregation occurred. My class watched a documentary on the process and I believe there was a website that described the process very well. I tried to find it but was unable to. If anyone knows of this documentary or website, I think further discussion on the topic could be very relevant to the Schelling model. I did find some information on http://revcom.us/a/firstvol/890-899/895/bahis2.htm, which referenced a PBS series, "The Promised Land", but unfortunately I was unable to find information on this series either. The effect of racial segregation in Northern cities after World War Two was confounded real estate policies at the time but some of the segregation was a result of self-sorting by homophily, similar to the Schelling Model.

The Strength of Age Homophily

Both external and intrinsic factors play a role in the occurrence of homophily among individuals. Intrinsic characteristics include age, gender, and race, while external opportunities may be school, the workplace, or even volunteer groups. I'd like to argue, however, that age plays one of the stronger roles in the happenings of homophily.

For one, age gives way to a majority of similar social opportunities for homophily. School is one significant example of this. Most students in school are of the same age. Therefore they share such commonalities as courses, homework, school athletics, etc. Furthermore, age links people together in work environments as well. For example, this past summer I worked at Raytheon with engineers who were often two generations older than myself. Yet, I chose to eat lunch and socialize with Union workers that were the same age as me.

Sharing a common age also guarantees that individuals will have pop culture trends and historical events to talk about. For instance, I cannot converse with my mother about new music artists Lil Jon or Kesha because she did not grow up with this genre of music and has no interest in listening to these artists. However, my brother and I share this type of music all the time. In a historical sense, I would not understand what life was like during the Vietnam war if my grandfather chose to discuss this with me.

Overall I believe that closeness in age provides individuals with similar social opportunities and easier conversation that leads to more frequent occurrences of homophily.

Dating Instincts

I thought the presentation during Wednesday’s class on mate copying was very interesting as a whole. There were a couple of aspects of the presentation that stuck out to me though. One aspect that I found to be particularly surprising was how consistent the results were across all demographics and cultures. Before Sklyer revealed the different results for when people in different countries were used for the research, the class was split on what kind of effect it would have on the data. Some members of the class thought that there would be a large effect while others thought there would be only a small effect. To the surprise of almost everyone however, the results were almost exactly the same (Sklyer actually mentioned his supervisor thought the Chinese may have tampered with the data because the results were so similar). I think most people thought the culture and language differences would have an affect on how well people predicted if someone was interested in their date. This was not the case at all though. No matter what nationality was tested, they were equally as good or bad at predicting the interest of the people on a date and showed the same mate copying behavior. The same similarities were found when people of different age groups were tested; the age of the people in the dating video and the age of the people being tested had no effect at all on the results.

The fact that all the results were so similar shows that mate copying and predicting the outcome of a date are very much a product of human instinct. The lack of differences between age groups and cultures makes it clear that many of the judgments made by people regarding dating and attraction are consistent throughout the entire population. It is also interesting to note that humans exhibit almost the exact same behavior as animals when it comes to mate copying. All this makes me think that much of what happens in the dating world is animalistic in nature. As much as some people like to think that they can read people’s interest very well, nature presides over the process more than most people would like to admit. For example, someone might deny mate copying when in reality it is almost impossible to avoid because it is human instinct.